Castles and Cathedrals

On Saturday, after John’s rugby training, we all met in town and went out for lunch. This time, we tried one of the sister restaurants to the Glass House, called the Grill House. This one was supposed to be a bit more relaxed and good for kids. The food was supposed to be “Tex-Mex,” but in Scotland, that translates to haggis flautas, which just doesn’t seem to work. The kids ordered fusilli pasta and I went with a chicken burger. David surprised me by ordering the sweet potato and courgette curry, which was the healthiest thing on the menu by far. He offered to share with me, but I protested because of a strong dislike of zucchini, to which he said, “Oh, darn, that’s what they mean by courgette? I thought I was getting something meaty and fried!” To this, he added, “You know, I have been eating with abandon these last few days but haven’t gained an ounce.” I informed him that one should never, never utter that phrase around a woman. He merely shrugged.

Our lunch took an inordinate amount of time to arrive, so I spent a good deal of time at the table voting on Emma’s best drawing (out of 25+), digging through my purse for any wayward dusty pieces of gum I could find to distract John, and listening to David’s discussion of how, exactly, our waitress resembled a young Lucille Ball…but with pink hair. Finally, finally, our meals arrived (how does it take 50 minutes to prepare two plates of pasta in butter?), we ate, and headed out,vowing to cross that restaurant off our list! We then walked through town to the St. Andrews Cathedral, which stands between the town and the sea. Though it’s in ruins, one can still get a sense of how colossal it must have been-- the signs pointed out that it was once Scotland’s largest and most magnificent church, and featured drawings of what it looked like. While I walked through the ruins and read the signs, Emma and John played hide-and-seek among the tombstones. No one seemed to mind, however, so we let them proceed, and encouraged Emma to draw out her turn as long as possible since it was the only part of the afternoon in which John was quiet and still! We also climbed St. Rule’s Tower, which is part of an earlier cathedral building, and definitely not for the claustrophobic or faint of heart! To get in, one must pass through a revolving steel grate that’s no wider than my shoulders and resembles a round cattle chute. The chute leads to the stairs, which are even narrower and go straight up in an incredibly tiny spiral. I had to turn my purse sideways to keep it from scraping both sides of the walls at the same time. And since this was the way down from the tower as well, we had to scoot up quickly since we realized if we met another party coming down, one of us was going to have to turn around, which would be absolutely impossible. After a quick and breathless climb, we made it to the top, where we could see the entire town laid out below us on one side and the ocean on the other. It was quite stunning, and we took several great photos!

We headed back down the tower (a trip of which I thankfully have no memory—I just remember chanting “happy thoughts…happy thoughts” throughout) and walked outside the cathedral to one of the sea walls. This wall extends way out into the ocean and is about 30 feet above the water in spots, and though it affords spectacular views, it’s also incredibly dangerous. Like many other things in Scotland (which is not such a litigious society as the U.S., I assume...) there are no safety precautions on things like sea walls or rickety, medieval towers. David and the kids didn’t mind at all, and charged right out to the edge (John, in his ill-fitting rain boots, SKIPPED all the way!) while I turned my back and focused on not throwing up. To my surprise, all three made it back after a few minutes, flipping through the photographic evidence of the view on the digital camera (in which I noticed, at last, a guard rail at the very, very end of the wall!).

We then walked along the coastal path to the St. Andrews Castle, which is also in ruins, that was at one time the residence of the bishops and archbishops of St. Andrews and (like all castles in Scotland) the scene of a grisly, tortuous murder—this one of Cardinal Beaton. Since Emma is especially sensitive to stories like this, we have to make sure to brush over these as quickly as possible. To distract her from the signposts that recounted the beheading in great detail, I took the kids over to the galleys, where a plaque pointed out the various chutes that were used for the disposal of slop. This proved quite inspiring to John, and he spent the next few minutes running throughout the castle in search of other holes in the wall, calling out “Do you think they pooped HERE?...or maybe HERE?” Luckily, we were the only visitors left in the castle at the time, so we let him proceed. While I admired the height of the walls built along the beach and contemplated how they must have been able to build such an impressive castle with no modern machinery, John and David went in search of more evidence of medieval murder and mayhem. They found the mine, which was dug under the castle by an invading army in the 16^th century in the hopes of getting under the whole thing and blowing it up, and the counter-mine dug by the castle inhabitants to thwart the attack. Both the mine and the counter-mine have been left untouched, and of course one can crawl all the way through them—after passing a posted warning that says, “Enter here and you’re pretty much on your own…” I took one look down the tunnel, which made the tower stairs from the cathedral look positively cavernous, and announced that NO ONE was going down there. David and John did, of course, and John came out fifteen minutes later proclaiming that it was SO COOL, while David assured me that “the first part was really the worst. It got much less narrow after that…” Sure. After all, mines have a way of working like that.

At this point, the sun was going down (it WAS almost 4pm) so we walked back into town to retrieve our car. We did wisely make a detour to Fisher and Donaldson bakery on Church Street in search of a millionaire (a concoction of shortbread, caramel and chocolate highly recommended by my friend, world traveler and dessert connoisseur Monika Burczyk). We did find one, and three other desserts that were calling out to us as well. The bakery wrapped them all up for us and we took them home! And I can report that the millionaire is indeed to die-for, and makes for an easy way to replace all the calories burned from a quick climb up St. Rule’s Tower!

Mine's the one covered in chocolate, of course; Emma had the heart, of course; John got the frog, but just to be able to dissect it, of course; and David's is the biggest one...of course!

A Tour of the University

Yesterday morning, David and I sent the kids to school, then walked into town to take one of the official tours of St. Andrews. We were a few minutes late, but so was our tour guide, as she had just finished filming a BBC special about Prince William’s days in St. Andrews. There was one prospective student on the tour and her father, and the tour guide began by asking all of us (with a bit of a confused look on her face) if we were prospective students. That was especially generous of her given the frizziness of my hair, but I assured her that we had completed college over 20 years ago and would just be bringing some American students to the university to study. That seemed to put her at ease, and she commenced with the tour.

Overall, it was just a run-of-the-mill college tour that every institution of higher education in the States seems to give: here’s the library with its unfortunate 1960’s architecture, here are some residence halls, here are some academic buildings and here’s a tip about how to choose your classes. She talked (as all college tour guides do) about the traditions through with a student would find him or herself covered in shaving cream, and those through which a student would find him or herself diving into an icy body of water late at night. This body of water happened to be the North Sea rather than a manmade campus pond, but the gist was the same.

