Arrival!

We arrived about 24 hours ago, after a relatively successful overnight flight from Newark. We decided to bring Leah’s car seat on to the plane, and though that created a bit of a headache going through security and an extra thing to carry through the airports, it was well worth it in the end. Leah watched two Mickey Mouse shows on the in-flight entertainment screen in front of her seat, ate an airline cracker, kicked the seat back in front of her about 25 times, and then turned her head to the side and went to sleep. John and Emma were awake through much of the flight, though they did try to sleep at some point, as did David and I…unsuccessfully. Leah woke up when they turned on the cabin lights about an hour away from Edinburgh, and she was fairly unhappy at the situation, but it was tolerable. We landed and passed through customs very quickly (having a toddler with very tousled hair and a furrowed brow in your party must be akin, for a customs agent, to having someone clutching their stomach and asking for the nearest bathroom) and went off to collect our obscenely robust set of luggage.

I have been harping on everyone in the family to pack light, pack LIGHT this time around as I know we just brought way too much stuff the last time we were here. Since we are now a family of five, I wanted to make sure we had a different approach. I think I was moderately successful as we managed to stuff everything into four suitcases, three duffels, two carry-on rolling bags, and a partridge….just kidding…five backpacks. Add the stroller and the car seat, and it is substantial but manageable somehow. Also, since John and Emma are older, they are quite helpful in managing their own stuff and more, and John actually loaded his backpack with dolls and blankets for Leah’s use during the plane trip. Emma was able to help David drag most of the luggage through the airport while I managed the stroller and the grumpy toddler.

In any case, we landed and fortified ourselves with some Costa coffee, water bottles and rolls. (John on his bacon roll: “wait, so, a bacon roll is just a huge piece of bacon on a bun? I’m liking this country already…”) Our cell phones had been disconnected before we left, so I sent an email to the folks with whom I had rented a car to tell them we had arrived. We started to chat to the family next to us, who said they were arriving from Charleston, SC, to start a three year stint in Edinburgh with the Free Church of Scotland. They told us that Alabama had won the college football championship game, and we gave them some travel suggestions based on our last trip in 2011. I tried not to comment on how little luggage they had with them for a three year visit, assuming and hoping that they had involved a moving company for most of it.

After a bit of waiting, I managed to track down Allan, the driver from the car rental company. He proudly showed me that he had brought a kind of a minivan with him to pick us up because he assumed we would have a lot of luggage. When I returned with four extra people pushing three loaded luggage carts, he paled. He asked me quickly if I knew that the car we were renting was much smaller, and I assured him that it would be no problem. I should note here that David has an extraordinary ability to pack a car to the absolute gills, and I have never seen him not be able to take something because it won’t fit. This comes, I think, partly from optimism, partly from confidence, and partly from his love of shoes and the heartbreak that would come with having to leave a pair behind. I knew that we would fit, despite the warnings of the sputtering Scot.

So, off we went to the car dealership. It was a VW and BMW dealership, and well equipped with various BMW-branded ride on toys for tots (their marketing person clearly convinced management here to start them off early in their love for a luxury car badge). Though Emma and John were quite bleary-eyed at this point, they managed to corral Leah, who was experiencing a second wind, while we signed the papers. We had negotiated a VW Touran for our long-term “let” but they were unable to find one, so they gave us a BMW Grand Tourer instead. It’s what the British call a MPV (multi-purpose vehicle designed to haul kids, mostly) and what they consider to be especially roomy. In truth, the inside cargo room is probably similar to that of David’s extended cab truck at home. Nonetheless, David somehow managed to pack everything we brought inside, and in so doing attracted a small audience of salesmen muttering under their breath, “yer na gunna git all of at in eyr, a ye?”

David was charged with driving us to St. Andrews as he has more experience in driving on the left than I do. Though his skills were a bit rusty, he did very well considering he had to contend with a built-in nagivation system that we couldn’t successfully set up to actually give us any directions, and periodic remonitions coming from me, hiding under a backpack and a stroller, to watch the various dry-stacked stone walls at the edge of the road. The drive was about 90 minutes and the kids, who were really packed in to the back, were quite unhappy and exhausted and vocal about it. When we arrived at last, I ‘popped in’ to the ‘letting agent’ while they waiting in the car. The agent, who is wonderfully friendly, had emailed me while we were traveling to tell us that the heat in our house wasn’t working, so she was going to have to put us up in a different house while the heating system was being repaired. This new house is within throwing distance from our permanent place, and it’s set up for visiting golfers so it’s quite elegant…way nicer than our place. I was a bit tempted to negotiate a permanent swap as she was showing me around, but when she mentioned that there was a washing machine but no dryer, I decided not to push it. She handed over the keys and left us on our own, and so we dragged the kids out of the car and put them right to bed while we picked apart our luggage to find the bare necessities for an overnight stay. David decided to take a nap as well, while I set up house. As I unpacked, I noticed that this house was also quite cold, and a quick check of the thermostat showed that it was 13 degreed. That’s Celsius of course, but there’s no conversion necessary to know that is nowhere near room temperature. I went back to the letting agent to ask for her help, and she came back to show me how to override the programmed thermostat. When she left, I turned on the various gas fireplaces, and managed to get the place quite toasty. This came in handy a few hours later when the “worst-case scenario” happened. As we put the kids to bed, David had remarked that, given that we had been traveling and the kids’ schedules were way off AND that they were exhausted, it was possible that one of them (and here I won’t name any names) might have “an accident,” which would be really, really bad given the dryer situation. Lo and behold…several hours later we were busy draping various sets of sopping-wet luxury padded mattress pads in front of each fireplace.

While the rest of the family slept (I’m a terrible napper), I took a quick walk into town to procure some essentials for the after-nap tea. Our house is really, really close to town, and it was just a few minutes to the Tesco Metro. I did pass Emma’s school on the way, and took a few minutes to note the changes that had taken place over the last five years (my beloved Body Shop seems to have left town, but there’s a lovely little Italian gelateria that has popped up in its place), but kept further exploring for another time. At the store, I grabbed some clementines and grapes, tea and coffee, oatcakes, Nutella and McVitie’s digestives and brought them home. Leah was the first to wake up, and was in a wonderful mood, bopping around the house and peeking out all the windows asking “is this OUR house?” The digestives were a hit with her, as was the BBC kids show I managed to find for her on the computer. By 5:00 pm St. Andrews time, I figured it was time to wake everyone up. Emma and John were still a little grumpy, but were up for exploring the house with me a bit. Though it is lovely, I find this house a little frustrating as all of the high-end appliances are exceptionally complicated, and feature indecipherable hieroglypics that don’t correspond with any function I would normally associate with a microwave, oven, shower, etc. We were moderately successful at heating some Indian food takeaway from the Tesco for dinner, spent a few hours reading the various brochures supplied in the living room for the visiting golfers, and then went to bed at about 10pm local time, hoping to reset everyone’s clocks by morning.