We're leaving on a jet plane...

• St Andrews golf course - Saturday morning, after 3 hours of sleep, Richard and I jumped into our rental car and made the 1.25 hr journey to the home of golf, St Andrews. It didn't matter we had 3 hours (though we were both super bleary-eyed) but we were going to play in the golf mecca, well the Eden course since the Old course is infamously booked up to a year in advance! The Eden course was opened for play in 1914, a par 70, ~6200 links style course with some parts running alongside the old course and other parts against the backdrop of the sea. IT WAS SO SICK to play real, true links golf in St Andrews although fortunately for us, we had pretty good weather, no rain and just a bit of the winds on the back 9.
• Shot a 98..well I broke 100 at least...and only lost 2 balls.
• Visited the old course, the 18th hole, and saw the infamous small bridge that players cross over on the 18th. I definitely have to plan a boys trip back to Scotland for a week of links-style golf!
  

• Fringe Festival 2008 - one of Edinburgh's biggest festivals that runs throughout the month of August complete with buskers, street performers, comedy acts, musical/theatre acts, etc. Royal Mile street was packed with people and performers and there was always something different going on every 20 metres or so! Will definitely try and go back again! I could spend the whole day just walking up and down the street catching all the various street performers and stopping for a pint or whisky among all the street-side bars/restaurants/cafes..
• Our apartment, Festival Apartments, had a fantastic location, just steps from the Royal Mile. Unfortunately it was an older apartment with a sub-par bathroom (mildew on the shower curtains) and water-stained ceilings so we pretty much only used it to sleep and store our stuff during the day.
• Tattoo military festival - very popular worldwide-known military festival with military bands from all over the world doing various performances against the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. Tickets are sold out well in advance, usually you need to buy tickets one year in advance to get in! So on Saturday night, we ended up waiting about 1.5 hours at the bottom of the hill leading up towards the castle to catch a glimpse of the bands. To be honest, all we saw were groups of people lining up and we had no idea what they were waiting for but after a long time and fireworks going off, we finally were treated to some bagpipe playing and all the bands marching (well, running) down the hill towards their buses. I think I'll wait to see the actual Tattoo on the BBC later this month.
• Tried haggis for the first time! Its good!! Sort of tastes like mince beef, but yeah I had it for breakfast the second time!
• What? It rains in Scotland? Only rained for a short while on the Sunday afternoon we were going home, we really got lucky with good weather all weekend!

• Lake Zurich is a lake in Switzerland, extending southeast of the town of Zürich. It is formed by the river Linth. (thats my Wikipedia entry lol)
• On Sunday, we met up with Eckhard and Laura for a boat trip to Lake Zurich. Eckhard had a beautiful 15-16 ft boat with cherry wood panelling and room for 5 people..perfect! Water was about 18-20 degrees so it was nice to jump in..
• Tried waterskiing for the first time! Damn it's tough. It was so hard just positioning in the water with the two skis on and it was a bit wavy but once I settled in and 'assumed the position', i would give a thumbs up that i was ready. But i wasn't haha! I fell face first, backwards, spread eagle, sideways, all over the place and took in a lot of lake water but fortunately it was fresh water and no burning sensations here.
• Out of 8-9 tries, i finally made it up once for a total of 4-5 seconds before getting excited and crashing out again. It was a funny (and fun) time but this week my body is soooooooooo sore..forearms, back, etc..
• We also had drinks and chocolate on board and the rest of em jumped in and swam around the lake, of course Michelle and I had our lifejackets on lol! After 3-4 hours in the sun, it was time to get back to shore and catch our flight home...boo. No sunscreen = burnt for me haha!

So we decided to check out the Canada Day celebrations being held in Trafalgar Square in London and although we came quite late (around 8pm), there was still much happening and music playing.

• The place was pretty full with a ton of red-wearing people walking around having Canadian beer and munching on Bison Burgers (that is, after lining up in the huge queues..). The theme this year was in association with Alberta so naturally they had bison burgers...
• The music playing was someone i had not heard of at all (Kim Beggs?) and it was traditional folk music or something, i couldn't figure out what it was and it was nothing you would hear of on the radio except for maybe late afternoon Tuesdays on 88.1 or something..
• We ended up eating at a Turkish restaurant called Ozer, near Oxford Circus, and it was very good! Recommended by the Michelin guide and moderately-priced. I tried a Turkish liquer called Yeni Raki which resembles sambuca, and after mixing it with a bit of water, that first glass already me a bit loopy and hot..lol. All for 5GBP!
• All in all, it was good to celebrate Canada Day even if we were in England, we spent a short time there but enough to say we were proud to be Canadians! Ole!
  

Wowzers..what an adventure today to make it to Wimbledon, one of the major tennis tournaments (part of the Grand Slam) at the All England Lawn and Tennis club. Personally, i'm not a big fan of tennis but I am a sports fan so while we were here, we just had to go check it out...

• Center Court tickets are actually sold the year before in a random ballot and on the day of the matches, there are limited tickets left for people to buy. Approx 500 Center court tickets and 6000 gorunds passes are available but to get the center court ones, people camp overnight. We were not doing that. So we went for the grounds passes but still, it was advised to go early to queue up for them....and then...
• We left our place at 6:00 AM (yes read that right) and caught the train to Wimbledon and finally got in the queue close to 7:45. Let me tell you, the amount of people already there was unreal!!! By the time we got our queue ticket (which you need to prove your place in line), we were already #6437!! We waited outside, luckily it was nice out, for just over 3.5 hours and finally got into the place 10 minutes before the 1st match started!!
• While we were walking on the grounds, a guy accidentally bumped into Lisa. I kept on looking at him since he looked familiar and then when I saw people runnning to get his autograph, I realized it was Rafael Nadal, the current #2 player in the world!! he was just going into the Center Court building but i managed to run in front of him and get a quick snap (see below)
• Extremely expensive there - but had to get the traditional Wimbledon fare - champagne, Pimm's, strawberries and cream..mmmmmmm.
• Watched a few matches (no real big names) of junior girls on the outer courts and one men's match at the end on court 18 (A. Clement i believe was the dude who won it). The junior girls were all pretty tall and lean but i think i could've played with them...lol right.
• Very cool experience but if you can, you must try and get Center Court tickets to get the full experience!