There was one twist to this tour, however: the tour guide showed us the spot (now marked in the cobblestones along North Street) where Patrick Hamilton, a former student at the University, was burned at the stake for heresy. She then explained, with a twinkle in her eye, that one would never see a student step on the cobblestones marked with PH because it “would bring you bad luck and cause you to fail your degree.” Supposedly, if a student haphazardly steps upon the PH, their subsequent bad luck can be overcome by jumping into the North Sea on the first of May. She then directed us to look up at the facing building, which is St. Salvator’s Chapel, to see a ghostly image that resembles a human face, which she said (with yet another twinkle in her eye), that the image is supposedly Patrick Hamilton himself looking down upon the site of his burning to make sure no student treads on it. It all made for quite a creepy addition to a college tour—and certainly one of the few college tours that includes a burning-at-the-stake tale!

She also demonstrated how one can determine the year in which a student is currently enrolled at the university by the way in which he or she wears the university-issued red gown with a burgundy collar. First-year students are supposed to wear the gown high on their shoulders and closed around their neck, as if to signify their discomfort with the whole college thing. Second years wear it lower across their shoulders, while third year students wear it off either their right or left shoulder, depending on whether they are in the school of arts or sciences. Fourth-year students, of course, wear it off the shoulders completely, as if to signify that they are almost out the door. Also, it is apparently bad luck to button the gown, or to wash it, meaning the takeaway message is not to get too close to a student wearing one! And it’s also apparently illegal for a student to be served alcohol while wearing the gown (a fact that can be filed under “nice try by the university administration…”).

After our tour, we walked across the street for lunch, and stopped into one of the many restaurants that offer a two-course lunch for £5.95. This restaurant, the Glass House, was located just across from St. Salvator’s, so we got a great view of the PH in the cobblestones as we ate (making me search the menu for anything that had not been grilled.) Our lunch was, as they say in Britain, “lovely.” David took the opportunity to try not only haggis for the first time, but black pudding as well. Haggis, for the uninitiated, is a mixture of sheep organs

(the lungs, liver and heart), chopped up and fried with onion, oats and spices, then stuffed into the sheep’s stomach to be boiled, while black pudding is cooked blood that is mixed with oatmeal, cooked then cooled so that the blood will congeal (is your mouth watering yet?) Both kind of resemble sausage. I did taste a bite of the haggis, and can report that it is indeed tasty, and quite peppery. I didn’t brave the black pudding, however!

By the way, the Guardian has just released a news article that says that the United States has now decided to lift the ban on haggis, which stemmed from the outbreak of mad-cow disease in Great Britain. A link to the article is below. Read up, and rest assured that you too can now start to look for haggis at your local grocer! Yeah!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/24/america-haggis-ban-lifted-burns

P. S. All of my Upstate New York friends will be happy to see what was waiting for us at the table at the Glass House:

Appliance Travails

John has caught his first Scottish cold. He was really dragging on Tuesday when he came off the bus, and after our trip to the beach, fell asleep during dinnertime. On Wednesday, he woke up with a wet cough and a runny nose, so David phoned the school to say he would be staying home. He made a miraculous recovery mid-day, however, and we didn’t need to make a trip to the doctor after all. I attribute his turnaround to the medicine I found for him at the grocery store—not because he took any, but because he can now read labels, and this one said, “Mentholated bronchial balsam of menthol, squill tincture, and liquorice liquid extract for chesty cough.” Neither of us knows what squill tincture is, but we now know that just the thought of ingesting it can work wonders against a troublesome cough!

Since John was home, both David and I worked from home as well, which is a nice luxury. Our

house in St. Andrews is lovely, and

we are all quite comfortable here. We’re in a new neighborhood just a bit out of town, and we have plenty of space both inside and out. We have four bedrooms and two and a half baths, a sizeable kitchen and family room, and a “sun trap”—a name which is mostly wishful thinking on their part. Our house does suffer from one thing, however: European-style appliances. The first problem with these appliances is their size. The refrigerator in our kitchen is incredibly small…exactly the same size as the refrigerators that are sold every fall in the United States for use in a dorm room, and are made to the exact specifications and dimensions of two cases of beer. In our case, however, this is supposed to hold enough food for a family of four.

Once we put in a carton of milk and a quantity of yogurt that will sustain John for two days, it’s pretty much full. This means that we need to ask ourselves at the grocery store, before purchasing anything, “Is this refrigerator worthy?” If not, we need to consider how sick we might become if we choose to purchase it but leave it out on the counter for a period of time before it’s consumed. So, bread is a definite yes, butter is a maybe, and (breaking with Scottish tradition) eggs are a definite no.

The washing machine is similarly wee. I have always admired the European approach to clothing, which is to own fewer clothes, and to embrace the art of accessorizing to disguise the fact that one is wearing the same thing every day. I now know that this approach is not born of a superior sense of fashion but out of necessity—one cannot wash more than 3-4 articles of clothing at a time here, and each load takes about 3-4 times longer than it does in the States. I have no idea why this is, since the machines themselves are about the same size as ours, and the clothes don’t come out any better as a result of the extra time that went into cleaning them.

The second problem is related to the electrical outlets in the UK. Aside from the different shape of the plugs, the outlets are different in that each of them has its own on-off switch. At first, I liked this, because it seemed much safer to me to turn off the outlet, plug something in, then turn it back on. However, this grew annoying after a few turns with the vacuum (plug in, walk across the room, switch on vacuum, think “What the heck is the matter with this…oh…”, walk back across the room to turn on the outlet, then back to the vacuum…) or waking up to an uncharged computer after a night of having it plugged in to an outlet that hasn’t been turned on. The woman who owns our house has helpfully labeled all the outlets as well, because even the refrigerator and freezer have an on/off switch. Thankfully, our kids are too old to be consumed with electrical outlets, because I would love to know how one would go about baby-proofing an on/off switch to a refrigerator!

The third problem is just our lack of understanding how to use the bloody things! Our “hob” is pretty straight-forward, and has four gas burners, which I love. Our “cooker” (an oven to you and me!) is not as nice, and though there are two of them, stacked one on top of the other, I can’t figure out how to use either one. Last night for dinner, I “assembled” a roast of beef and a package of veg I found at the store: carrot, potato (of course!), leek and swede. The recipe called for 20g of butter, 50g of flour and a liter of stock, so I kind of just guessed and threw it all together. I don’t think they sell canned or boxed stock or broth here (or at least I can’t find it if they do) but I did find these strange little packets at the grocery store which resemble the jelly that one finds stacked up at a breakfast restaurant, but that are packed with a quivery beef-stock-like substance. Apparently, if one dilutes them in a measure of water, one can fashion a beef-stock-like substance out of them. So I threw some of that in as well. The whole mess looked incredibly disgusting, so I stuck it in the “cooker” hoping that it would turn into something edible. Forty-five minutes later, I carefully opened the cooker door, and though the red light on the outside was illuminated and the fan was going inside, it was still stone cold. I checked the outlet, and that was thankfully on, so David came over and just started pressing buttons. After a moment, it seemed to get a bit warmer, so we went with it. Another forty-five minutes later, it was nice and roasty, though still incredibly disgusting. My plan tonight is to give in to the kids’ demands for tacos…and to use the gas hob this time!

