Benmore --by Hannah

The Sciennes Primary School P6s spent the week of February 4-8^th at Benmore Outdoor Centre.

My first activity was absailing and climbing. We learned how to belay ourselves on an indoor wall. After about an hour of practice inside, group one headed for the big wall. It was a 50 foot wall that I climbed up! After a tricky climb up, I was at the top. Now to get down, you had to belay yourself down. It was very scary but on the bright side you got a great view while going down!

Orienteering was probably one of my favorite activities, the reason for this is I had never done anything like it before. Also I was pretty good at it. I came in 4^th place in the race. Also I learned I was good at map reading.

My dorm Lewis was the Outer Hebrides. The girls were Robyn (one of my best friend), Rowan, Justine, Stephanie, Louise, Martha, and Selana.

The forest walk was just average. We had to look for boxes (in the boxes contained objects that other groups had put there so you would take an object and leave an object).

I quite enjoyed Mountain Biking. My group had to go in water, go down steep hills and go on ramps. It was pretty fun.

I did a gorge walk. It was very hard but still very enjoyable. At the end of it you got to slide down a waterfall. I got SOAKED!

I loved High Ropes. One of the main reasons for that is I am VERY good at climbing. I even got to do a trapeze! It was a BLAST.

The disco was a great way to end a fabulous week. In the morning all of us trouped down to the coaches. After a last look the bus pulled away.

Viva la France

We spent a week in the beautiful village of Les Houches/Chamonix in the savoie region in the French Alps, along the border with Italy.
This picture on the right looks harmless .... but the aftermath of this sledding run is on the left. The sled was a well engineered rocket that flew down the hill and struck a padded barrier head on. Lily broke both her legs and Hannah had a concussion. It was truly a freak accident. So, we headed to urgent care in Chamonix France. At that point, I did not think either of the kids were really hurt. Much to my surprise they confirmed two broken legs with a quick x-ray and that Hannah had a concussion after not remembering what had happened. All of this happening, while the attending physician berated me in French and English for the lack of helmets. The girls are true Minnesotans and have done a lot of Winter sports, so this was not expected. They casted Lily and recommended Hannah stay overnight in a regular hospital in the town of Sallanches, so they went in an ambulance with mom across the mountains to the next major town. They stayed on night and were out the next day. I even broke my rule of tasting hospital food - and it was French and good. Only in France, would a hospital serve freshly baked baguettes. Except for that one urgent doc, everyone was truly wonderful to us. Lily was known as 'La Petite Lily'. With some broken French and English, we were able to communicate to everyone and they received exceptional care. A friend of the Chalet manager drove to us the urgent care on his own time, a taxi driver let me slide without paying since I was out of euros, were just some of people that helped immensely. The bill including hospital stays, ambulance ride, several x-rays, etc, was so tiny compared to US healthcare. Luckily, we took out travel insurance for the trip. They ultimately provided a smooth transit back home and allowed us to fly into Edinburgh with extra seats for Lily (as opposed to Glasgow, where we were scheduled to fly back to).

So that was terrible and it occurred on the first day of the trip. Yet we managed to make the holiday work and truly adored France. So much so that we are planning a second trip to coincide with my conference in Lyon in May. Part of it was the weather. Every day crystal clear blue skies and around 50 degrees. There was tons of snow which dried overnight in the chilly evenings, so it was always perfect for the next day. The food was incredible - savoie is known for cheese - so we had some regional dishes, fondue (of course) and tartiflette. Now some more photos. Lily did not have appropriate clothes for her cast. So she obtained a designer French wardrobe in the lovely town of Chamonix.



We stayed at a gorgeous chalet that had fresh croissants and French bread delivered every morning from a local bakery. I can't even look at bread and pastries since leaving France. They invented the stuff and it shows. Every bakery was exceptional. We also had unbelievable views of Mount Blanc from our place. The chalet also had an amazingly beautiful indoor pool, turkish bath, sauna, to relax after a day in the snow. A nice sled hill (not the one with the accident) was right next to the chalet. The town of Les Houches also had outdoor ice skating.



One fun thing we did was take the Montenvers train in Chamonix. This old-style train from the turn of the century goes up into the mountains and follows along the Mer de Glace - the largest glacier in Europe. Some photos the ride and glacier views are shown. If you look carefully you can see skiers around the blue ice of the glacier.





