It's been a while since the last few posts. Excuses aren't necessary... that's life, sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long. Though I won't excuse the silence, I'll rather get you right back into our lives with some updates on our current situation over here in Scotland, our recently passed trips, our future ones, and a little bit of snitcast in between.

If you've checked out the site today, or read the imported notes on my Facebook profile, you would've seen our latest photos were uploaded this morning. The first album was from our trip to Oban the weekend before our Xmas trip back to South Africa. The second was from our last trip to Stockholm a few weekends back in February.

The Oban trip was spectacular. During the Winter months, all the hotels up north and even down the south of Scotland reduce their rates to try and pull some people in during the Cold Times. Because Jen's in the industry, she has a keen eye on all the good deals around the country and, as a surprise for me, she booked a weekend at one of the prime hotels in Oban, Scotland, for the weekend just before we departed back to SA on our 3 week holiday. Oban is on the far west coast of Scotland. It's a little bit more north from Edinburgh (which is why Jen-the-compass likes it) and it serves a function as a harbour for the many ferries in the area which dot back and forth between the pure Scottish islands along the west coast. Our hotel was perfect and we were upgraded to a room right on the corner of the hotel with some bay-windows (with that cool seating area against them - see photos), a sailor-type theme, and a view that could kill a donkey. It was really spectacular. The tides move in and out of the bay at such an alarming rate and because of the shallow shoreline the view literally changes right before your eyes.

The bay is still and unstirred, an atypical scene in Scotland. The ferries from the many nearby islands slowly drift in and out of sight as they gracefully navigate the entrance to the harbour and dock against one of the terminals. All the ferries are of average size... nothing too drastic, but big enough to fight some of the rough Scottish seas that they often encounter. It takes five minutes aboard one of them to realize the sheer size of them and the endless size of the oceans that they traverse. We purchased return tickets to the Isle of Mull, a 50 minute ferry ride out into the Firth of Lorn. We took seating on the plastic red chairs on the top deck - it snowed for a while whilst we were up there. Though it was snowing we stayed up there - the view was worth way more than the cold was taking from us. Upon arrival we hurried on to Mull only to spend 5 minutes looking down the main street and then scuttling back to the ferry before it left. We realized we didn't have a car on the island, which is almost crucial when you see the size of Mull. Combined with the snowy weather, enjoyable ferry ride and the 2 hour wait for the next ferry, we decided that we'd seen enough of the island! Mull wasn't ready for us, and the call from the ferry's 2nd-level bar was strong. We sipped on Magners draughts as the ferry bobbed its way back to the Oban harbour. The adventure was perfect.

When we got back after our trip to South Africa we were greeted by housemates who had discovered a "special" that Ryanair were running. We got stuck into it, finding out more information on their "Buy one get one free" special. It was for real... Not only that, but we had also pretty much decided on doing a trip to Spain in the early Spring, for which, Ryanair were selling pretty well priced tickets. Knowing that we would get another return ticket each to any of Ryanairs destinations, we booked the Spain trip to Alicante - on the south east coast - and received our flight coupons. What the fine print didn't say too clearly was the restrictive nature of the free flights that you could claim... limited by originating airport, certain weekends, destinations and times. The only tickets still available for the weekends on offer... return tickets to Stockholm. Free. And no, not those free-but-pay-these-taxes tickets... completely free. Well, 1 penny per leg. No credit card fees, no baggage fees, no nothing. After the 4p came off my credit card I believed it, and we started making plans for our 2 night stay in the city which changed our perspectives on the Scandinavian countries forever. Good old Stockholm. I damn well love that city, and this trip wasn't going to disappoint.

The last time we went we stayed in a damn fine hostel - Lodge32 - and decided we'd stay in the same place this time. Though this time we'll book early and get their private double room. We got the reservation and for £55/night (Stockholm prices hey?) we were set.

We were delayed on our outbound flight and ended up sitting in Prestwick airport for an hour and a half extra whilst we panicked about the availability of our bus transfer when we got into Sweden. Once we were on our way the pilots seemed to feel bad about the lost time and made some of it up along the 2.5 hour flight. We touched down just before midnight and climbed on the first Flygbussarna city transfer that we could find. We finally got to a rainy and slightly cold Stockholm, jumped on the underground and arrived at our room by 2am. Whilst we had planned to try go out on that same evening, by that stage we had been travelling for 8 hours already and were pretty much over it.