Visiting Campus

This morning, David and I met with the International Studies office at St. Andrews to get our email addresses and network codes. Then we were shown around St. Andrews a bit, though we’ll take a proper tour on Thursday as if we were prospective students of the university (our guide today kept pointing out historically-significant buildings with a wave of her hand, saying “It’s historically significant. I can’t remember why right now, but be assured that it IS historically significant…”). She did show us the building along the sea that was currently the “principal’s” house (assuming that’s like a college president in the States), and said that while Prince William was at St. Andrews to study art, they had to move the WHOLE art department to the building because it was more easily secured. Fancy that!

David was also given his office in the Edgecliffe Building which is, as promised, a “small room on the top floor.” Edgecliffe is a beautiful building on the Scores, which is the street that runs parallel to the ocean. Every window in the building has a gorgeous view of the ocean…except David’s small room. If you stand in the very corner and lean to the right, then press your head to the glass, you can maybe just catch a tiniest sliver of a blue color that might be some part of the skyline above the ocean, but that’s about it. Instead, he mostly has a view of the grey stones of the building across from him. The stones are quite lovely, and I’m sure they are somehow historically significant as well, but they don’t really make for the best office view.

While we were being shown around various departments, I noticed that all the doors were closed. This is in stark contrast to the “open-door” vibe that most American colleges seem to want to portray. It made me a little nervous, frankly, to go into any of the offices, since one cannot be guaranteed what one will see on the other side…a private office, a classroom, a lab, or something else…And since St. Andrews is so old, many of the buildings are labeled in beautiful stonework, but are now used for something very different. So, the building labeled “Medical Sciences” is actually where students would go to have their ID cards made. It all makes for one confusing campus!

There are also a few instances where the British English used on signs around campus is a bit jarring. My friend Claire said that most Americans get a kick out of the road sign that encourages drivers to slow down with the warning: “Humps Ahead.” Many of the small alleys in the town are called “closes” or “wynds,” so I know that every American who visits St. Andrews has slyly taken a photo of the street sign off the Scores that marks “Butts Wynd.” And all of us enjoyed the directions to bus drivers at the leisure center to “drop off and lift up passengers here.” I suppose your bus fare of £2.40 includes an inspiring message from the driver?

An Introduction to Scottish Sport

Our weekend began and ended with “sport,” as it should in Scotland. On Saturday, we took John to the Rugby Club, which is right in front of the Old Course Hotel, and quite picturesque…though packed with people on a Saturday. John joined in training with the P3 team, and his coaches were great and quite patient with him as they explained the rules. He caught on quickly (though I still have no idea what’s going on…it just looks like an elaborate game of “Pickle” to me…see video below) and loved it, and wanted to play in the tournament the next day. So we signed him up, got a pair of stripey socks for him, and started to think about how we were going to redefine our weekends in Scotland around rugby matches.

After “training” we took a short road trip, to Crail and Anstruther, which are small fishing villages in a coastal area of Fife called East Neuk. Both are quite picturesque, and we took walks along the sea in both areas. In Crail, as we walked along the Coastal Path along the ocean, we saw very few other people. Imagine my surprise, then, when we came upon two boys, and they casually walked past us and said, “Hello, Emma.” After they passed, I asked how on Earth she knew two boys in a tiny fishing village on the coast of Scotland, but apparently they were in her class at Greyfriars. Still, it was quite jarring!

From there, we drove to Anstruther and had another meal from a “chippy”…this one, a place called the Anstruther Fish Bar, which has been voted repeatedly as the best chippy shop in the UK. Accordingly, there are often lines out the door, but since it's January and it was about 3:45 pm, we only waited for about 15 minutes. I can attest that it's well worth the wait, however, and David and I split the haddock, which was absolutely fantastic. We also tried mushy peas for the first time, and I can safely say that I just don’t get the appeal. They’re quite a bit like baby food, actually…just mushed up peas, served like mashed potatoes. If you ever have the chance to visit Anstruther, I highly recommend the Fish Bar, and suggest you take a pass on the peas!

On Sunday, we went to the rugby tournament and reminded ourselves that though we were cold, it was about 50 degrees F warmer here than it currently is at home in Hamilton! John had a ball during rugby, of course, and carried the ball a few times in each of the three games, though he has a way to go until he completely understands the rules and what he’s supposed to be doing. After rugby, we went to a leisure center in St. Andrews, which is sort of like a community center/gym, but has a huge, very warm pool with a big twisty slide and an Aqua Zone…like a big blow up obstacle course in the water. Though the kids had a blast, I think David and I enjoyed ourselves even more laughing at the kids who were slipping and bouncing around this thing. Leisure centers are common in Scotland, and there’s another, larger one in Dundee about fifteen minutes away, so it looks as if it will be another staple (along with rugby!) of our weekends in Scotland from now on!

First "Chippy"

Fridays at school are a bit of a special day for the kids. Their morning begins with tests of material they learned over the week, but in the afternoon they get to choose a special activity, many of which are taught by parents (not this one, mind you!). Emma wanted to sign up for baking, but when I snidely pointed out that most Scottish baking involved some kind of meat, she passed and chose art instead. John, of course, chose hockey. I told him that it was probably going to be some form of field hockey since there was no ice rink at school, but he wanted to proceed anyway. They both loved their activities in the end, and came home with lots of stories.

After school, we took John to the university, where he has signed up for a football league. He’s in a group of kids who are five to seven years old, so he’s one of the older ones, but definitely has some catching up to do. These Scottish kids are good! They were divided into two groups and John was in the older one. He managed to get in a few good plays, but I noticed that by the end, he was jumping in to play goalie as much as possible, since I’m sure he must have been exhausted from all the running around. I also noticed that he was one of the only ones wearing soccer socks and shin guards. I guess safety is kind of an American thing too!