Chamonix was right next door to us in Les Houches. It was a great town for walking around - lots of buildings, churches, and quaint little shops.







Annecy was another beautiful town. Lots of towers, castles, history. It had old cobbly streets that followed canals. It is dubbed the Venice of France. It was also bordered by Lake Annecy and this expansive beautiful park. One of the most stunning cities we've visited.











Here are some pictures of the girls cross-country (aka nordic) skiing on the outskirts of Chamonix.





Finally, some pictures of our little trooper Lily. Since we've been back in Edinburgh has casts were changed to pink. They will be off in a week!

Activities

Hannah and Claire have found some cool activities here. Hannah is in a running club - they get up pretty air-lee to run in the Meadows near the school. She is also off for a week to Benmore in beautiful Argyll in Western Scotland with her classmates and teachers - gorge walking, hiking, etc. Claire is taking up yoga and guitar. We met a neat woman (Carolyn) in a pub playing guitar at a folk night and now she teaches Claire guitar.

More Scottish Culture

Susan and I spent last night at a Burns Supper - honoring the great national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns. It was held at the cozy Tass pub on the Royal Mile. An evening of poetry, stories, and song, interwoven with Scottish courses. It was fantastic. Yes, the "prince of puddings" was served - The Haggis. I won't go into the ingredients, but it was not altogether unpleasant. Fortunately, it was served with nips and tatties, so we could limit the Haggis consumption to the bare minimum required to be able to say "of course we had Haggis". The evening concluded with all of us locking hands and singing auld lang zyne.

More football. I went to the Edinburgh soccer/football Derby this weekend (the term for an intra-city rivalry) between Hibs and Hearts of the premier league. Think of Mets vs. Yankees on steroids. I was sitting right along the goal with a great vantage point for corner kicks. Great fun. I knew the atmosphere would be charged when I saw pubs on route to the field with signs reading "home supporters only". Leaving the match, Hibs and Hearts fans were on opposite side of the main road, shouting and singing at each other, while horse-mounted police kept them separated. I was on a double-decker bus that was very slowly following the horses. It was great fun to watch from up there.

Claire and I walked to the Farmers market that faces the Edinburgh castle this morning - a great collection of local fish, wild game, and organic items. We feasted on hot porridge with fruit and honey, scones, and fresh potato chips, with a great view of the castle.

Winter in Scotland

Some photos of our yard under frosty conditions. The air is so damp that any drop in temperature causes frost to form on everything, but it has stayed green all winter - a nice change from Minnesota. The other pictures are from our favorite local park called the Pentlands - it is filled with over 30 circuit hikes. The walks are much more varied than back home. On the same walk, you might walk alongside sheep or horses, go straight up a hill, see a waterfall, pass really old cottages, or through small villages. Sometimes it is very muddy and you have to be creative (see how the girls got arond a muddy stretch).

Hibs v. Rangers

Over the break, I was able to experience a UK premier league football/soccer match - the Scottish premier league. It was everything I hoped it would be: crowds forming around pubs along the route to the pitch, tension mounting, police separating the local Edinburgh (Hibernian "hibs") fans from the Glasgow Rangers fans to prevent fighting. In the arena, local and away fans are also separated into different parts of the stadium. Once in the stadium, no alcohol is served for obvious reasons. The match was fantastic and full of atmosphere. From the moment the game started, everyone was standing on their seats, and the songs poured out. There was a song for everything and every player on both sides - a goal scoring song, a bad ref call song, etc. Some of the
songs were 'blue' and not for mixed company. Rangers, the far better team, won 2-1. Leaving the stadium, the police made sure the entire Rangers contingent had exited the stadium before we were allowed to exit. Pretty wild stuff. Following the match, we all went to the Scottish story telling center to hear some local folklore and songs. All in all, a great day.

Canary Islands and Christmas

We spent 10 days in the Canary Islands (Lanzarote ), an Island in Spain. The island has a volcanic landscape of black rock was dotted with green fuzz. Many sites on the island were designed by Cesar Manrique. We toured the national park, Timanfaya, took a camel ride, and saw the most incredible rainbows. We hiked one volcano crater and left our names “written” in rock. The girls spent a lot of time playing on the beaches and collecting shells, sea glass, and peridot. Santa managed to find us (much to Claire’s great relief) and we all enjoyed a vacation of sand and sun.