I Would Walk 500 Miles (Ok a Bit More) From Aberdeen, Amsterdam, and Anna Maria Island

All the “a” things! for the A-Z photo challenge

I liked the sound of JoAnn Ryan’s photo challenge for her publication In Living Color, the idea as I understand it is to do photo stories/narratives with the letters of the alphabet. I thought that was fun! I admit I am lazy and also a bit shy about sharing my personal photos here on Medium, but I do like taking pictures so am pushing myself outside my comfort zone a bit!

My header picture is a street where I live, in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. I am an American transplant of 21 years now, crazy to think about it!

It’s relatively rare for houses to be standalone in cities, especially in Scotland (or “detached” as they call them here). The houses on this street go for a ton of money if you can believe it, for cute little pokey cottages. Below is another street in Aberdeen I am fond of. Aberdeen is the third largest city in Scotland, located on the northeast coast.

We are known as the “granite city” due to many of the buildings being constructed of granite — on a gray day this can make things seem a bit dreary, but on sunny days the granite sparkles and all is bright here! A bit mood swing-y but that’s Scotland for you!

Below is a picture I took during Covid times, we got our flu shots here at this school one time — the way vaccinations are rolled out changed completely after Covid, you used to just go to your doctor’s office. Now, we get Covid boosters and flu shots at the same time in a now-empty department store in town, it’s kind of weird! (a lot of the department stores closed permanently in my city due to the pandemic, it’s pretty sad actually).

I came to appreciate autumn in Scotland more during the pandemic, normally we visit Florida this time of year but with travel restrictions we were unable to, and then this year we visited in May/I also had an unplanned trip over in August due to my father’s passing.

Red hydrangeas — I’m a little obsessed with all the rainbow hues of hydrangea, I thought this rust red was very autumnal!

This picture is from a visit my mom, my husband and I made to Amsterdam oh….yikes. Maybe 15 years ago? It’s a film pic, that’s how old it is! It was March, and it was ffffreezing! But lovely, I really liked it. We stayed near the Vondelpark, and did all of the touristy things, I would recommend it for short city breaks for sure. It felt largely safe although there was a murder in the park near our hotel while we were there, so that was weird! It is a city with an underbelly like most cities so keep your wits about you like you would anywhere.

My favorite things in Amsterdam were the (coffee!) cafes (I think they have cracked down on the other ones now anyway?), the Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank’s house, and just how cute and chocolate box everything was. Oh and for whatever reason people kept thinking I was Dutch and speaking to me in Dutch which amused me, I must not have looked like a tourist?! Although I am a lot shorter than most people there who am I kidding? At 5'5" the toilets were too tall for me! TMI? It was quite cold and rainy when we were there but I am used to that living in Scotland!

Next up is Anna Maria Island, Florida:

Ahhhh. Anna Maria Island is the main beach I go to when I visit my Mom in Florida since it is about a twenty-minute drive from her house in Bradenton (near Sarasota). She is also near Lido and Siesta Key. On the gulf coast of Florida, on a good day, the water is crystal clear and shallow quite far out. It’s very peaceful and not too built up, one of the few “old Florida” vibes places left. I would live there if I could! White sands, warm seas, good food and sunshine that won’t quit, what more do you need for a perfect holiday?

I also saw an osprey at the beach this last visit, which was highly unusual — there are nests of ospreys in my Mom’s neighborhood but I had never seen one at the beach before — I admit when I first saw it, I mistook it for an eagle!

For a counterpoint here is a picture I took when I visited last summer, right before a thunderstorm blew in — summer in Florida is not my preferred time to visit but because of Covid I hadn’t seen my mom in a year and a half, so I flew over the first chance I got/after they relaxed travel restrictions to allow people in.

This picture is of Bean Point, at the tip of the island. There are rip currents there so no swimming, but it is pretty for walks and nature spotting, I have seen manatees there twice now!

In the summer you can count on a usually brief but dramatic storm most afternoons, it can make beach days tricky! On this day we took a short walk, and lightning was spotted at the crowded end of the beach, to our obliviousness they cleared off the beach completely and we got yelled at by the lifeguard for trying to retrieve our stuff (he eventually relented!).

Twenty minutes later:

Timing a beach day to end in sunset is sometimes tricky, we are pale flowers who wilt in the sun so sometimes we will go a bit later or go out to eat to one of the island’s beach restaurants and stay for sunset. It’s rarely disappointing. Sometimes the sunsets are mellow, sometimes a peachy orange explosion, it’s all good on the island.

Thank you for reading!

Check out Jo-Ann’s original challenge here if you want to try it out!

This post is day five of my own 30-day writing challenge, I have given it the hashtag #Christmaswritingchallenge just because it will be happening in the run-up to Christmas, not every post will be holiday themed but I have done a prompt of more Christmas/holiday themed prompts for anyone interested here. Please join in if you feel like writing even one post with the tag, I am terrible at writing every day and could use all the inspiration/camaraderie I can get!

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