Once football was over, all of us walked into town for dinner (partly because we didn’t have much at home, but mostly because we had found a two hour parking spot in town that was free, and certainly didn’t want to give it up!). We went to a “chippy,” which is what the Scots call a fish and chips place that offers take-away. Ours—the “Tailend” on Market Street—is pretty well-received, so there was a decent line forming at the takeaway counter when we got there. I was a little surprised since it was only a quarter after five, but since the sun goes down at 4:30 pm here I guess people are ready for dinner early. We were a bit overwhelmed by the menu, so decided to order in to the restaurant instead, which gave us a few more minutes to look at our options. We still ended up just making wild guesses…Emma declined my suggestion to try veggie haggis (?) and went for veggie spring rolls, which came with chips and fried. John chose one of the three kids’ meals offered (chicken, fish or sausage), and I was surprised when his sausage was served, because it had been battered and fried as well. Talk about gilding the lily! David chose the standard fish special, which was a huge piece of haddock, breaded and fried, and served with chips. I ordered the Arbroath smokie, which was supposed to be served with “streaky bacon,” though I had no idea what any of that meant. Turns out that they are small pieces of haddock, smoked and topped with smoked bacon (sometimes called “American-style” here since they don’t usually smoke pork in Europe). It’s a pretty good dish, albeit quite smoky tasting. They served all of the meals with the ubiquitous “brown sauce,” which I hadn’t yet tried. It’s slightly reminiscent of ketchup, though it has a malt vinegar taste and lots of tamarind mixed in, and it’s not bad…kind of reminds me of how fries taste on the Jersey boardwalk when coated in Old Bay and vinegar. The kids passed on it, but we both thought it was pretty good.

After dinner, we stopped at the library for kids' books on Mary Queen of Scots (for us, not the kids, since we both need a bit of a refresher before setting out to see all these castles) and popped in at the Tesco (taking advantage of those last few minutes of free parking) to pick out some Scottish junk food to try (not hard to do, since the groceries stores are mostly stocked with junk food here!). David and I were also going to try some cider, but while we were trying to choose which one, John got impatient and started marching through the aisles singing “I am an American!” so we had to make a hasty exit before too many of our fellow shoppers gave him the stink-eye. In the end the kids picked Orangina and Irn Bru, David picked ice cream (the first carton we bought at Morrison’s said “vanilla-flavoured frozen product” and tasted just as bad!), and I got some incredibly-milky Cadbury chocolate biscuits. We took our loot home and spent the rest of the evening watching the kids’ favorite series…the BBC production that puts an English voice to animal video called “Walk on the Wildside”. Pretty funny…check it out if you haven’t yet seen it:

http://www.wimp.com/animalvoiceovers/

One Week Down; 21 to Go!

We have been in Scotland for one week now, and in some ways we feel like pros. I no longer have to remind myself to look “right,left,right” before I cross the street. I say “hiya” to people I pass on the Lade Braes path on the way into town, and can easily convert pounds to dollars and kilos to pounds. I even met up with a friend last night for a Zumba class and was able to understand most of what the instructor was saying. There was one point in the class where she said, just after the warmup, that everyone should feel free to take off their jumpers, and I did have to look around quickly to see what item of clothing we were supposed to remove. Thankfully, a jumper is a jacket! Zumba in Scotland is pretty much the same thing as Zumba in the U.S. (they even do the Charleston!), although I did notice that the phrase “booty shake” doesn’t really work as well when shouted in a British accent.

The whole family is starting to settle into a good morning routine, after only a week. Since the sun doesn’t come up here until about 8:30 in the morning, we’re all a little slow to get up and out of bed. The kids wake up about 7:30 and have breakfast (yougurt for John, bread and Nutella for Emma, and pieces of fruit for both), then spend about 20 minutes trying to tie their uniform ties. We leave for the bus stop about 8:20 each morning, and we’re now pretty good at timing our arrival with the arrival of the Greyfriars bus. One could set a watch by the buses here, and by the movement of the kids in the neighborhood toward school. Most of the kids headed in our direction are aiming for the 8:28 am bus to Madras College, which is the St. Andrews secondary school, though we do see a few of the littler ones darting in and out of various hedges on the way to the other primary school in town, called Lawhead. The bus to Greyfriars comes at 8:30 on the dot, and it’s usually a small, squat bus, but every once in a while, a double-decker bus comes in its place. Emma and John said that the driver won’t let the kids go up to the second level, though, which is kind of a bummer. We are all looking forward to the first opportunity to whip around one of those roundabouts from the second story of a bus, but I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to Edinburgh on a weekend trip!

The kids tell me that their bus arrives at school about ten minutes early every day, so they have a pre-school recess each morning, in which John plays soccer and Emma stands around in a big group of girls who are all texting each other ( a global phenomenon, apparently). At nine, they go into their classrooms and begin their lessons. Emma’s class is doing a bit about Robert Burns, as many people in Scotland celebrate the national poet’s birthday on January 25^th with a Burns Supper, and they are all participating in a special program on Scottish opera. John’s class is reading a novel about a ‘fat bag,’ which he says is a vacuum cleaner. Something about that seems to have been lost in translation…However, I am learning quite a bit about Scottish culture through them. Emma, for example, patiently explained to me the difference between a pence and a shilling last night. And John corrects me each time I use the word “soccer” instead of “football,” and has already adopted the correct pronunciation of Edinburgh: “Edn-bruh.”

They both seem to be getting along well with the other kids at school. Emma has made fast friends with a group of girls, and comes home every day with more tales about an English boy named Charlie who is routinely naughty. She says the girls complement her about her “mega-cool” water bottle and her blond hair. John has already been elected the de facto captain of the “football” team after he scored a quick goal during his first recess. He likes a boy named David and another named Liam, and also talks about a kid from America named Everett. He said one boy, upon learning that he wasn’t Scottish, asked him if “they have igloos in Japan.” John said, “I’m not from Japan, but no…they don’t.” Apparently, the kid nodded, satisfied with John’s answer. So, I thought they were getting along well with everyone, but when John got off the bus yesterday, he walked over to a small pile of hardened ice, left over from the snow that fell in Scotland around Christmas Day, broke off a big piece and started to kick it home. “You must be practicing for soccer, huh?” I asked. He said no…he was just pretending it was the head of a little girl in his class who is from Nigeria. When I asked why he didn’t like her, he just shrugged and said, “She asks me too many questions…” I guess I’ll have to get to the bottom of that one at some point!

Both the kids say they can understand most of their classmates most of the time. Emma thinks it’s incredibly cute that the really little girls in P1 have a Scottish accent, and when she asks them a question they can’t understand, they all say “pardon?” in tiny little Scottish voices. She said that one of her friends imitated her American accent yesterday, but that it just came out as very flat and drawly. I think that both of them are more confused by some of the vocabulary, rather than the accent: “holiday” means vacation, "trousers" means pants (and "pants" mean underwear...so that's really one to watch!) and “hob” means stove. I agree with them that it’s difficult to get used to , and still think it’s ironic that while we say “math,” they say “maths,” and yet our “sports” is their “sport.” And I would love to ask a native Scot why they pronounce a word like “river” as “riva,” and yet call someone named Lola “Loler” Seems to me that they could easily just switch that around. But, it’s probably best if I just hold my American tongue on that one!

