"There and Back Again"

To borrow a phrase from J.R.R.Tolkien's book, the Hobbit, we have gone "there and back again". We had an uneventful return consisting of a very early morning cab, lots of luggage (all four checked pieces were within about three pounds of the upper limit [23 kilograms)-how did we guess that closely?) three airports, lots of food, a little turbulence and two movies. First we had a short flight to Amsterdam where you can see that we spent the layover getting cappucinos. Then we boarded our flight and 9 short hours later we touched down in Houston.Yeah! We're home.

Thanks to all of you who followed our Big Adventure, day after day. We heard from so many of you who said that you felt like you were there with us and that's just what we were hoping for. We are glad that many of you enjoyed it right along with us. And speaking of thanks, we thank God for this amazing opportunity that we had. If we had a dollar (or a pound) for every time we said WOW, we would be rich. We saw amazing sights, learned amazing things, meet amazing people. And we also want to say thanks to our children for all stepping in and taking care of our home and cars and our dog Sophie, who had unexpected cancer surgery just as we were leaving. Bryan, Daniel, Jenel and Jordan, we love you all very much and thank you, so much, for making it possible for us to step out of our real life and into our Big Adventure. To our extended families who emailed us, called us and video chatted with us, thanks for helping us stay connected and stave away the homesickness. To all our friends and colleagues who followed along with us, thanks for your encouragement. This Big Adventure has come to an end and we will never forget it.

Now for some parting fun, it's time to play "The U.K. Fact Quiz"! We'll show the U.K. word and you guess its U.S. equivelent.....

LIFT = ELEVATOR

WAY OUT =EXIT

CAR PARK = PARKING LOT

DOMESTC APPLIANCES=HOME APPLIANCES

COOKER=STOVE

THIS ONE IS EASY

PETROL=GASOLINE

SET DOWN POINT = DROP OFF POINT

TROLLEY =SHOPPING CART

TO LET=TO RENT

NEWS AGENT=CONVENIENCE STORE

HAGGIS, NEEPS AND TATTIES=STUFFED SHEEP STOMACH, MASHED TURNIPS, MASHED POTATOES

Mind the Gap=Watch your step

That's us then=Our business is finished

Queue=Lines

Boot=Car Trunk

Pudding=Dessert

Brawley=Umbrella

Half passed 7:00=7:30

Bin your litter=Put your trash in the can

Mum=Mom

Bob's your uncle=There you have it

jab=shot (as in an injection)

Pitch=Soccer (Football) field

Chip=Fench fries

Crisps=Potato chips

Dreich=cloudy, raining, miserable weather

Here are some other interesting things we learned...

When going down stairs you walk on the left, just like you drive on the left.

 

They warn you about which way to look before crossing the road since most visitors are used to cars coming from the oposite side of the road.  Here's a test: is a one or two way street?

How did you do? Did you get most of them right?

This is our last post since we are now home and recovering from jet lag. Soon we will happily be back to our normal lives. What a wonderful experience but equally wonderful is the knowledge that our family and friends are here, ready to welcome us back and that while we were thrilled to have our Big Adventure, we love our normal lives just as much. Thanks again for joining us. That's us then!

Day 41, Monday, October 26 "Wraping up Edinburgh"

41 days! Where did the time go? Today is our last day here in Edinburgh so we set out around 9:00 am for the university. David worked on getting books back to the library, turning in security cards, copier cards and saying goodbye to old and new friends. I headed off to take care of a few things too. David has been hoping to meet with a fellow concerning The Voice project and finally was able to set that up. I met them at a place called the Wash Board just as they finished up business. Then David and I headed off for one last go around the city centre.

This beautiful stroll is called  Middle Meadows Walk and leads into city centre. There were kids playing, people eating lunch on benches, families strolling and even two street performers rehearsing some kind of juggling act. At least I think that's what they were doing!

The place we wanted to eat is called Greyfriars Bobby. It is a great looking pub just down from the museum and outside, on the main street, is a bronze statue of Bobby. Now, you can't tell from the story yet but Bobby was a dog, a Skye Terrier to be exact. The legend goes that Bobby was the faithful companion to a policeman named John Grey. When Grey died, Bobby, the dog, walked every day and lay down on the grave.  He did that for over 10 years. The city gave special permission for Bobby to be buried beside his mater.  Everyday fresh flowers are laid on the grave of the dog, Bobby. We have a photo of David with the statue but truthfully, I can't remember when we took it so I can't find it right now, in all our photo folders.

