Just spent a great weekend at the music festival Na Fir Bolg. As expected I wasn’t the only one in a kilt, although some of the garments that would probably identified by their wearers as a kilt, would not really qualify as such by a strict definition…
In a couple of hours I’ll be off to Na Fir Bolg, a nice folk, rock and cabaret music festival in Vorselaar, in the province of Antwerp.
One of the groups performing is The Black Tartan Clan. When I went to one of their concerts a couple of months ago, almost everybody was kilted—including me, of course—so it made sense I would pack my black kilt for this weekend.
Since folkies usually are quite kilt friendly anyway, I decided to wear a kilt the rest of the weekend as well.
On top of the selection of artists, one of the nice things about this festival is the fact they still serve beer in real glasses. So I spent some time to stretch my leather drink / bottle holder to fit a full-size Guinness pint glass! It might come in handy… 😉
Well, it seems my trip with theCaledonian Sleeper will not be happening in the foreseeable future…
I’ve been warned that foreign cards wouldn’t work to order the berths I wanted, so I tried to get a British debet card. But apparently the Scottish bank in Brussels is not really for normal accounts, and banks in Scotland require you to actually live there to open an account. So this morning, when the Bargain Berths for the dates I’d like to book became available, I tried to book them with my Belgian credit cards anyway — I had some luck with them before — but:
Fine, just use a Fastticket machine then, you’d say? Well, unfortunately Bargain Berths are only sold as Print@Home tickets! Strangely enough, in their explanation about those Print@Home tickets they mention ‘overseas customers’. As long as those ‘overseas customers’ have British credit card then, I guess…
So, unlessScotRail introduces a payment system fit for customers worldwide, no Caledonian Sleeper for me. 🙁
Hopefully Serco — who will be taking over the service in 2015 — will have some berths or ’Pod Flatbeds‘ available for an interesting price AND better payment options!
But until that time:MegabusGold, prepare a bunk bed for me! 🙂
Being an aspiring historian and very interested in all things Scottish, I don’t want to miss out on what is quite possibly going to be an historic moment: the Scottish Independence Referendum. So with only 99 days to go before Thursday 18 September, I started making arrangements for a trip to Glasgow during that week.
Apparently polling stations will open until 10pm. Should I expect any to see results that same night already, or only the next day?
And when the results do come in, what would be a the perfect place to watch them in Glasgow? I usually avoid pubs with big screens, but I suppose almost anything will nicer than just watching the telly in my hostel room. 🙂 I’d prefer a place that isn’t specifically tied to any political party, although — being kilted and all — I will probably fit in better with crowd that mainly voted yes…
For my trip to Glasgow in September — yes, I want to be there for the referendum — I’m seriously considering travelling using the Caledonian Sleeper train from London. I’m quite happy with the MegaBus Gold sleeper service, but the train seems to be just a bit more comfortable and roomier. And whenGlasgowFoodiewrote an article about the sleeper, I became even more interested to try this sleeper train at least once.
Unfortunately the full price tickets are quite expensive — easily over a £100 — and the cheaper Bargain Berths are only available on the ScotRail site, which doesn’t accept foreign credit cards for some reason…
Well, I still have some time to find a solution, since bookings for my preferred travel dates haven’t opened yet. Any suggestions?