Learning to drive and shop in Scotland

Yesterday, I took the plunge and drove for the first time in our rental car! It was just a quick trip to the grocery store, but I’m happy to report that it was uneventful, and no one was hurt in the process. I managed to pass successfully through two roundabouts on the way, too, though I’m still not completely confident that I understand the rules of the road that apply to them. Officially, I think one is supposed to yield to any driver coming from the right, but my approach so far has been to drive up to the roundabout slowly until I’m sure no one is coming in any direction, then cross my fingers and just shoot straight across! The strangest part is not actually driving, but getting used to the way a car is set up to be driven from someone sitting on the right side. The rear view mirror, pointed to the right, mostly affords a view of the back seat, and the wipers and “indicators” are all switched, which means that instead of signaling, I’m accidentally cleaning the windshield all the time. The shifter is on the left as well, meaning that I have to use my left hand to move into forward or reverse. This part especially drives me nuts and takes some getting used to, though I’m sure it is much appreciated by all of those Scots I see on the road who can freely hold their cigarette in their right hand as a result!

The concentration that driving on the left hand side of the road requires of us made us both a bit curious about why the British drive on this side, anyway, and why Americans (and others) drive on the right. Turns out that, like many things, it comes down to one man: Napoleon. Centuries ago, when travelers were moving along the road on foot or horseback, they usually stayed to the left, in order to keep their sword-clutching hand (usually the right, for most people) toward the center of the road in order to ward off any potential attacks. When Napoleon came along (he’s a 19^th century French emperor, for those of you who slept through high school history class, and historically considered to have been left-handed), he trained his armies to carry their swords in the left hand, and therefore led them into battle on the right-hand side of the road. Once the colonies were established and Americans developed a deep desire to jettison anything British, we went with the French custom of driving on the right! Either that, or Americans just don’t want to lean all the way across the car for their takeout food from the drive-thru window at McDonalds!

I made another breakthrough yesterday too: I finally deciphered the phrase that all Scottish grocery-store clerks utter as a customer arrives at the cash register to pay for groceries. Now, I have been to Morrison’s, the grocery store down the street, about four times so far, and each time have had no idea what the woman behind the register has asked me. I figured out that it was a five-syllable phrase early on, but that was about as far as I got. I decided that the safe bet was to answer “no” each time, since it would be best for her to begin with low expectations of me and then to raise them if I changed the answer to whatever she was asking to a “yes,” than the other way around. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. The oft-repeated phrase is: “Hiya…self-bag then?” Repeat that a few times, in a Scottish accent of course, and you can understand how completely indecipherable the phrase can be! Now that I know what they are saying, of course, I’m a bit embarrassed about being known as the idiot American woman who asks the cashier to bag her groceries for her, then sets about doing it herself. Oh, well…

Finally, I think I am also getting the hang of grocery shopping in this country. It can be quite confusing, since all the products are either a different brand (no Tide or Bounty here…Scotland has “Thirsty Pockets” paper towels and “Fairy” brand dish detergent, both of which come in only two sizes: small and truly wee) or unfamiliar altogether (such as Marmite Yeast Extract, billed as “a tasty savoury sandwich spread.” Yech…). There’s certainly no ranch dressing here, and definitely no “English” muffins. The vegetable aisle consists mainly of weensy bags of lettuce and big bulbs of something called “swede” which looks a bit like a rutabaga (for anyone who actually knows what a rutabaga looks like), so imagine my surprise as I looked across the aisles to see what was housed in each and saw a big sign over aisle 9 that read “Squash.” Turns out, that’s juice here, or more precisely “juice product”…whatever that means. I have learned that it’s key to read labels while shopping, if you dare. I noticed today that the can of Diet Coke I was drinking said “sparkling low calorie soft drink with vegetable extracts with sweeteners.” I must say that I had no idea that Diet Coke included vegetable extracts, but I sure do feel a little less guilty about drinking it now. I have not, however, been brave enough yet to read the label on a package of haggis!

Overall, we have found that the groceries are pretty good. The fruit is actually much better than it is in the U.S…and much cheaper! I bought a bag of oranges for 90 pence (about $1.50) that are delicious, and there are also fresh apricots “on offer” that are amazing. The yogurt is terrific, though it always is in Europe, and the marmalade comes in every flavor imaginable…black currant, Seville orange, even lemon. No grape jelly here, thank goodness. The bread is also great…super crusty on the outside and soft inside, and just begging for a big smear of Nutella! They may not have English muffins, but they sell Irish pancakes and crumpets instead, which are much better. And the scones! Emma and I both had tears in our eyes the first time we bit into one! There are some other quirks too: eggs aren’t usually refrigerated and tea comes in two strengths: super-strong and insta-perm. The food is generally a bit sweeter than it is in the States, and whole grain anything is hard to find, unless it’s labeled “digestive,” which is a synonym for gut-wrenching.

Also, the food marketed at kids here is downright shameful: fruit jellies and “aerated chocolates” are swathed in colorful packages and displayed at knee-level on every aisle. And since the refrigerators in Scotland are the size of a dishwasher, Scottish kids have almost a daily opportunity to beg their mums for junk food! Emma and John have come home from school each day with little information about what they are actually doing in class, but lots to say about the various types of junk food that their new friends have been generous enough to share with them during “school dinner.” Yesterday, John came home and said that he and his seven friends (?) had a contest at dinner to see who could hold the super-sour sweet gumballs in their mouth the longest without spitting. I’ll give you one guess who won…

Kids in Uniforms...a Wonderful Thing!

Emma and John in our kitchen, fresh off the bus and sharing a Mars bar! Doesn't get more Scottish than that!

School's Out

So, I was successful in meeting the kids off the bus in the afternoon, and they had lots of good stories to tell. Emma is in P7 which is the oldest class in the school, and therefore she gets to be a “prefect.” It sounds quite honorable in its Harry Potterishness, but it sounds like it actually means that she gets to do some of the things around the school that the teachers don’t really want to do, like monitor the little kids during recess and collect money for the tuck shop. She drew the latter for her daily duty, so she and a girl named Maddy got to collect all the pence today in exchange for a “biscuit” apiece. (So much for a healthy tuck…biscuits are cookies!). I asked her how she was able to count up all the money when it’s unfamiliar to all of us (and it’s not just English notes…the Bank of Scotland has its own money, so there’s twice as much to learn), but she just shrugged. I guess that Greyfriars isn’t too concerned about balancing the till at the end of the day!

