Scotland Day 5-7

Well folks no pictures today just updates on the last few days.

Wednesday - I spent the morning with the employee relations team - UK law is way different than US law. Good to see the process and the differences. At lunch time I went over to our Craigshaw office and met the other HR Lead and logistics coordinator. We ate lunch at Hotel Cove Bay, which was a nice little hotel near the water. I hate chicken fingers, which weren't bad, but kind of bland. At this point I really was not feeling well, I have a head cold, so my throat was sore, it hurt to talk, and my nose as runny. I learned about their jobs then went back to the hotel.

That night I ordered my first room service and just chilled in the hotel room. Thank goodness I brought a netflix dvd, there is nothing on TV here.

Thursday I learned about our Oracle system which was good to know since we will be on it next year or so. That night I went to Union Street and shopped at Lush and then tried to find a souvenir store but couldn't find one :(

I went over to a co-worker's house and had Haggis and whiskey - haggis I liked, whiskey - no so much.

Today I sat in on some training session, met with the HR manager, and then came to the hotel to pack. The HR Team is going out tonight - it is the last night of one of hte girls on the team - she is going to Australia.

Tomorrow is the big day - I'm going to see my grandparents - YAY! so excited!!!

Scotland Day 4

It seems this week most of my blog will be about food because I'm not really going anywhere. HOWEVER that changed tonight!

I had a good day at work - learned more about our recruitment department and some HR issues that were going on in the office. I had lunch in the cafeteria, which was way below average, but is my only option since no one goes out at all. I had quiche. watery quiche.

I was asked by our training manager to go out to dinner and it was such a nice offer then sitting in the hotel.
She showed me her apartment which was amazing. Hardwood floors and quite a nice size area, along with fireplaces in every room. We had a drink and waited for traffic to die down. rush hour in houston is bad, but at least we have 4-6 lanes. Here it's like one lane roads....bad. ha.

She drove me out to stonehead (i think) and I saw a broken down castle

Pretty cool for sure. then we ate down by some beach thingy where I had steak and guiness pie:

no crazy stories today - sad day i know. My throat hurts and I think i'm getting sick. I'm going to look at getting my tonsils taken out when I get home because I'm tired of having them get swollen and gross. 

It's 10:00 here and I'm hoping that I can sleep through the night. 

Scotland Day 3

So today was my first day at work. Our office here is so cool. I wish our office back home was like it. It's just the difference between having your own building (here) and being a suite in a large building (back home).

I was picked up at 8:30. It's about a 15-20 minute walk to the office, but I'm managing to get rides to and from. YESSS. I arrived at work, got my temporary badge, met a few people, and then headed off to the canteen. This my friends will be the demise of my funds. It is fresh, at your service food, tea, coffee, etc. The breakfast in the hotel is 15 pound. what? outrageous. I know it's expenseable but no need to do that every morning, when the Canteen is clearly calling my name. I am excited to hear they have a machine that will make lattes. How I have missed my espresso in the morning. So I order a latte and something called a buttery. It's like a roll thingy. Tomorrow I will get something a little more substantial. ha. I was also disappointed that my "latte" was like hot milk, with maybe a slight coffee taste. boo. This country knows how to make a lot of things - coffee is not one of them.

I see our CEO at breakfast - how cool. I debate about introducing myself and after laughter from the girls around the table with me decide to wait ha.

I head up to a meeting where our graduates are being inducted and I run into the CEO in the hallway, introduce myself, where he surprisingly recognizes me from my comments on his Twitter account. Yes. out of 8,500 employees the CEO knows me as Greeley girl. ha. Dude I'll take it.

