Bassybeats Travel Blog

Monday started off nice and easy with a drive into Oslo in the little Nissian Leaf with both Anders and I wondering it if would make it on the battery left.

First stop was the Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo. Rather impressive jump that sticks up off the mountain and you can see it from the otherside of town.

After the strange sideways elevator you get a pretty impressive / possibly the best view of Oslo central.

They also had a wee museum as well. The ski’s on the left are the ones they use for the jumping. Massive different from the cross country skiis. read more

Well the weekend started off well with a homemade breakfast at Anders’ parents house.  After that we head upto a lake house that belongs to their family. I have to say its one of the most amazing things to see, a lake starting to freeze over.

On the way back home we stopped by a very traditional house. Built like back in the old days. The base of the house are on piles shaped like triangles. This is to stop the rats getting into the food and crops.

We spent thie night chilling out drinking beers and watching Youtube videos. Anders’ brother Mats and his girl friend Christina came over which was cool to hangout and chat. read more

Mjøndalen is about 50mins away from Oslo by train which makes one plan days ahead. With Anders at work and Janet and Jacob sick it made things trickier. But spent the first real day in Norway just relaxing really and sorting out a local sim card and some actually warm gloves.

But on the way round I spotted the latest Marshall Amps radio/stereo. Sadly I very much doubt it will fit in my bag.

A small observation from the first Scandinavian country I visit is that all the dirty mags in mall are just, on the shelf. No shits are given with boobs etc just on display. read more

Last day in Edinburgh was a nice. Scored some great weather yet again and was perfect for walking around.

Went down to Leith Walk which is the longest road in Edinburgh. Pretty nice walk with a big shopping mall at the end.

After the wee walk at 1deg I caught the bus back into the city centre to check out the music store “LiveMusic” that I saw the night before whilst killing time during the carols. They had some nice lefty stuff, an old 50’s Guild acoustic and a ’74 Baldin bass guitar. Took a few photos on the way back of a few hotels and the University. read more

Day 38 started off rainy and boring, but the B&B was great with a whole table to myself.

The plan for the day was to travel back to Edinburgh via Lock Ness. The snow had passed and now it was just heavy rain and low visibilty. But the rain didn’t put a damper on the views.

The first two big stops was Loch Ness. Its so strange driving through Scotland, everything looks very familiar yet so different. I could easily live in this country.

And for Paul and Cailor’s information, I did not find Nessy, I did try to take a blurry photo of a duck to snapchat but it looked to duck like and I knew you wouldn’t buy it. read more

A quick walk upto the Royal Mile and we were away. The tour covers The Highlands, Isle of Skye and Loch Ness. One good thing about off season travelling is that the group size is usually small. This time we have 6. We picked up a few in Glasgow the headed off into the Highlands of Scotland.

The other great effect of a small group is we can stop rather often for little things along the way and the van is much faster. First photo stop was the 3 sisters rocks.

We passed a vally that we were told the RAF use for test flights and Mark our guide showed us the tree a jet hit on a low pass (its the right hand one thats shorter). The jet was fine but it flying very low. read more

So, i’ve been lazy at writing and uploading photos so I best get to the point.

Day 33 was pretty much a write-off. Spent most of it swearing at the underground trains and sitting on a train to Edinburgh.

Bonus of arriving, I got to go for a walk with Addy around the xmas market and managed to see my first Apple store and get a replacement charger.

Day 34

First day of exploring Edinburgh I managed to squeeze in ALOT of things. With google and Addy’s suggestions I set off to Carlton hill.

Next stop after some google mapping was Arthurs Seat. Which was alot longer to do that I though. But It had amazing views and was great exercise on a chilly Scotish morning. read more

After a long night/early morning I woke up at 10.30am (went to sleep at 7) and started to get ready for Winter Wonderland. Caught a few trains and walked to Sarah’s Friends Ruth and Johnny’s flat in Putney. A walk, a few more trains and we were at Hyde Park station with a few extras that joined on the way.

On arrival we headed straight for the German beer tent.

We arrived early – mid afternoon So alot of the photos had a nice light to them.

Almost all of us got Steins, which you had to give a $10 deposit on and they were only plastic! But at the end of the day Josie was nice enough to take them back for us when she was going back on another day. read more

Day 30 started off pretty well after getting some good sleep and actually having breakfast for a change we set off to the Southbank xmas markets by the London eye. Well we either came the wrong day or they were not really going to the effort. Mostly food and nick-naks, but we did get a couple of nice photos.

Sam and I realised we had never had bacon and egg waffles before, so had to sort that problem out.

Went for a bit more of a walk and got some photos before heading too Camden Markets to see if they were any better. read more

So travelling to London proved to be more difficult than I thought. Scheduled to leave at 11.40am, we didn’t even leave till 4pm. All due to rubbish weather in London City, so had to land in Standsted and train in. The weather was bad enough that on the approach I didn’t see the runway till we were about 15m above it!

Sorted the rail system out and ended up at Amy’s place, where I pretty much dropped all my stuff and we went and got Byron Burgers and a beers.

Day 29

So first day in London to do things and it was so nice to realise that I wasn’t obligated to do all the usual tourist stuff as I did it last time. So a quick email to dad the days before and a phone call and I was going to THE Marhsall Amplification Factory to do a factory tour. read more