Emma said that overall school was pretty good, and she made several friends (this was demonstrated when she came home and promptly began to email all of them!) She said her class is reading a book about Mount Everest which, thankfully, wasn’t “gruesome.” She said she was able to understand most of the kids pretty well, though one boy apparently asked her a question while bending over his paper and kind of muttering, so she just answered “Yeah…I guess so” without having any idea about what he was saying. Another boy, named Micah, was easier to understand, and apparently they became friends when they discovered that they were both vegetarians. Emma said he told her he became “a prop –ah vegetarian after havin’ a look at a docu-ment-ry abou’ sloh-er-houses.”

However, it does seem like she is going to have a bit of a problem with “maths” at Greyfriars. P7 is the equivalent of sixth grade, and at home Emma is only in fifth, which means they have only started long division this year. In Scotland, it seems like they have been doing it for a while, and they are now doing division with decimals and fractions. The Scottish kids have apparently had lots of practice at it, and are therefore much quicker at it than Emma. The teacher noticed this, and assured Emma that she would either give her some extra help to make sure she catches up, or find some less-intense “American-style” (yes, that’s a real quote!) maths for her to do. Ouch…

Predictably, John didn’t have as much to say about what happened in the class, other than the fact that he made seven friends and played football (and this he said with air quotes. He mostly talked about the lunch, or the “two course school dinner,” as they call it. Sounds fancy, but it’s actually just the same as what most American cafeterias serve: cheese pizza and ice cream. John thoroughly approved of the ice cream, which he said was served with a “kind of a cake crust.” Shortbread, maybe? He did say that one of the boys in the class asked him if he “carried American football,” and though John didn’t know what the little boy meant, he said “yes” anyway. I don’t think John appreciated his query, because it didn’t seem as if this lad was counted among the seven friends! I did gather that the class is divided into different groups according to reading level, and John was put in the second highest level, which is nice because he will be bringing home some challenging books. The downside, though, is that he brought home a killer list of spelling words as a result (including things like “September” and “October” and “hairbrush” (?)) that he has to memorize by Friday. That should make for some pleasant post-dinner homework sessions around the kitchen table in the days to come!

So, the kids might have enjoyed their day at school, but overall I feel like the real winner for one reason: uniforms! Not only do they eliminate the before-school argument about what to wear, what not to wear, what’s too dirty to wear, etc…, but they also cut down greatly on the laundry. Once the kids got home, I had them take off their uniforms right away and hang them up, and they will be ready to go again in the morning!

First Day of church and school...

Yesterday, we ventured out to attend a church service recommended by the previous director of the Colgate St. Andrews group. The service was at Holy Trinity Parish Church, in the middle of town. The building itself was built around 1144 (and you can tell by the state of the bathrooms, in which—and I'm not kidding here— you pull a chain to flush the toilet.) We skipped the traditional service and went instead to a later service, geared towards students (both in its nondenominational focus, and its noon start time...). It was very nice, and we met a few families that seemed very welcoming. And I was quite proud of myself when I didn't do a double-take as one of the fathers walked in the door in a kilt, sporrin, and ghillie brogues. Emma and John went to the children’s service, taught by the pastor of the church, and Emma was thrilled that the pastor’s son was the naughtiest kid in the class. (“He kept putting his feet up on the back of the pew and saying ‘I’m boooored!” she said). There were several Americans there, and it was nice to be able to understand someone for a change, though most people at the university don’t have much of an accent (even those who are Ska-ish…though they do call the university ‘sent-AHN-druus’ rather than my “Say-nt-ANN-droows”).

After church, we hung around town for some lunch, but the pubs were full of football fans...and not the right kind of football either. So, in addition to being reminded about all the great American football playoff games that we were going to miss, we had nowhere to eat! We checked out a chippy shop (and noticed that one of the “mains” on the menu was— again, not kidding here—“mushy peas.”) but ended up at a Pizza Express, which is apparently a pretty common British chain, and not as terrible as the name implies. The kids split a marguerite pizza, and David and I ordered one topped with artichokes, rocket (British for arugula, I think), pancetta and Roquefort cheese. Pretty good…

In the afternoon, we took the kids to the ruins of the St. Andrews Castle, but the wind blowing in off the North Sea was pretty wicked, so I wimped out and waited in the car. The above photo is, then, completely courtesy of David’s bravery (though his coat was thicker than mine, so maybe he’s not that brave!). Though it was sunny and about 50 degrees, the wind made it pretty miserable, so we all wimped out after about 20 minutes, went home, and watched about two hours of “Come Dine With Me.” For those unfamiliar with this show, I demand that you go to your telly immediately and look for it on BBC America. Aside from Ricky Gervais, it’s one of the best things to come from British TV in…well, quite some time! We have actually initiated our own “Come Dine With Me” contest in our house, and I prepared my meal last night (roast British chicken with parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes, and rice pudding with sultanas for dessert.) Emma’s turn comes on Monday…

This morning, the kids started school. I woke them up at 7, giving all of us plenty of time to figure out how to tie those ties. We got them dressed, cooked up some porridge, which they both refused to eat, and counted out three pound thirty for their “two-course school dinner.” Once they were dressed (and looking exceptionally fantastic, I might add…) we headed off to the bus stop, with bus passes in hand (there’s no free ride to school in Europe…the passes for a semester for both kids will set us back almost $200!). We got there a bit early and the stop was chock-full of high schoolers, all dressed in uniform but still “expressing their personality” with various piercings and that crazy hair-parted-in-the-back-across-the-ears-and-combed-forward-look. A bit intimidating! Their bus came after a minute (a double-decker of course) and they all squished on, forming one big mass of crested blazers, Doc Martens, and windswept hair, and leaving the three of us standing alone at the curb. At this point, John looked up at me and said, “Mom, can’t we just be drived in to school?” I can’t blame him, but I wasn’t backing down—I desperately wanted to have faith in the Scottish public transportation system (plus, those bus passes were definitely non-refundable!) and said no, we’ll just wait a moment.

And, sure enough, after another moment, a second bus came along. This one was also a mass of blazers and windswept hair, but the kids were wearing Skechers instead of Doc Martens, and they were all much, much smaller. So I took a big breath and stepped on the bus, pulling Emma and John in with me. I was just about to ask if he was going to Greyfriars when the back row of girls all shouted, “Emma! Emma! Come sit with us! Emma!” I was so relieved that I waved to them, then turned back to the bus driver and said, “Great, thanks, these kids are going to their first day of school at Greyfriars and we have just arrived from the States so they have never…” but stopped when I realized that he had no idea what I was saying. So, I just backed off the bus and let Emma lead John to an empty seat towards her new friends. The bus pulled away, just as I realized that I hadn’t given Emma a cell phone or told her to get off on the Bogward Gardens bus stop after school, or even written her address in her backpack somewhere. Oops…

A Saturday in Scotland is...