David had a sausage sandwich and I had a cheese and chutney one. They both came with the signature "big chips".

Fortified, we headed to the west side of Princes Street  Garden. On this side, you can take one of three paths that lead you along side the vertical volcanic rock face that is the base of the castle. There are some indescribable views of the castle...but I'm going to try to show it to you through photos. Standing there, you can't help but imagine yourself an invader, coming upon that imposing site. It seems impossible that anyone could ever gain access to the castle, given its location, perched straight up this "rock".

The photo below shows New College in the background where David has worked and is taken from the same side of the garden.  New College is in the center, the two towers with what appears to be 3 spires.

 

Cathy climbed up and is standing right next to the vertical face of castle rock.  It extends up for well over a hundred feet before you get to the castle wall and the ramparts around the castle. 

Here is a ruin of a guard house down at the bottom of the castle rock and the train runs just behind here. Now we headed back up the other side of the hill in search of more sights.

We headed up the to other side of the garden in search of more sights. This beautiful fountain was turned off at the moment because the gardeners were out working.  The other monument was given by the United States in honor of the Scots who fought in World War I.

This cute house was at the end of the garden and it is here that we found out that the flower clock would not be planted this Autumn. It turns out that the recession has hit everywhere.

Here is a pic of Princes Street which is at the center of activity in Edinburgh and where you will find all the trendy shops. But right now this part of the street is closed down because they are putting in a tram system to carry people around the shopping area. Though the shoppes are open, they say their business is down so the Edinburgh City Council has given them a discount on their taxes until the traffic can be resoted.  As you might imagine, given that this is such an ancient city, they keep digging things up like people and artifacts. So they have to stop work and call in the archeologist to date and catalog everthing before work can begin again.

This beautiful building was highlighted  by some great tree color and was the backdrop for a big and really fun children's playground.  We had a great day today as we wrapped up our work and our last little bit of sightseeing. Tomorrow we get up at 3:00 am, catch a cab at 4:00 am and a KLM flight at 5:55 am, Edinburgh time. We will have one more post for you to wrap up our Big Adventure so come back and check with us one more time. Till then!

Day 40, Sunday, October 25 "Church and Packing"

Hello everyone and welcome to another rainy day. Today we worshiped with our new friends here in Edinburgh at St. James Scottish Episcopal Church.  It is a walk of about 1 1/2 miles from our flat down a path that we found out today used to be part of a railroad line from Leith (the port city of Edinburgh) to Edinburgh.  Here is one of the sights along the path that takes us to this church.

It rained lightly on us during the whole walk.  When we arrived, we were wet but not dripping.  But here's the good news.  So was everyone else!

The church has its services in the casual setting of its fellowship hall.  Services combine both formal and informal elements.  For example, there are prayers, confessions and responses that are read, recited and sung the same way each week.  And then there are very informal elements.  For example, at the end of the service all the children come in with small musical instruments, drums, shakers and play as we sing the final song, usually something from Africa or the third world.  It is great noise and great fun, a cheery way to exit. Today, for the "reflection" or sermon, they did a play complete with props, actors, script and "stop action."  Everyone participates.  Men, women, children.  It is not a performance by the ordained.  Afterward everyone stays for tea, coffee and often there is a lunch for those who can stay.

The church practices open communion, meaning that they invite anyone to come forward and receive the bread and wine during the eucharist.  Because of the threat of swine flu, they dip the bread in the wine instead of drinking from a common cup.  A sensible response.  Don't you think?  In fact, it is an ancient practice called intinction.

We were going to head to high street for a bit more shopping and last minute sight-seeing but the weather was dreek, so we decided instead to do most of our packing today.  Carol, the weather person, said tomorrow would be a better day ("settled with some sunny spells" as they say).  So that is what we did.  We washed clothes and put them on our dryer.  Yes, on our dryer.  In Scotland we have all the "modcons" (modern conveniences) so here is our dryer.

