It’s Dave and I’s 3-year anniversary today. I’m very proud that we’ve lasted this long, especially as a young couple, and I’m love how we’ve matured without forgetting how to have fun and enjoy ourselves. I’m more than certain that he’s too good for me, but I am very glad to have him. AND THAT IS AWESOME.
I hope you guys are having a fantastic day and that work, if you are there, is not too terrible. Here’s the first part of our Aberdeen adventures – Part 1 will go up on Friday.
Hello internet friends, I am back from a SURPRISE ADVENTURE. It was surprising.
Thursday Night: I come home from work and there are PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE! FLOWERS ON THE TABLE! NO DIRTY DISHES AROUND THE SINK! The coffee machine was on! A mug was awaiting my tea! I was bemused, and wandered through to the living room to find fiance Dave not at work as expected, but hiding in the living room with his family. Then we all had a curry and watched Dave play Call of Duty: MW2 with his little brother.
Friday: I’m on holiday! No work! But I also had to wake up early so I was quite (very) grumpy. I had to go try and sort out Dave’s mum’s slow running PC, so I spent the morning sitting with breakfast trying to get things ready, needing to burn software to disks which meant plugging the CD burning back in and UGH. I just wanted WAFFLES and tea and also a lie-in please.
All the while Dave is getting on at me to put make-up on and I’m busy plotting out the best methods to sort out the PC while he goes out learning to drive. Time is running out and I’m grumping around the house before getting pulled out into the car. Dave stops by the train station to practice his parking and pick up some tickets for his little sister.
BUT WAIT SUDDENLY THERE IS A SUITCASE IN THE BOOT OF THE CAR AND IT IS OUR SUITCASE WHAT IS GOING ON WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT ABERDEEN WHY AM I NOT STILL ASLEEP
Then I was on a train to Aberdeen, still going “WHAT IS GOING ON I AM NOT PREPARED OH GOD MY HANDBAG I HAVE LEFT MY HANDBAG BEHIND ARE WE REALLY GOING TO ABERDEEN?” which, throughout the train journey, gradually became “I HAVE NO MAKE-UP ON AND EVERYTHING I NEED IS IN NAIRN”. Though Dave did bring my phone, DS and iPod so I wasn’t too angry. I have my priorities – if my glorious gadgets had been missing all Hell might have broken loose.
In Aberdeen I slowly discovered just how much was missing (outfits! shoes! eyeliner! handbaaag!) and was a huge girl until Dave took me out and got me a handbag and some make-up basics. He’s lovely. And I’m such a female sometimes, argh. We grabbed a Poundland pot noodles for lunch, stopping at Poundstretchers for cutlery because Poundland don’t sell anything even slightly pointy to under-21s.
Then we met up with some mates in Pizza Hut, nommed some pizza and I had one of their awesome berry smoothies. We also did a lot of wandering around Aberdeen.
It’s bigger than I expected! There are a lot of crossings, some huge and cool-looking boats, and a huge range of shops – most of the shops you’d find in bigger cities like Edinburgh were here, though it didn’t quite match up to the ‘burgh itself. It was much better than Inverness though, with all of its shops and more, which is all we really need.
Union Square shopping centre is great, with a good mix of shops. There are at least five different shopping centres around Aberdeen, which seems like a lot but didn’t feel like to many by the end.
To get around Aberdeen we relied mostly upon Google Maps on my HTC Desire phone, coupled with Dave’s uncanny sense of direction.
Saturday: During out stay, we used to the Aberdeen City Center Premier Inn. It was a pretty good stay – the bed’s were almost too short for Dave, the rooms were basic but generally good. The paint was flaking off our bath, but the shower had the pressure yanked right up which made it FANTASTIC first thing in the morning. The location was very central, no more than 10 minutes from anywhere.
For breakfast, we went to Greggs – a good quality, fairly priced chain of bakeries that we became fans of in Edinburgh. Rumor has it that one of these is going to be arriving in Inverness high street soon. We picked up a meal deal each (baguette/crisps/fizzy drink) and a sticky toffee muffin, and it was all good fresh food as usual. While we sat eating it on a bench just off the high street, Dave made a fatal and touristy mistake…
He gave a piece of his sandwich to a pigeon.
Like a scene out of Hitchcock’s the “Birds”, about twenty pigeons swooped down in search of this source of nourishment. We were left stranded in a sea of feathers, guarding out meal deals and stamping uselessly at the wide-eyed, cooing beasts.
The annoying thing about being somewhere on holiday and staying in a hotel is that you can’t cook anything, and there’s nothing to do in the hotel room apart from watch TV – so the day gets broken down into going out for food, and shopping, with the odd night out. So if the hotel fees and transport isn’t enough, there’s not really much to do except… keep spending. Arranging activities like walks or museums can kill time for cheap or for free, but for young holiday-makers that doesn’t always suit.
We stopped by a few stops and got some gifts, as well as raspberry marshmallow fluff from T.K.Maxx! It’s a American spread made of marshmallows, basically. Sort of like a gooey jam or a sweeter Nutella. It’s very sweet, so I can’t really imagine starting the day with it, but it’s still fantastic. Marshmallow toast! I need to try the Fluffernutter some time, though I can’t imagine it working with unsweetened peanut butter, which is more common in Europe.
After ripping up and blistering my feet wearing new shoes around the town (a stupid idea), I hobbled to watch a charity fashion show for the Samaritans, wearing a mini-skirt and feeling awkward about it. It was at TigerTiger, which has nothing to do with tigers but is in fact a nice looking club with awesome furniture. I ordered drinks, getting ID’d as always, and as they didn’t have Kopparberg I ended up buying an Appletiser because Dave thought there was alcohol in it. Turns out it’s just fizzy apple juice. Putting pear Bulmers into it didn’t really help the situation much, but we tried.
The fashion show itself was good fun, lots of fashionably dressed guys and girls striding up and down the cat-walk. The DJ’s picks were right up our alley as well including a fantastic mix of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (see the vid below). And I won a prize in the raffle! Afterwards we went out to city centre club Espionage, which wasn’t any fun but that was mostly because we’re both pub people rather than club people.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaVa78-03OQ[/youtube]
This was the only day I managed to complete the monkey challenge, a challenge to go an entire today without seeing moneys, hearing money noises, or in some way, shape or form being reminded of monkeys. Working as a tech monkey, it’s a bit of a tricky challenge and a text on Friday and being pelted with monkeys on Monday didn’t help. But on Saturday, I succeeded! I will probably never succeed again. (OH WAIT! I did it this Saturday as well. I’m getting good!)
Next in Part 2: Comic book geekery, more smoothies, pubs and Scott Pilgrim! Click here to read Part 2!
Calumarathon says
Sounds like you had a nice time!