Saturday was, finally, a bit more successful for us, and even a bit of fun. We planned to begin the day by taking John to rugby practice, but I couldn’t get on email to check the location of the park, so we skipped it. (Also, it was pouring rain, but I know better than to use inclement weather as an excuse to beg off of a kid’s sports practice!) Instead, we headed into town. Emma has signed up for a children’s theater program at the Byre Theatre in St. Andrews, so I took her there at noon. David and John waited outside (Emma had pronounced the act of being accompanied into the theatre by a mother, father AND little brother as “mortifying”) and I took her in, acting as if it was completely normal to drop off a child with complete strangers in a foreign country and hoping that no one would try to engage me in conversation. The theatre was quite nice, though, so I left her there under the guardianship of a pixie-ish theatre director and a bunch of little girls, all of whom seemed to be named “Lotta.” I met the boys back on the street, and we took the next ninety minutes to explore the town.

St. Andrews is a ridiculously gorgeous town, picture-perfect in its medieval-ish-ness. It’s made up of three streets: North Street, Market Street (cobblestoned, of course), and South Street. All three are lined with achingly-charming cafes, restaurants and pubs. There are a few smaller streets that run perpendicular to these, all of which are called “closes” or “wynds”…in keeping with the Scottish tradition of substituting one word for a completely dissimilar one that means something entirely different. Both ends of the town are marked with a medieval arch, called ports, which were built in the 16^th century. (This is especially impressive to me, since I’m from the Midwest, where most ROCKS aren’t that old…) The University doesn’t really have a campus, so academic buildings are interspersed around the town, between the stunning Holy Trinity Church and Blackfriars Chapel. There are plenty of gift shops (many that sell all kinds of golf paraphernalia, of course!), clothing stores and bakeries as well, and (since it’s a college town, after all) lots of places for “take-away.” After walking a bit, the three of us stopped into a “chippy” shop (chippy shop means fish and chips, where “chips” means French fries…not potato chips…which are “crisps”…) for lunch, but the woman behind the counter made some guttural noises and pointed to her empty display cases, which we took as a signal that either her electricity was out or that the North Sea was now out of fish. So, we moved across the street to a kebab place. David and I shared one gargantuan doner kebab (assuming “doner” is lamb, but if it isn’t, please don’t correct me…in the land of haggis and blood pudding, it’s best to assume that all meat is “lamb.”) and John tucked into yet another cheese pizza. After lunch, we stopped into a bakery and shared one of their famous fudge donuts. The boys loved it, but I thought it was only OK, since I had assumed that fudge meant chocolate. It doesn’t.

After collecting Emma from the theatre, we went back to the car, and headed towards Dundee to shop for school uniforms. Along the way, Emma told us that the theatre was fine, but that the day’s assignment had been to come up with a creative way to greet each other, aside from the customarily-Scottish “hiya.” The director had suggested to Emma that she greet her peers the way all Americans greet each other: with a tip of the hat and a “howdy pardner.” Emma was nonplussed. (“First of all, I’m not Western,” she said, “and I definitely don’t wear hats!”) After twenty minutes, we crossed the bridge over the Firth of Tay and arrived in Dundee. We must have taken the wrong exit off a roundabout as we came into town, because we spent the next half-hour getting more and more lost. Since it was Saturday—and raining—it seemed as if every other resident of the “Kingdom of Fife” chose to go shopping as well, so the streets were packed with cars. We finally found our way (after driving right through a packed pedestrian-only road…with me cowering behind the map!), managed to SQUEEZE through an incredibly narrow parking garage, and park the car. By that time, David and I were both sweating profusely, John was asleep in the back, and Emma was still talking about the theatre program (“I told her all Americans greet each other by saying, “s’up?”).

It turns out that a Scottish mall is pretty much the same as an American one…mostly cell phone stores and coffee shops that are furnished to look like an urban sidewalk café. We initiated ourselves by going to a Primark, which is supposed to be the “British Target.” They didn’t sell school uniforms, however—the boys department was instead filled with button-downs with leather skinny-ties sewn into the necks! –so a saleswoman pointed us toward Debenham’s (“British Macy’s”). There, we found a uniform department, where one can buy grey trousers and white collared blouses in a two-pack for 6 pounds. The kids tried them on, and I must say that the uniforms do make them look quite professional—though extremely flammable as well. We then went in search of a “gym kit” (navy shorts and white tshirt) and a desperately-needed GPS unit, found both, and left the mall. With the GPS, we made it home in no time, without getting lost, and made dinner—another cheese pizza for the kids (despite my fear that one of them may come down with scurvy) and big glasses of wine for us!

Trying Again

We started with a meager breakfast again (John refused dry toast by saying “I don’t like it. It makes me feel poor…”) and high hopes that we would finally be able to get things done this time. After yet another unreturned phone call to the rental company, an unsuccessful call to the phone company, and an unreturned phone call to the headmistress of Greyfriars (the kids’ school), I kind of lost my patience and called a cab. Ten minutes later, a Scottish bloke picked me up, and after I told him I wanted to go to the other post office in town, then to Greyfriars, he started talking to me about what I assume was the weather, but I was truly astonished that this person was speaking the same language as me. I could not understand a single word…couldn’t pick out one identifiable noun or verb to save my life. I just nodded, “uh-huh”ed and giggled my way through the five minute ride, hoping he didn’t think I was a complete idiot. Ironically, when I did say something, he couldn’t understand me either, and had to ask “wassa?” each time.

Though I didn’t have an appointment, I “popped in round the school to have a go” of seeing the headmistress, but had no luck, so walked back to town for as big a bag of groceries as I could carry from the Tesco for the 20 minute walk home. When I got home…hallelujah, Enterprise was finally there (new slogan: We’ll pick you up, but probably not today. Perhaps tomorrow?) and we got our car…a lovely black Vauxhall Astra with leather seats and all the BBC radio stations one could want. So we were off and driving! David was the brave one, and got behind the wheel first, while I navigated our way back to the house. Neither of us quite understand the roundabouts yet, especially the really small ones that are just a small white hump in the middle of an intersection, but we made it home nonetheless. The hardest thing about driving on the left from the right hand side of the car (according to David…I still haven’t tried it) is judging distances between your car and the cars parked on the left. He did an excellent job, though, only hitting one of them on the way home and causing no damage. The crunch of the sideview mirrors hitting each other did get the kids to stop fighting in the back seat at last, though!

