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!