YouTube & Vlogs Change
YouTube has apparently joined up with Google. I don’t have a problem with this as I use Google for most thing anyway, but what I DID have a problem with was YouTube/Google deciding to link my YouTube account to my Google account I had listed as my email when I signed up for YouTube. Unfortunately, this was under my old e-mail address I am no longer using. For those of you unfamiliar with Google’s empire, if you’re logged in as one name on gmail, you’re logged in as that name across all of Google. Logging into a service with a different Google account will log you OUT of the other services because Goggle has issues with you being logged in as two at once (unles you have 2 browsers).
I decided to switch my YouTube account to a new one, since I didn’t want to mess with the whole logging in/logging out of every Google service just to upload a video. My new YouTube is beccajanestclair. All NEW vlogs will go on the new account. All OLD vlogs will still be under annaonthemoon79, but I’ve also created a playlist of all of them here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1D39B56344B3ECD1, which will have a link on the sidebar of the blog, too. All old Vlogs embedded will still exist. This is ust the account for all NEW vlogs. If you were subscribed to me on YouTube, you will need to subscribe to the new account.
Confusing, I know. But at least now my YouTube account matches the blog!
I probably won’t have many new vlogs right now, as most of vlogs I took recently are on the video camera Tim took back to the UK with him. I will have a backlog of video (including the wedding!) to upload after I move!
No commentsCheating a little
There might still be an update for today, but for now I wanted to share a YouTube video Tim sent me. For those who don’t know, Walt Disney was a HUGE train fanatic, and even had a narrow gauge ride-on model railway in his back yard (which inspired the railways at Disneyland/Disney World, but more about that in a later post). Tim said this cartoon is proof that Walt truly was “one of us”:
Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7vb71oy_M
Ladies and Gentlemen….this is about to become my life ;)
No commentsTouring Dublin by Bus
[This is a recap of a trip taken in September 2009. A post had bot been previously written on the subject]
On a recommendation from Tim’s mum, my mom and I decided to take the Dublin Bus Tour on our first full day. There is more than one bus tour company in Dublin. All stop at mostly the same places, but the tour we took was operated by the Dublin city bus company, and our driver explained to us that they rotate drivers – a driver will be a regular route driver for 2 weeks, then he’ll go and drive the tour bus for 2. Our driver explained this was mostly because they’d lose their voices if they were tour bus drivers constantly, but also told us that all the drivers absolutely LOVE being the tour bus driver.
The bus is “hop on/hop off”, which means that as long as you hang onto your ticket, you can ride the tour bus as many times as you want from 9 in the morning until around 5PM in the evening. The busses go in a continual loop, reaching stops every 10-15 minutes, so if you get off, chances are you’ll have a different bus driver on the next bus. The full length tour is about an hour and a half, not counting stops.
We boarded one of the first buses of the morning and decided to ride it the full loop before making any decisions on where to stop. We rode up on the upper deck so we could see better and it was fantastic. We saw loads of things we had passed on the airport shuttle, but hadn’t paid attention to. On our second loop around Dublin, we got off at the Guinness Storehouse. I purchased a ticket online before we left the US, but Mom wasn’t interested in seeing the brewery. She had a book tucked into her bag though, and planned on finding a bench to sit on while I did the tour. Fortunately, there was a really nice person working at the entrance, and he let Mom through so she could go up to the cafe to sit and wait for me. As it turns out, the cafe was on the third floor of the exhibit, and if we had been dishonest, Mom could have toured the facility for free!
The Guinness Storehouse was incredible and well worth the trip if you’re a fan of the beer! You even get free beer at several stops throughout the tour as you go through a tasting room (where you can have as many as you want), learn how to pull the perfect pint, and finally up at the top where you get a complimentary pint of Guinness and are treated to a 360 degree view of Dublin and the surrounding countryside.
After the Storehouse, we boarded the bus again, and decided to get off at the Writer’s Museum. Our plans didn’t quite go as we thought, however, when our bus driver received a message that there had been a major bus/train accident along the main shopping street in Dublin…which also happened to be the street many of the attractions were on, and where the bus needed to go to get to the rest of the stops! Our bus driver was incredible, and told us that we could all get off at the next stop and do whichever attraction it was and hope the mess was over by the time we were done OR we could stay on the bus and he would do his best to get us around Dublin and promised to show us “areas of Dublin not included on a typical tour”. Mom and I decided to stick it out and see where the driver would take us.
Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOshnFiUbWo
True to his word, he took us through the more residential areas of Dublin and told us stories about the city and buildings (and about himself!) that we would not have heard otherwise. He finally reached a point where he needed to discharge us, and we were directed to find the next bus that would (hopefully) resume the route and get us back. Unfortunately, we got a little mixed up, but did finally find a tour bus stop in the end.
We never did make it to the Writer’s Museum, but I think our adventure was well worth it. We certainly got our money’s worth out of the tickets!
For more pictures, please see: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/index.php?album=Dublin+Bus+Tour
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2 commentsRoyal Observatory at Greenwich
[This entry refers to a day trip taken in January 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging the trips I only posted vlogs about January - April.]
Back when Tim and I started planning my trip, he asked me to make a list of places I’d like to see. The list was in no way a guarantee that we’d go, but it was a good jumping off point for making plans. I can also proudly say that after 6 months, we did nearly everything on the list!
One of the places on my list, was the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The map geek in me was overjoyed that I was going to be traveling from 100 degrees (when I was in Manitoba last summer) to 0 within a matter of weeks (and, at the beginning of 2008 I was almost at the Equator, too!). When I was doing some research for my UK trip, I discovered that you could go to Greenwich and stand on the Prime Meridian…thus being in both the West and the East at the same time!
When Tim and I planned our weekend to London this past January, we included a trip to Greenwich. We started our trek by taking the Docklands Light Railway, which is a light railway that does not have any drivers on it! (You might remember my vlog I made that day, viewable here.). The DLR doesn’t drop you off right at the observatory, of course, so we had a bit of a walk through Greenwich (though we could have taken the bus, we opted to walk). Once we got there, I also discovered you need to walk uphill to get to the observatory. By this point in our weekend, my legs were really hurting from the prior days, so we took it slow, stopping to sit on benches along the way. Our goal was to get to the Prime Meridian before 1300 GMT, as we wanted to watch the red ball drop at 1300, but we had plenty of time.
Believe it or not, I was actually pretty awe-struck finally getting to see the world clock and getting to stand right on the Prime Meridan. There are few things that can excite a map geek as much as being able to be both East and West at the same time!
We went into the observatory and got to see a huge display about clocks, and learned about the first clocks ever built. After we watched the red ball drop, we decided to head to the Maritime Museum. Tim wound up going through this museum mostly on his own. My legs were just too tired to take it all in, but the museum had a small cafe, so I was able to sit at a table with a drink and I read and listened to music (and I think I might have even fallen asleep at one point!). I felt bad leaving Tim to look at the museum on his own, but I was glad he was able to get the chance to do it.
After closing time, we decided to take a bus back over to the DLR (yay!), and then the Tube back to Victoria Station for the short walk back to the hotel.
The Royal Observatory
I’m standing in the East and the West!
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Fast Update
I’ve been awake since 3:30 this morning with a sore throat and I’m about ready to go back to sleep for a bit, but before I go, here’s a few photos and video from the most recent road trip. I’ll have a longer write-up and the rest of the photos later on in the day or week, depending on how I feel!
“best of” photos on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=65789&l=e3597&id=522022159
Videos on YouTube:
Waves crashing
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Rescue Helicopter drill