Once we had the car, everything else started to fall into place. We went back to Greyfriars and met Mrs. Nash, the headmistress, who took us around on a tour of the school. We were a little bit surprised that she interrupted every class, even those in the levels above and below our kids, to introduce Emma and John and tell them that we were American, and all the kids came right up to us and started telling us their names, and some of them said they were from other countries as well. (Greyfriars is one of three primary schools in St. Andrews, and we chose it because it has a good number of international students…there is even one other American, who will be in John’s class.) Two little girls in John’s class (P3) gave him a yellow rose, and he of course was mortified and buried his head in our legs for the rest of the tour. Emma rose to the challenge, though, and smiled through the whole thing, even when we met her class (P7), which was made up mostly of girls who were taller than I am and were (I think) a little intimidating. After the tour (which included the “tuck shop” for a healthy “tuck” every morning for only 20 pence!) we went back to the headmistress’ office for some information on the uniforms and bus passes, and then she sent us off in the direction of the bus station. Since I have noticed that people responsible for any form of transportation around here have the worst accents, I was a little apprehensive, but David managed to affect a clipped accent and converse with the people at the station well enough to figure out where and when the kids had a decent chance of catching a bus in the mornings that might end up somewhere in the vicinity of the school. We paid for our passes and left, though I think the chances are quite low that we will manage to use public transport to get the kids to Greyfriars on Monday. We’ll see…

Then we went back to town to check email at the library (no luck), buy uniforms (found only one sweatshirt in stock, but did find two ties…) and fix David’s cellphone (again, no luck). We also gave in and bought a wireless “top up” modem, since ours won’t arrive from the post office until Monday (or so they say…) and we can’t get along much longer without being in email contact with people here—especially since I am unable to have conversations with most of them! Finally, we headed home for some dinner and and yet another early evening!

Rough Landing!

We’re here, and all in one piece. Our flight from Syracuse to Newark was uneventful, and the flight from Newark to Edinburgh started that way as well. John fell asleep as soon as the wheels of the plane retracted, and Emma settled in to the in-flight entertainment center, equipped with plenty of episodes of Good Luck Charlie. David and I watched movies, and thoroughly enjoyed the first three hours. The sleeping part, however, was not so enjoyable. Emma and I tried to prop ourselves up on each other, but her habit of throwing elbows made for fitful sleep at best. We left Newark at 7pm New York time, and at about midnight, the flight crew threw on the lights and started distributing croissants, in the hopes of fooling us into thinking we had just passed through the night and were now ready for the morning. Uh, nope… The pilot put up the “Fasten Seatbelts” sign and said it was going to be a bit of a bumpy landing. Though the plane landed smoothly, he was right—at least for us!

We landed at 7:30 am Edinburgh time and passed through the border with no issues. Our driver was a bit late, and much to David’s horror, showed up wearing a Red Sox cap! We followed the driver out to the parking lot, looking both left and right a few times before crossing any road, then climbed into his van and tried not to make a big deal out of how strange it was to see him sit behind the wheel on the right hand side of the car. I had hoped to use the ride as a chance to observe some of the rules of the road before we tried driving ourselves, but the height of the seat back in front of me, and the fact that it was as dark outside as the circles under my eyes, meant that I couldn’t see much. Instead, I listened to David talking to the driver, amazed that he could converse—though I did understand them when they started talking about American football and the driver said he was a fan of the Miami Dolphins as he couldn’t follow the Patriots since they had the word “England” in their name!

After an hour’s drive in which we passed through some ridiculously grey little villages, we got to the house. George, the father of the owner, was here to greet us. I’m sure that he’s a very nice man and had lots of wonderful and welcoming things to say to us, but truthfully I couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying. He showed us around the house a bit, and the kids disappeared right away to put “dibs” on their bedrooms. David and I carried in the luggage, then George pointed out that it was “tea time” (I think…) and offered to drive one of us to the grocery store. I chose to go, and left David home to make beds for the kids.

I got some money out of the ATM machine and headed into Morrison’s with George. While he engaged in some indecipherable conversation with some of the other shoppers, I raced through the store, trying to find a few staples that would get us through the night. I found some Jamie Oliver-brand tortelloni, which looked delicious, a teensy bag of lettuce, some apples, and a small jug of milk. George caught up with me as I was searching for peanut butter, and when I asked him about it, he said, “Well, I have never heard of such a thing.” He asked the clerk, who thought for a minute, then said that, yes, they did stock pea-nut-butta and took me to the bottom end of an aisle where I found three dusty jars under a hefty display of Nutella. I asked them both what kids in Scotland ate, and they both stared at me blankly. Apparently not peanut butter.

George took me back to the house, where David and the kids had opened every suitcase in search of comfy clothes and a toothbrush. George left us after a few parting directions about the “telly” and a warning about how slick the “pavements” would be in the morning, and the four of us went directly to bed. Emma protested, but fell asleep mid-sentence about how she wasn’t tired at…

So, all in all, it has been a bit of a bumpy landing for us. The time change, the darkness, the accents (Oh, my gosh…the accents!!! What am I going to do?) all make us feel as if we have landed in a time warp rather than just on another continent. We’re all hoping that things will stop shaking tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and a breakfast of apples and peanut butter!

Part Two of Rough Landing

We’re still having trouble getting on to our home internet, so we haven’t been online yet. But Day Two was a bit more successful for us, and a bit less bumpy. We all slept in again in the morning—still adjusting to GMT here—and after breakfast, headed into the town of St. Andrews. Our house is in a new neighborhood about a mile outside the town, but very close to a path called the Lade Braes, which is a gorgeous footpath that goes along a creek and through town. It was a bit icy this morning, so we slipped down the path toward town, which took about fifteen minutes. We went right to the post office, which is in the back of a W.H. Smith shop (a bit strange), in search of our wireless modem. It, of course, was not there, so we headed to the public library instead. We signed up for library cards, checked out a few books, and sent a quick “all clear” email while the kids were weeping from hunger. We stopped for a sandwich and “crisps” for them, popped into the Boots pharmacy (awesome!) then “topped up” our borrowed cell phones. Though the town was fabulous and we wanted to stay, we headed home after only an hour because the car rental company was going to meet us to take us to their office…which of course they did not in the end. So we spent a second evening at home, with no groceries, no phone, no car, no toilet paper (!) and no internet. The kids are starting to refer to this trip so far as “Survivor: Scotland” and I kind of agree with them!

Packed and ready to go!

Bags are packed (only seven somehow!), kids are hyped, and we're exhausted. No turning back now...

Car arrives at 9:30 am tomorrow, and we fly out of Syracuse at 1:00 pm. After a long layover at Newark, we're off to Edinburgh, arriving at 7:00 am. After collecting our luggage, we'll meet another car to take us to the house in St. Andrews, and our Scotland adventure will begin!