Presentation - Monday 27 April

After a day of rest were were thrown in at the deep end.....three vocational visits and two presentations.......the first was lunchtime at New Castle club.....the team scrubbed up well in their suits......Jim did his job as team leader and chose an appropriate tie.....

Lunch went well and the Scottish photo album was well received......presentation time came and the Power Point failed to work....we tried to switch to our own laptop and the projector decided it had had enough and stopped functioning.....time to ad lib, and the guys did their best and wowed the audience with their wit and charm.....

In the evening we went to the meeting and New Willmington Rotary Club......we used our own laptop and the thecnology worked perfectly......the presentation was well received, and some of the New Castle members who came with us in the evening saw it how it was meant to be...

Team photo with Mike Boyle, the President of New Willmington

mines and start your motors gentlemen!

Following our lunchtime presentation on monday 27th april, we were taken to the Wapalm mines a huge complex making use of the vast limestone mines now disused. The mines are now used for storage as they provide excellent security with cheap and efficient temperature and moisture control. Files and paper information for the state and private companies are kept there as are a variety of weird and wonderful things. We saw a vault with all of Paul Simon's tour equipment and record collection, piles and piles of original film material from warner brothers and disney and tonnes and tonnes of dried milk! Eric and Chris have decided to explore old mines across Scotland with 'money for old rope!' being the cry!

After being underground the group were then taken to the Beaverun a huge race track complex

The racetrack provides training as well as races and gokarting, Roger and Callum were in their element but frustratedly didn't get a shotty on anything!

home from home

after thousands of miles, many hours and a good night's sleep, we got a tour of New Castle. The most prominent building in the town, the 'cathedral',confusingly a 3000ish seat auditorium rather than a place of worship. In any case, it had a ather surprising name.

smelly scotsmen at the airport

some evidence of our chic travel-wear as we waited in Newark following our unscheduled emergency detour via Boston. they thought we had a fuel leak so we were chased down the runway by fire engines. needless to say, it was just a gauge problem.

Sunday 26 April

Our first day in the USA. Time to relax and get over the journey. We each spent the day with our hosts. Eric played golf and went a lovely shade of pink, Roger cycled 20 miles and went on a boat trip round a local lake. Chris toured the Amish country and ate loads. Callum toured New Castle and ate more than Chris. Jim was also taken on a tour....up to Conneaut Lake.

In the evening we met up at Art Towne's house for a cookout, and we started to learn a bit more about each other.....Linda Meikle thinks that Eric is an "absolute doll".....we were all fed and watered...... we kept being told that the weather was not usual for the time of year.....well into the 80's.

A great start to the trip with wonderful hospitality.

Eric the doll

Host Art Towne and his daughter

leaving and arriving

We left edinburgh with tears all round for the long trip to newark

The long trip across the atlantic was ok but we made an unscheduled stop in Boston as the plane had a problem with fuel. No panic at all though as we waited on the tarmac for 3 hours. The plane to take us Newark to Pittsburgh looked interesting but at that point we weren't that bothered!

hello from america!

Hi everyone, just a quick note to let you know that we've been having some problems accessing the internet and then when we did we had some problems accessing the actual blog website but I've finally managed to get on! It's also been a really busy start and we've had a full schedule as you'll see as we start to fill up the content in the coming days. We've had even less time together as a team to swap photos and blog story requests, but again that should start to come together more in the coming days.