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Welcome to March. If you live in some parts of North America you will be digging out but if you’re in the tropics of Vancouver you may have already been cutting your grass if you haven’t been attending any of the Winter Olympic events that took up the second half of February.
 
Crocuses in full bloom, cherry blossoms on the trees, 15 and 16 degree temperatures (a nice warm summer day in Scotland) and skiers skiing, lugers lugeing and snowboarders doing their kamikaze thing up in the hills. It’s been fun and inspirational watching so many young athletes striving and reaching for excellence.
New Curlers coming...
A last word on the Olympics (which has nothing to do with travel except for the great stones travelling along the ice). Even though the United States curlers did not qualify for the medals, TV gave them big coverage which resulted in many emails to the U.S. Curling Association, most of which commented on how easy the game looked and how could they join so they could be part of the team for the next Olympics. Honest, sad to say that is no joke.
New Tourists coming...
The Independent newspaper in Britain - which is one of the better ones - has reported some very ‘interesting’ results from a recent poll by a U.K. organization, Sunshine.co.uk.
Most respondents wanted to visit the United States. And 48 percent of those polled wanted to go to the U.S. to ‘meet a celebrity’. Now that’s pretty scary stuff.
Another one that makes one think that there should be a means test before some people can leave home, is that many wanted to visit Turkey for the quality of the kebabs.
You know the old expression, ‘more money than brains’? Well - it’s more than an expression.
Croeso i Cymru...Welcome to Wales
March 1st is St. David’s Day - a day of celebration for all things Welsh.
 The famous Red Dragon Flag of Wales
One of the neat things about St. David is that he is the only Patron Saint of any of the U.K. nations who was actually born in Wales. Not so St. Patrick, St. Andrew nor St. George. The Saint lived in the 6th century, that tumultuous period when the Romans had left and the Anglo-Saxons were making their inroads. This is also around the time of all the Arthurian stories, many of which are very strong in the Welsh tradition.
One of the sad things about Wales is that many know of it, but few know anything about this fascinating and lovely little Celtic country. For openers, the name Wales came from the Angles and Saxons who called the trouble making people of these western mountains the ‘foreigners. The Welsh are simply The Cymry - The People!
 The smallest house in Britain is in Conwy, Wales
This is the only Celtic country where the old language is growing. Out of a total population of about three million, about 600,000 speak the original language and in the North, where we’ll be staying on our Celtic Corners expedition, it is common to hear the language amongst the people and in the shops.
It’s a tiny country, only about 160 miles by 60 with the main feature being the magnificent Mount Snowdon and thanks to the constant English invasions, it has more castles per square mile than any other country in Europe.
 
Known as singers and Rugby players the Welsh are so much more. They are as uniquely different from the Scots or the Irish, and are NOT English. And - they have a great flag, a great national anthem (we get tingles every time we hear it), some stunning scenery as well as the longest name of any place in the world!
They are the remnants of our earliest history when the Celts migrated out of the Persian Empire to spread across Europe.
Well worth discovering.
Our Celtic Corners journey is from August 31 - September 11.
Scotch on the Rocks...
Five crates of Scotch Whiskey have been dug out of the ice at Cape Royds, Antarctica. Left behind when explorer Ernest Shackelton’s and his team were rescued back in 1909 following their failed bid to reach the South Pole, it appears some of the bottles are still intact and drinkable.
When the team set out in 1907 they brought 25 cases of Mackinlays with them - so they could down spirits to keep up spirits!
A recent archaeological team made the discovery buried in the ice outside the hut used by Shackleton and his team. They found that ice crushed a number of the bottles but they could hear ‘gurgling’ from inside one of the frozen cases so they are slowly thawing the cases to extract the golden treasure within.
Shakelton's hut at Cape Royd, Antarctica - without the whisky
Whyte & Mackays whose firm supplied the expedition with the more than 100 year old Mackinlays, don’t have the formula for the old stuff but they are hoping to get a hold of a bottle and reproduce it for the present day market.
Shackleton, the explorer, lived in what is today’s Channings Hotel in Edinburgh and which we have used for our groups for more than 15 years.
Bet You Didn't Know...
Since we’ll be in Spain and Morocco for a considerable chunk of March, we were doing some reading ahead of time and came across a couple of interesting historic facts.
Bet you didn’t know that Morocco was the first nation to recognize the independence of the United States and that the Sultan of Morocco stopped the Barbary Pirates from attacking American shipping back in 1777.
And the last little bit is that the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship is the U.S.’s oldest non broken friendship treaty.
We’ll be in touch. Enjoy March.
Cheers,
Andy & Bev
Welcome to our February Newsletter. We have bits on some of our destinations as well as some pieces chipped right out of our heads. Hope there’s something of interest for you.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Not only is it Valentine’s Day on February 14 (and big hugs to all), but it is also Chinese New Year. This year it is the Year of the Tiger so Gung Hay Fat Choy (Happy New Year). It's also Vancouver & Whistler's Olympic Month. Good Luck to all the marvellous athletes who devote so much to their sports.
And in keeping - sort of - with the Chinese New Year, there is a very special celebration that takes place in Vancouver that is NOT the Olympics. It is the annual “Gung Haggis Fat Choy” celebration- a fascinating fusion of Chinese and Scottish culture for the New Year and for Burns Day (January 25).
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson 'does in' the Haggis watched by Todd Wong
How about some Deep Fried Haggis Won Tons or Haggis Pork Dumpling all with appropriate Chinese dishes? The event has become a big celebration that includes a week of activities including Dragon Cart racing, piping, dancing and maybe just a bit of whisky consuming.
This bizarre event started in 1998 as the brainchild of Todd Wong - now known as Toddish McWong. Todd was a psychology student at the University and as he became aware of the Scottish tie in with the school, he came up with the idea.
Over the years it has grown to become a major event at the end of January and early February featuring the city’s mayor and other dignitaries. Lots of fun and an excellent example of how the wide range of ethnic groups get along out on the wack west coast.
Speaking of Haggis...
While many like to gag and groan whenever Haggis is mentioned, it's pretty good business in Scotland. Not a giant operation but still a good size.
Macsween's Haggis is the big name in the Haggis world and employs about 50 people and produces 850 tonnes of the stuff, or to put it another way, about three million servings. The company operates in Loanhead (the Edinburgh area) and has been producing the special Scots dish for more than 50 years. In 2009, despite the recession they upped their production by some 20 percent. Obviously more than a weird few like the stuff. (We're having Haggis Nachos tonight, the day this is written).
Honest, this is in the National Museum of Scotland with a card stating the one is the wild haggis, the other is the domestic haggis
The company not only produces the traditional Haggis containing lamb, beef, oatmeal and onions plus a secret blend of spices and seasoning, but also produces a vegetarian Haggis as well as a newly introduced microwaveable Haggis.
Now, if you want to be really traditional you would need to find some sheep pluck - the liver, lungs and heart. Then find a sheep’s fourth stomach, called a rumen (happy hunting). This will be the casing for the meat. All you have to do is boil, chop and mix the pluck with onions and toasted oatmeal, add salt, pepper and spices then stuff it in the stomach and sew it up but making sure to leave a bit of space for expansion whle boiling it all again. If you don’t leave room you may have a rather disgusting explosion as the contents expand.
And before you all start the previously mentioned gag and groan, just check out the making of your favorite sausage or processed meats! According to Macsween, haggis is a source of fibre, iron and carbohydrates, with a nutritional profile similar to a lamb chop, and contains no artificial colours, flavourings or preservatives.
For a serious approach to Haggis (we had ours on Burns Day), go to the Macsween site at www.macsween.co.uk for some background, history - and neat recipes.
Hearing Someone say ‘Oops’ in an art gallery...
A terrible thing. Especially for the one saying ‘oops’. And it happened just a short time ago in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when a woman attending an art education class stumbled, fell on to the large Picasso painting and tore a good chunk of it.
The painting, entitled The Actor, was painted by Pablo Picasso in the winter of 1904-05.
One doesn’t even want to think about being the perpetrator of that kind of thing. The poor woman will probably never enter an art gallery again.
However, it did remind us that those of us heading off to Spain and Morocco in March will be able to see some of Picasso’s work along with other Spanish artists such as Salvador Dali (he was a strange one), Velasquez, Goya and El Greco to name but a few.
 
