Monday, May 25, 2015

announcing the British Isles, 2015

Hello. I've been gone a while. You might have noticed some ch-ch-ch-changes since I was here last.

First, take a look up there in the location bar. You might notice that the Vaunter finally got himself his own URL. Yep. The Sententious Vaunter isn't just a smug moniker anymore, it's a web domain. I've got my own webpage now. Bought it from Google for $12 a year. This is part of my attempt to clean this blog up, pare it down, develop it into something useful and timely, and (perhaps) make it more profitable. I want a travel blog that'll pay me to travel, not just a corner of the web where I bloviate. As soon as I figure out HTML (I got an account with one of those free web design sites, but it was so long ago that I don't even remember which one), I'll revamp TSV, give it a shiny new overhaul, and it'll actually be its own webpage instead of a Blogger template. Time to hit the big leagues. Time I actually started a travel/sci-fi writing blog in earnest.

Speaking of travel...

If you've been with this blog from the beginning, you probably remember Jeff and Jenn, the Canadian/English couple I've bummed around with on two or three continents. They're getting married in July. In England. In a castle. Miss H and I were invited. We're going. And we're making it a three-week tour of the British Isles. Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, and Dublin. With long layovers in Miami and Boston. 

It's gonna be epic. 

I'm so excited, not just because this will be Miss H's first venture onto European soil, but because it's a chance for me to redeem myself. I saw Edinburgh and London and Dublin for the first time (with Jeff at my side, actually) but only for the briefest of moments. I was in London for an overnight layover and I had a scant 72 hours in Edinburgh and Dublin, respectively. This time around we'll have as much as five to six days in each location. Maybe not enough to explore their every nook and cranny, but enough to see the major sights, get to know more than one neighborhood, and drink as much beer and cider in pubs as I can hold (and then some).

And did I mention that the bachelor party is in Edinburgh, Scotland? The whisky capital of the world?

Hell yes it is. And you'll hear every gory detail here on TSV

Stay tuned...