Kirsty, Cats and Crafty Nonsense: Travel

On the last Tuesday of January a boat that has been crafted for a whole year is torched in a spectacular display. The noise and flames grab hold of you and transport you to a time before mobile phones and the internet (ok, well maybe it would if we weren't all busy taking pictures on our smartphones). Welcome to our first Up Helly Aa at Lerwick, Shetland Islands:

And here's some snaps done by the professionals:

Photo by: Unknown
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Photo by Danny Lawson
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Photo by Andrew Milligan
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It was spectacular! The festival began in the 1880s to celebrate the close of the Yule season. The Islanders celebrate this day no matter how fowl the weather; only cancelling the event in dire circumstance e.g. death of Queen Victoria and World Wars 1 & 2. A citizen is announced as the Guizer Jarl who is the head honcho and leads the Vikings for the day. The event only comprises males of the Island and they dress up in all sorts of guises (I spotted a few Pikachu's within the procession). After carrying the Viking Galley along a marked route throughout the day - dropping into a few locations to delight with their chosen ballad. They make their way to the burning site for the main event. After the Galley has been obliterated the procession's make their way to individual halls to perform skits for revellers straight through to 8am the following morning (I only lasted till 1 am [hangs head in shame]). It was here that all the strange costumes began to make sense, as until that moment I thought it was purely to do with Vikings.

Photo by: Andrew Milligan
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James and I went on a well-deserved break for 9 days to Copenhagen. Why Copenhagen you ask. Well, the flights were cheap and a quick perusal on their 'Visit Copenhagen' website compelled us to whip out the credit cards and book. One thing we missed was how expensive the City itself is. Apparently it is now the 10th most expensive city. London is ranked first unsurprisingly (link) but actually being a tourist in Copenhagen felt crazy expensive for us. I guess, as James suggested, when in London we don't eat out constantly and go to things all the time. We essentially fit in what we would perhaps do in London over a month or two into a matter of days - no wonder we were so knackered. Not sure if we are cut out to be tourists, lacking in stamina big time! Now to bombard you with some of my fave pictures!

I just thought this foliage looked very pretty

These next lot of pictures are from our journey up the Round Tower which was pretty cool. The first one which shows the Round Tower is actually taken from the Visit Copenhagen website to give you an idea what it looks like, the rest where from my snap-happy fingers (click here for more info):

This building is their stock exchange. It just looks so Gothic, especially since the day I took these pics it was very over-cast.

We found out about this place called Cisternerne, a former underground water reservoir which now features different art exhibitions. The two glass triangles in the first picture is the entrance. It felt very ominous inside. I kept expecting the boogie man or worse to grab me - to be honest it gave me the creeps 100% more than the horror house at Tivoli Gardens. Cool experience though. Cisternerne

We then headed across the road to Copenhagen's Zoo. I must admit, I always love the tropical bits of zoos with gorgeous birds, butterfly's and all-sorts roaming about.

As James is interested in looking at loads of different weapons for a better idea of how to re-create them for games in his 3D stuff we headed to the Royal Arsenal Museum.

Then my choice was the NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, I had seen pictures of the palm house below and thought it looked gorgeous. The other rooms filled with gleaming marble statues did become bit of a bore to me, I think if it had incorporated plants into every room it would have become more compelling to me. I guess I'm just not artistically literate to appreciate it completely.

This one reminded me of the film 'Never Ending Story', the wolf used to scare me senseless.

Scary marble man

Some pretty castle grounds we visited (kind of forgot the name of this one).

Now my favourite place of the whole trip was Tivoli Gardens. When I first walked in there all of the amazing lights just made it feel completely magical. (Corny bit here) Totally felt like a kid again. We went on the 100 year old roller-coaster which was amazing. First roller-coaster James had ever been on! I must say it was pretty terrifying at bits and left me hyper with adrenaline afterwards. Luckily, despite originally stating he would be fine on all of the scarier looking rides James' opinion soon changed. He no longer wanted to go on any of the faster, upside down-ones which as I am a massive wimp when it comes to fair rides, I was all too happy with.