Waking up in Stockholm is a damn good feeling. Combined with staying in a place you've stayed before, it makes the whole trip more familiar and enjoyable. No time is spent wandering streets looking for your hostel, neither is any time spent working out the underground and public transport system. Though we did spend some time trying to find the hostel this time after walking out of the wrong exit to the underground station. Small note for anyone travelling to Stockholm: The undergrounds are undeniably massive. Not in their overall complexity, but just in the sheer size of the platforms and walking area underground. They don't pretend to be anywhere but underground, with rock-shaped surroundings and platforms long enough to fit two trains at any one time. It's really awesome that way. Because of this sheer size, however, it makes exiting the stations quite interesting. Depending on which exit you take you could end up 3 blocks away from where you normally go. Amongst so many other things in Stockholm, I love the space.

We spent the beginning hours of our first day finding the brunch ferry which takes you around the Stochholm Archipelago for 3.5 hours. The Archipelago is an arrangement of around 40,000 islands around the channel entrances to the greater Stockholm region. The islands are sometimes the size of a car, sometimes big enough to hold a house and a jetty, and sometimes big enough to have an entire nature reserve with animals and all. We found a table next to the windows on the top level of the boat and sat chatting and watching each island drift past. One thing we have learnt about riding around on boats is that they make you tired... we had to do breaks to walk around the outside of the boat and take in the scenery otherwise we'd find ourselves sinking lower and lower into our seats as the gentle hum of the boats engines and warm and soft atmosphere in the cabin attempted to put us to sleep.

Once we arrived back on land we headed down into the old town, stumbled upon a lovely take-away style restaurant where we purchased two big slices of pizza (49 SEK ~ £4 each!) and sat down to eat them for about 5 minutes before a herd of small children arrived and muscled us back out into the cold. We layered up and headed back to our room. Napped for a few hours before going back out and settling down at an italian restaurant in Gamla Stan (the old town), drinking a bottle of wine and feeding on good pasta. When the dinner was over we mozied on deeper into Gamla Stan and found a nicely fitted modern cocktail bar where we idled the rest of the night away over some Cruzcampo beer. Jenbug even had to do a run down the road to the local bankomat to get some more Krona to pay the barmaid. We dominated Stockholm that night. A quick dash to the station to get on one of the last trains of the evening, 25 odd Krona shoved into a vending machine for chocolate and chewy sweets for the journey, a few minutes on the rails and we arrived back at the hostel.

The next day we got down to the water front by mid-morning, passing an outdoor ice-rink on the way. Mostly little kids were on it... we would've joined in if we hadn't already made our plans for the day. We were off to the Vasa Museum. This museum houses an original 16th century viking battle ship. Armed with dozens of canons and a required sailing crew of over 300 people, this ship is an absolute gem to look at. It's untouched because it toppled over on it's maiden voyage and remained at the bottom of the Stockholm bay for over 3 centuries until it was pulled back up into daylight in the mid 1960's. Because it's the baltic sea, the salt content is relatively low and almost at a level of fresh water, preserving the ship in it's original form at the bottom of the ocean. They treated all the wood and preserved it in this museum which now has about 5 layers of doors that you have to walk through to get into it. The ship in all it's glory takes your breath away so quickly that you don't notice the dry and stale air. It's spectacular, and one of the best museums I've been to in a long while.

After we walked the museum for an hour or two we missioned up to the local zoo on the island of Djurgarden (Yes, the name of our car... we wished he could've come along, but he wouldn't fit on the plane) and after navigating through about a 10 square kilometer park (no joke, it was the biggest, most open and most natural looking zoo I've ever seen), being directed by signs like "Scandinavian Animals ->", we arrived at the Bjorn (Brown Bear), Elk, Wolves, Wolverine and Reindeer areas. Though the bears were hibernating still, they looked like they had a nice setup. The wolves were pretty rad, the elk chilled out, the wolverine fluffy and ferret like, and the Reindeer (the animal of the month - as the zoo kept pointing out) no where to be seen. The bears were undoubtebly still hibernating because of the dodgy ballot system they have for animal of the month vote. If you ask me, the wolverine should've won it, hands down.

Nearing the end of our visit to the zoo we ended up on the edge of a cliff looking out over the whole of Stockholm. We scanned the horizon and there it was, in all it's glory, the Kaknastornet! The highest point in the whole of Stockholm and also home to the restaurant on the 28th floor which serves the second best pasta in the world - second only to Mezaluna, Melville. We were instantaneously drowned by it's glory and immediately headed off towards it. We navigated down around the island, cut along the trecharous paths along the waters edge of Djurgarden (not really that treacherous), crossed the bridge on to the neighbouring island and made our way to the top of the Kaknastornet. We ate fresh salads, sun-dried tomato pasta, and sipped crisp white wine as the sun set over the beautiful Stockholm. It was a truly magical sight and ended the most amazing weekend away in our city of choice. Until you yourself can get to Stockholm, you'll just have to believe us that it's a city that will leave you with some really great memories and it will always be one of the most memorable places that we'll manage to get to whilst we're over here. I'm almost certain of it. Sverige, we love you.

* Find the rest of the photos from this trip here!