Picasso's The Actor with a Moroccan artistic wall in Casablanca
The Spanish are proud of their cultural achievements and many works are easily seen not only at the world famous Prado in Madrid, but at many other galleries and museums.
Couple the culture with some fascinating architecture that blends so much with the Arabic artistic influence from their seven century rule in Spain. Then too there is the fascinating Fez, Marrakech and Casablanca following our Spanish sojourn.
If you’re interested, there is still space available. The Spanish-Morocco journey runs from March 18 to April 1. Just give us a shout at 1 800 773 7093.
Slainte & Iechyd da (translated and cheers, or good healty, in Gaelic and Welsh. The Welsh one is pronounced Yahkeeda - sort of).
When a language disappears so to does the history and the heart of a nation. It is through our voices that we speak to our children. In songs, in stories in teaching - everything is through language.
And it’s so obvious, isn’t it?
If another race completely took over our country and ran everything in their own tongue, how long would it be before the old ways disappeared? Just as long as it would take for the old people to die off and for the children to involve themselves with the ways and the speech of the incomers as it is happening in the last outposts of the Celtic World.
 Ancient worlds, people and stories all disappeared
We think we ‘know’ Scotland and Ireland and Wales because we’ve been and we’ve read books and we’ve listened to the songs and the stories. In English. The language of the conqueror.
But the old, disappearing Celtic world is far different from “I belong to Glasgow” and “Danny Boy”.
The deep, ancient roots are disappearing. In Ireland only about 30,000 people out of a population of six million, North and South use the Irish language. In Scotland the figure is 58,000 out of five million while Wales is the one who is fighting back. There are 600,000 Welsh speakers in their nation of three million.
Pushed back over centuries by war and invasion the tiny outposts of the Celts are all in the West of their countries, in the hills amidst the poorest of lands. This is where they went to be left alone to hide in centuries past.
We have lost so much with the demise of the Celtic languages. There is a richness in the stories, in the music and in the song of the Celtic people. There is also a fascinating relationship in the everyday activities and the religion of the ancient Celts with the natural world that holds a message for all of us as we watch the destruction of our planet. Sadly it is a world that has been shrunk almost to the world of the academics.
  Hints of the Celtic past
Before it’s too late, we want to see and discover more of those Celtic worlds when we visit Scotland in August and then explore the Celtic Corners of Ireland, Scotland and Wales in September.
In Wales we’ll see the ‘fight back’; the way the Welsh have reintroduced the teaching and speaking of their language, their thriving cultural strength and the strong Welsh book publishing industry. Just maybe there is hope for the future.
It’s a fascinating world. Join us. It’s going to be fun.
Scotland - August 15-28; Celtic Corners August 31-September 11
That's it for now. Give us a shout at 1 800 773 7093 if you have any questions. Enjoy February.
Cheers,
Andy & Bev
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