I hear his speech to the graduates, and then come down and meet with recruiting people and the it's lunch time. which is where things got a bit awkward. sooo...no one eats out here....but back home...everyone eats out. I can see why.. everything is so dang expensive. so I'm left with either the canteen or maybe hopefully someone will go out this week. Today was a trip to Asda (UK's version of wal-mart). Asda and I are becoming best friends. I am no longer intimidated by its cart buying ways, or its tricky layed out aisles (who puts chips in the detergent aisle?!). I grab a sandwhich and a scottish egg since there is a microwave at work to heat it up. I also grab a meat pie, and a macaroni pie, things for me to try but haven't been able to because I don't have a microwave in the hotel.

The afternoon was spent with more graduate program talks, and spending time with an HR Lead for Conoco Philips (HR Lead is like HR Generalist). Then it's time to go home. While waiting for my ride I decide to heat up the scottish egg and give it a shot.

What is it you ask? underneath the breaded goodness, is ground pork and spices (it's almost like that is part of the breading, and then inside is a hard boiled egg. I wasn't sure if I'd like it. but... I do!

As I got in the middle I realized it would taste better with some salt but I had none, so I kept eating. Still delish. 

Now on to dinner. I walk into the hotel restaurant and think...mmm...a nice burger sounds really good right now. I order the burger and for those that have been following my facebook this is how the conversation went:

Me: Can I have the burger please, cooked medium

Waitress: oh no, you have to have it well done

Me: Why? Is that a law? 

Waitress: no, that's just how the chef makes it. 

oh europe. 

After my inedible burger - the best thing was the fries - I came up to my room did some internet surfing and crashed at 9. It is now midnight - 1am where I have woken up and can't sleep. Tomorrow no matter what I think I will take a sleeping pill. I need to sleep through the night. 

That's all for today folks. food adventures galore. Not many pictures to be taken the rest of the week, I'll be in the office. But I'll try to keep you entertained with hilarious stories of "that's how the chef makes it" and who knows what else. 

Scotland Day 2

Today was fantastic. I didn't sleep the best. After a 2 hour mini blogging/facebooking session I fell back asleep but was woken up twice by housekeeping. oh goodness. That won't be an issue the rest of this week since I'll be up early for work.

I went down to breakfast in the hotel, it was buffet style. I had some wonderful eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, croissant AND nutella.

YUM.

I was picked up by a co-worker, his wife and their Weimeraner (or however you spell it) Poppy where we headed to the country side to look at a castle. fun times indeed people!

we then stopped and ate at a hotel The Romear and it was old and umm tasty...sort of. I had some kind of pasta with goat cheese, zucchini, and roasted red pepper. quite delish. for dessert....scones, cream, and jam. yum! 

I was dropped off at a mall to kill some time. In theory it was a good idea, except for I realized just how expensive everything was. SO I didn't buy anything. I caught a train back to the hotel , ran back to asda to pick up some things I forgot and then ate in the hotel restaurant where I had a nice sandwich with brie, chicken and bacon. oh and I finally had a scottish beer: Tennants

tomorrow is my first day at work and I'm very excited to meet everyone and put faces with names I see all the time. I'm also excited to learn where the best Haggis is! 

Scotland Day 1

as copied from my Facebook note and updated with dinner news:

well it's 4:30 and I'm still going strong - haven't crashed yet - although I feel it coming on soon. 

My plane was delayed yesterday because there was something wrong with the AC which lead to frantic panic this morning when I landed. 

The flight wasn't bad - sat next to a pretty cool old british couple - they just got back from vegas and won. good for them. watched the bounty hunter, iron man 2, and the Joneses on the plane. Had trouble sleeping - it' sjust an awkward position to be sleeping in ha. 

I have always steered away from the bathrooms in airplanes, just because they are so small. crazily smal. but I had to go and now I kinda like airplane bathrooms. In fact I might use one each time I fly. 