Seriously, dryers are rare here.  Most people, even those well off, hang their clothes in the garden or in their flats in order for them to air dry.  And yes, you have to use fabric softener or they will be stiff as a board!  It takes about 3 days for a pair of jeans to dry.  But if you put it on the radiator, it dries in two!!!  Now you know.

We pulled all our suitcases out, opened them on the floor and started sorting through our clothes.  Here is our dresser after a bit of packing.  We purchased two new suitcases while we were in Carlisle at a going-out-of-business sale at Millet's, a fine outdoor shop here.  Originally, they cost 40 pounds each ($65) but we got them for 10 pounds ($16.50).  With the added space we hope to get home most of what we bought here.  

In addition to packing we are cleaning out the kitchen and eating all the leftovers we can. We are excited to be coming home and are looking forward to seeing our Houston family and beyond.  We ended the day on Google Chat and SKYPE.  We have a little more Internet time so we spent some time video chatting with our kids in Houston, my parents in Georgia and my brother in Iraq.  The good news is that he is fine after the two big explosions in Baghdad on Sunday.  He asked us to remember in our prayers the many who died and were injured and their families.   That we are glad to do.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Edinburgh.  David will spend several hours in meetings at the university and then we go to Princes Street Gardens to see the floral clock and climb Calton Hill to see the Follies.  You'll have to tune in tomorrow to get more of our witty reparte.  Now, off you go!

Day 39, Saturday, October 24 "Mountain or Museum"

At the end of yesterday's post, we told you that we had two plans for Saturday based on the weather. I'm sure you aren't tuned into the Edinburgh Scotland weather report, so you don't know yet which activity we were able to do. We spent the morning at the flat. David was able to get some good work done on the book of Job and a few other projects. After lunch we got ready to head off to the bus stop. We don't want to keep you in suspense any longer; so with 100% chance of rain, we headed to the museum.

You may remember from an earlier post that we have already visited here once. The first time we took in the bottom two floors and when we left we knew we wanted to come back and see the rest. So this time, we headed up to the 3rd floor, where we began viewing artifacts from approximately the 1800's and beyond.

We got a good lesson in how to thatch a roof. We saw a full scale model and examples of all the tools used to prepare and maintain the roofs.

They had good displays showing weapons, uniforms and other military gear. David is admiring this trendy outfit that all great Scottish Lords wear into battle.

There were a few real examples of some of their first machines used in their industrial development and also a good deal more models(working and non-working); so you could get a good idea about how they developed this new technology.  You might guess that we stayed until they closed down the museum at 5:00 pm. We had dinner reservations at the Tower Restaurant on top floor at 6:00 pm; so we headed down the street to do a bit of last minute shopping. 

We passed a pub/sandwich shop where J. K. Rowling (the author of the Harry Potter books) spent a good deal of time writing the first Harry Potter book. She was such a regular that she had her own table. Though we had other plans, I did want to get a photo.

When it came time for our reservation, we headed back to the museum. On the top floor is the Tower Restaurant, a very popular place to go in Edinburgh for an excellent dinner.  David ate here in 2000 and wanted me to see the site and enjoy the good food.

From the terrance you have a great view of the city and of some really beautiful buildings, including the castle. It got dark quickly after we arrived so we weren't able to get too many photos, but we did get a few out the full length glass windows.  Here is Edinburgh castle from our dinner table.

We began our meal with some walnut bread and cheese and spring onion bread. Also on the table was a bowl of mixed olives. For the appetizer we ordered a venison dish. It had paper thin slices of venison with a chutney of beets, mushrooms and some type of nuts and a side of rocket.  David was having such a good time he was grinning from ear-to-ear.

For our main course we had beef bourginon with creamed potatoes, mushooms and roasted shallots. We also enjoyed creamed butter nut squash and ginger, an amazing dish that was smooth, sweet with just a little spice. And finally we had a salad of thinly sliced fennel, artichoke hearts and radishes.

To finish off, we enjoyed cappucino and  a dessert (Here is your UK question-of-the-day: What do they call dessert here?   Anyone . . .  Anyone . . .  OK, I'll tell you.  Dessert here is called "pudding") . The deseert was a white chocolate creme brulee with roasted fig. Basically there was a huge fig, split in half and layed on the bottom of the ramikin.Then the brulee was poured over and baked. On the side were two homemade, shortbread cookies.

