British Pizza Hut

Today at work we got Pizza Hut pizza for lunch. Even though I'm not particularly a fan of Pizza Hut in America, I was hoping that it would be decent American deep dish pizza. It was not. I wasn't involved in the ordering so its possible deep dish pizza was available, but the pizza we got was the pretty standard British style pizza. That said, it was pretty good pizza. Just not what I was hoping for when I heard Pizza Hut. Along with the pizza, we got a bunch of sides including wings. The cheese covered garlic bread was pretty good. We also got chips (french fries) which I thought was typical but still kind of strange given the restaurant.

Future Travel

I've been busy lately planning some trips. In two weeks, I'm heading down to London for the weekend. I've never been to London before, not counting sitting at Heathrow for several hours, so I'm looking forward to going down. One of the major things I have planned is that I had my MP arrange a tour of Parliament for me. I'm taking the Caledonian Sleeper train down so that should be an experience.

In December, I'm going to Munich and Austria for five days. I'll fly into Munich and spend two nights there. I'll then take the train to Salzburg and spend a night there. The trip ends in Vienna. I decided to go in December so I can experience all of the Christmas stuff going on. Hopefully its not too cold.

Fountain Brewery - The Laughing Cavalier Laughs On

Back in the fall of 2007, I was wondering through Edinburgh trying to find the Caledonian Brewery, where they brew Deuchars. I found it but it turned out they didn't offer tours so there really wasn't anything to see. The real highlight of the trip was stumbling across the old McEwan's brewery at Foutainbridge. The brewery was owned by Scottish and Newcastle but they closed it in 2005. It was probably one of my favorite sites in Edinburgh. Ironically, one of the major reasons why it closed was due to high water prices. If only they held out a little longer ...

The site was situated to be torn down for redevelopment into condos and such. The part of the site with smaller buildings was torn down prior to me finding it the first time. I heard that the rest was leveled by late 2008. So you can imagine my surprise when I randomly came across it again a few weeks ago. Other than replacing the chain link fence with a more formidable solid blue fence, it looks like not much has happened in the past two years.

I took a couple of pictures but they're hard to make out since it was pitch black at night. I've matched them up with ones from 2007. See them after the jump. I plan on going back during the day and will hopefully get some better pictures.

Oak Smoked Cheddar

Last Saturday I bought some oak smoked cheddar cheese from the Stirling Farmer's Market. Its from the Arran Island, which is a small island off the western coast of Scotland. However, when I decided to have some of the cheese a couple days later, I ran into a problem.

New Pictures Uploaded

I've uploaded some pictures from the past couple of weeks. You can find them here.

Got my British Driver's Licence

My British provisional driving licence came the other day. According to the codes on the licence, I can now drive agricultural tractors, "mowing machines or vehicles controlled by someone on foot", and mopeds. You need a licence to be able to mow your grass, particularly with a riding lawn mower? Why are they allowing anyone who wants a car licence to be able to drive tractors on the road? The licence itself looks like I made it in five minutes in photoshop. It doesn't even specifically say where its from. I understand that its based on the EU standard design, but you would think the country name should be somewhere. If you were to show it to someone in America, they would probably think it was a fake.

Deep Fried Pizza

After the Hibs game yesterday, I headed down to Franco's on Summerhall Place to try a deep fried pizza. I used to live across the street from Franco's and had first seen a deep fried pizza there so I figured it was the place to try one. A deep fired pizza is simply the cheapest deep dish frozen pizza thrown into a deep fryer. Do not believe the misinformation that other websites are spreading, it is not battered. It is properly served with chips and salt & sauce, never with vinegar. I was surprised how good the result was. Not quite as good as a properly done deep fried Mars bar, but still quite tasty.Its not something to eat everyday, but I'll be ordering another soon. Credit to the guy I stole the picture from.

Stirling Bridge and the Wallace Monument

Here is a picture I took of Stirling Bridge and the Wallace Monument. I think it turned out pretty well.

Falkirk Wheel and Sewage Treatment

Last Saturday I took a short trip to the Falkirk Wheel. The Falkirk Wheel is basically a large boat lift that lifts boats from one canal up so they can travel on the other canal. Its actually pretty cool to see the thing in operation. It was a beautiful day so I had this nice walk along the canal to get to the Wheel. I was surprised that there was more to do at the Wheel than just watching it spin up and down. While walking around, I found Santa Claus's grotto. Hugh Hefner may have his grotto in LA, but Santa chose to have his in the middle of nowhere outside Falkirk, Scotland.

Today I visited water and sewage treatment plants for work. It was actually a pretty enjoyable experience. I didn't mind the smell but one girl used her scarf to try to filter out the smell.