I land at the airport and realize i need to go to terminal 3 where BA is since they were flying my connecting flight. I couldn't see anyone to ask questions to. seriously, no one in sight. so I just go down to the busses and wait and alas! a person sitting in a high desk. I walk up and say "excuse me ma'am I just got off a flight from Houston and I have a connecting flight to go to for Aberdeen and wanted to make sure they automatically loaded my luggage"

She looks at me and with the most disgusted, annoyed, how dare you interrupt my puzzle playing voice says "i'm not with the airlines, I'm with security"

wow. thanks.

then about 5 minutes later another lady speaking broken english says something about going to Germany and the security chick says "go look at the wall".

so not what she needed.

oh well.

so i get to terminal 3,  I go through security, get to the desk and am informed I am in the wrong terminal. FML. Apparently I should have just gone straight to terminal 5 for continental. Well people, if there were desk agents outside waiting to help us I wouldn't have had that problem. 

so I get my ticket, go through security AGAIN, and HAUL MY BUTT to gate A1 where I sit and we take off. yessssss. 

my hotel is a Marriott. it looks kinda retro from the outside, the inside is, umm...dark? the bed is hard... I wonder if this is a UK thing...but the room is nice and large which leaves me plenty of room for my clothes to be scattered about. I laughed that the hotel advertised offering AC because it's something I wouldn't think a hotel would think to advertise. Thank goodness they have it. It's kind of hot here in the day time. 

I arrived and unpacked...sort of...and went straight to ASDA to pick up a few things and mainly to just keep my body awake and alert. 

When I told the front desk where I wanted to go they insisted it was a simple 15 minute walk. I said I'm from Houston that's a far walk (plus I was thinking I'd have groceries and such). They called a taxi for me and I was on my way. 

I was greeted with this:

A peculiar contraption. All the carts were chained together and I couldn't figure out how to get mine. I fumbled around with it and then decided to just ask someone. "You need a pound coin" the kind lady said. "Oh, Ok, never mind" I said and walked away. Little did I know later, my mother informed you receive the coin back when you return the cart! If you think about it, this is quite ingenious and America should think about such a thing. Then they wouldn't have to hire people whose sole job was to collect carts. and it just might limit the amount of carts that run lose and hit cars. Although knowing the vast majority of americans they probably think it is worth a $1 to no have to walk all the way back to the front of the store to return the cart. ha. 

After collecting my goodies from the store I ate lunch which consisted of sausage roll and chips and gravy:

I was unaware of how glorious gravy and french fries tasted together. I was skeptical at first and asked the kind man to only put gravy on the sausage roll. However, if I have this again, gravy is going on both :) Once my Grandparents found out I liked this meal, my Nanny said she will cook this for me next week when I visit them. OOOO delish. 

After a full tummy and shopping bags with the essentials: drinks, digestives, chocolate, and crisps, I head back to my room and take a quick nap. 

For dinner I ask the front desk for the best place in town for scottish food. She recommends the Dunhaven Hotel and Restaurant which is only a 5 minute walk away. Excellent. I can do 5 minutes. It's getting late though and I didn't want to particularly walk back at night alone so she said if I called when I was done with dinner they would have the shuttle come pick me up. How kind. 

I review the menu and it doesn't look very scottish to me except for Chicken and Haggis which I call my father and ask what it is. After hearing the description I'm not sure I'm ready for that so I decide to try their special, Chicken Tika Masala:

It was average. The best part was the naan bread and the crispy thing and the rice. 

I stop at Tesco Express to pick up some tea and head back to my hotel where I settle in for the night. 

Definitely a fun adventure for day 1. Tomorrow will be filled with even more fun things. It's 4am here though, and I am going to try and get some more rest. 

Welcome

Welcome to A Different Perspective Photography.

Photography from a different perspective.

So I totally forgot I started this blog back in 2008. I only had 2 posts, which I have deleted, as I clearly did not keep up with it. 

As the title of the blog would indicate, it's a photography blog. I'm currently in Scotland and thought this would be a good way to update friends and family of my travels. Perhaps, this will also inspire me to get back to my first love...photography :)

so welcome :) please comment as you wish.