Needless to say, this was one of the best meals we have had while in Britain. The atmostphere of the restaurant was wonderful, and we had a great time topping off our enjoyment of the museum. We intended to walk home, but as we exited the restaurant we were greeted with a strong wind that was turning people's umbrellas (OK, here is your second UK question-of-the-day: What do they call umbrellas here?   Anyone . . . Anyone . . . OK, I'll tell you.  They call them "brallies")  inside out and a steady rain. We took the easy way out and hopped on the #23 bus.

Thanks for checking back with us to see what our day brought and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow as we wrap up the last two days of our Big Adventure.

Day 38, Friday, October 24 "rain, dinner and a midnight bus ride"

Hello everyone and happy, rainy day. We brought wonderful weather with us to Scotland for the past three months. But the past few days, a bit of rain has set in, causing us to slightly alter our plans (more about that later).  David spent the morning at the university and Cathy waited at the flat for a shipment of Sarah Nelson's Gingerbread from Grasmere.  In the afternoon, we made our final trip to Tesco market to get a few bits of food to carry us through the last three days of our adventure. Note the rain gear which we always have at hand but have rarely had to use.

We were invited to have dinner with Larry and Shannon Hurtado at their flat this evening (Larry, a professor of New Testament and head of the school of Divinity, has been mentioned before and is the one who is responsible for David's connections with the University of Edinburgh.). Shannon, his wife, is an instructor of Art History and catches the train to Glasgow twice a week to teach there. Joining us for dinner was Robin Jensen of Vanderbilt University, a professor of Art History and Sacred Theology. She is the Gunning Lecturer, New College, this year and will begin her presentations next week.

We walked up to the bus stop around 6:15 pm (18.15) to get to their flat a for a 7:00 pm meal time.. But we had passed the time when the buses run every 5 minutes, and in addition, the bus was late. So, we ended up late for dinner as well...by about 20 minutes. I have not taken many bus rides at night so it was fun to see the City Centre in a different light.

...The Royal Bank of Scotland and a Department Store with 4 floors of windows, newly decorated for Christmas. When we first arrived, this department store had every window decorated in a safari theme so there were full size giraffes, elephants, tigers etc. etc. On Monday, we found that it had all been taken down and replaced with Christmas.

We had a very nice evening; good food and good conversation, including a very interesting and charming cat. Shannon made salad, fish and vegetables and Larry made dessert. He presented us with a yummy dark chocolate french cake with fresh raspberries -WOW.

Around 11:00 pm, we decided to call it an evening. Robin had just arrived in Scotland this morning and with only an hours nap, was struggling valiantly against jet lag. The three of us shared a cab back to the Grassmarket, where her hotel was located, and then we continued on walking about 6 blocks to the bus stop on the Mound. By this time, you can imagine, there was a much reduced bus schedule so we waited around 15 minutes for a bus. Still there were plenty of youthful merry-makers, in and out of pubs and up and down the streets, so there was enough entertainment while we waited. The top of the double-decker bus had been closed off and even though it was now getting on in time, there were plenty of riders along with us.

 

Tomorrow we had planned to climb Arthur's Seat...a volcanic rocky outcropping, 750 feet high and located close to Holyrood Palace. Here you can see the mountain from the garden of Holyrood.  You are supposed to climb it on New Year's Day and drink out of St. Margaret's Fountain to receive good luck throughout the new year. Would you rather do that or eat black eyed peas and hog jowls to get your New Year's good luck (as they do the the deep south)? No comment!

 

Jenel sent us this picture from home of Mugsey fishing.  Thanks, Jenel!  Mugsey is a Cairn Terrier, a breed that comes from Scotland.  We've seen a lot of dogs since we have been here.  Mostly Border Terriers, Scottish Terriers and West Highland Terriers.  

It is supposed to rain all day Saturday so we have a contingency plan that involves the top two floors of the National Museum and dinner at the restaurant located on the roof-top with panoramic 360 views of the city. I suppose  you will find out tomorrow which option we take. Have a great weekend and check back with us tomorrow as we count down the last 3 days of our Big Adventure.