So Here's My Journey: Cheery for Glen Garioch (That Would've Been Better if You Knew That "Garioch" is Pronounced "Geery")

So as part of my week off, I decided to DO some things.

I mean, other than going to the gym and playing trombone and eating.

So today, Sima and I went on an adventure to the close-by town of Oldmeldrum. It was one of the, if not the, quaintest towns I've ever been to! Everyone seemed to know everyone, and it had a cute little small-town feel to it! In fact, I'm going to google it right now and find the population for you. Okay, so it's a "growing population of over 2000" which is a lot bigger than it looked....but still.

Anyway, so we get to the bus station, and figured out how to use the buses (relatively cheap for an hour and a half trip or so, return). Luckily, on the way there, we got a double decker bus, so we sat at the top and took some fun pictures!

Too cute, isn't she?

So we had the whole top of the bus to ourselves :)

Just a shot of the Aberdeen City Library, complete with rainy window (typical)

A little Aberdeen junction

En route : "Are you sure you know where we're getting off?"

Yes! Of course we were! We got off when our driver yelled up to us, the last people on the bus, "This 'ere is Oldmeldrum!" hahaha. But we knew, we were on the way down the stairs ;)

So we get off, around 11am, and although the tour was supposed to start at 11:00, and the next one wasn't for another 2 hours, we decided we'd go and check it out anyway!

Here's the first sighting we had of the place :

Cute, right?!

Then we went to the visitor centre, where we met two verrrry kind workers. After asking about tours, and explaining that we knew we had just missed the 11am tour, we were gleefully greeted with "well there actually WAS no 11am tour! But don't worry, we can just take you around now!" After telling them that neither of us had ever had whiskey (at least not properly), nevermind been to a distillery, we were met with a playful disbelief and then "Let's start you off with a wee dram and a video here about the distillery".

OKAY! Sounds like a deal!

So there we sat, drinking a wee dram, watching a movie about how it was made...sipping and smelling and acting like we knew what we were doing. They actually kind of gave us some direction, and thanks to a whiskey-lover friend of mine, I was trying out some other tasting techniques with my tongue and cheeks, too, to get the best 'flavour experience'. It was nice and cozy in the foyer there, with comfy couches and adorable decorations!

Look! It's wheat on tv!

Not such a flattering picture, but I'll work on keeping my eyes all the way open in the future, okay?

Then we went with our tour guide through all the stages of whiskey production (both a bit happy with whiskey in our tummies!)

There were so many barrels, it was unreal (ohmygosh, I can't believe I just said that....Tiin!) The guide said it may be the oldest distillery in Scotland, although it can't be said for sure because there were so many private production centres from long ago and they weren't all documented (like home distilleries!) They usually age the whiskey for at LEAST 8 years, like the scotch whiskey we tried at the beginning, and some have been aged as long as 46 years! The longer its stored, the more the flavour changes, and the lower the alcohol level is (the smoother it tastes). It gets its colour (golden/copper/honey etc) from the barrels, which at this distillery are almost all from America, because the oak from there is harder and therefore better for storing. I also learned that it can't be considered scotch whiskey unless it is at least 40%.

Then we came back to the visitor's centre, got ANOTHER free dram, this time of 12 year old whiskey, and got to sign the visitor's book!

Cheers to whiskey in Scotland!

By the time we were finished, it was shortly after 12, and we wanted some food in those alcohol-lined stomachs of ours, so we went to the first, and adorable looking, cafe lounge which was part of a little hotel they had in town. Deciding to make it a really "Scottish" day, we ordered a traditional Scottish lunch of mince, tatties, skirlie and veggies, and then we shared a sticky toffee pudding for dessert! A bit pricey for my liking, but the servers we oh-so-nice, and the food was so good (although, with the Hub as a comparison, I don't think there was much room for failure....just sayin!)!

After a long, drawn-out, extremely filling lunch, we decided to go for a little wander around town, and I took a few last photos before my camera tragically died. Here they are:

Pretty, isn't it?!With the mountains in the back like that?

And this is the town's Main Square. I TOLD you it was quaint! So cute!

Anyway, we made it back to town, and Sima walked back to halls while I stayed on the bus until I was back downtown, where I met Julia for our long-awaited viewing of Avatar (in 3D, obvi).

And let me just say:

BLASTED.

MY.

MIND.

I seriously think it was the best movie I've ever seen. And that's saying something, considering I went in with high expectations, after hearing nothing but praise for it. There was a moment in the middle of the film where I literally thought to myself, "there is nothing that could happen in this movie from this point on that would make me dislike it".

And WOW. Just WOW. As Russell Peters might put it, it was mind BLASTING. Not just mind blowing. Anything can blow your mind. This was mind BLASTING.

I mean, it had everything. War vs. Peace; Religion; Romance; Action; Suspense; AMAZING special effects (which I'm usually pretty apathetic towards....but this was SO cool).

I just can't believe it took me this long to see it! If anyone reading this has not seen it, I URGE you to go see it. You won't regret it (if you have any sense of what a good movie is). I just can't stop raving about it.