Doors Open, Day 2

On Sunday, we headed out with some friends to Lauriston Castle, also a part of the Doors Open Edinburgh weekend. The castle is normally open for tours, but on this occasion, the tour included some rooms not typically shown to the public. The tower house was originally built in 1590 and an addition was built on in the 1800s making it the mansion it is today. (A castle, in case you were wondering is not necessarily a royal residence, it is the home of a royal or noble person and is built to withstand attack). Although Lauriston Castle is built in this style, according to our tour guide it was never expected to be attacked.

In any case, it was a beautiful autumn day. Cool, but perfect for roaming around the grounds and touring this remarkable building.

The front of Lauriston Castle

A side part of the building. I'm not sure what rooms are inside, but thought the red was pretty.

Another side

The back of the Castle. I wouldn't mind stepping out on this balcony every morning.

Behind the castle are several gardens and these large croquet lawns.
There were actually people playing croquet later in the day. In the distance is the Firth of Forth.

Another view from the back. The little island in the distance is Crammond Island.
Evidently, during low tide, you can walk across a path to the island
I'm not sure whose estate this is, but thought is was so prettily situated.
Before our tour, we managed to get a group shot. It's a little far away, but we're all there:

The girls (Leah, Me, Rebcecca and Ashli)So, as I mentioned earlier, we took a guided tour of the Castle. Our tour guide was quite knowledgeable and clearly very interested in the history of the house. He could tell us where every piece of furniture was from and why that was so significant. It was pretty interesting. The tour was an hour and I think he felt quite pressed for time as he continually looked at his watch, apologized profusely for being so quick and brief, and repeatedly reminded us that he had to be ready for another tour at 3pm. I didn't find the tour to be particularly brief but would have loved to hear more about the history of the place.

This was Mrs. Reid's bedroom (the wife of the most recent owner). Evidently, at the time, it was the height of luxury that she had a switch to her lights right by her bed (it's very small, but you can see it there to the right of the bed).

This was one of the drawing rooms or parlour rooms. I can't remember which.
I thought the piano was lovely, as was the view from the window and the ceiling
(neither of which you can see in this picture).
The Library. The original library was apparently donated, but what they
have filled the shelves with was pretty amazing.
This was the toilet. How funny is that?
The Riveras.After our tour, we stopped at a local pub and were surprised to find a really large, beautiful beer garden. It was a little chilly, but we still enjoyed some pints and some yummy fish and chips.

All in all, it was a really great way to spend the day. Good sights, good weather, good food, and good company.

Open Doors Day 1

This past Saturday and Sunday, we enjoyed exploring various Edinburgh spots with some other New College couples. It was Doors Open Edinburgh, during which various Edinburgh attractions open their doors for free to interested visitors. After a trip to the local farmer's market (at the base of the Edinburgh Castle), we visited 4 really cool places:

Drumsheugh Baths: Edinburgh's oldest swimming club (founded in 1882).Unfortunately , I didn't take any pictures of it.

St. Bernard's Well: A local mineral spring that was "discovered" back in the 1700s. It is just about a quarter-mile from our flat and is right along the Water of Leith, a very picturesque river that runs through our neighborhood.

Inside, the pump room is decorated in a beautiful mosaic. Unfortunately, it was a bit dark for my camera to get a good shot.

Calton Hill: On one end of the city, Calton Hill is home to an unfinished monument and to Nelson Tower. A climb of 143 steps to the top of the tower is rewarded by some amazing views:

Ruins of a National Monument, began in 1822 and never finished

Joe, Shawn, and Aletheia (they didn't make the climb to the top of the tower)
Holyrood Palace (from top of Nelson Tower)
Views of the Firth of Forth, from the hike up to the top of Calton Hill

John Knox's House: John Knox (a leader of the Protestant Reformation) lived here for a few short months before his death. Again, no pictures. I really need to get better about this...

Going to Messages

A few days ago (maybe a week), I posted a little quiz. The question was, when a Scottish person says they are "going to messages," what do they mean? The answer: they are going to the grocery store to get food. Weird, but true.

I've always loved grocery shopping. I know that's a little odd, but it's one of the few things I really enjoy doing alone. I like to shop really slow and look at all the choices and make my selection. It's a really sensory experience for me--seeing, smelling, tasting--and I just get really involved. I love to cook and it's always fun to think of things to cook while I'm shopping. But, grocery shopping has become a bit of an adventure since we got to Edinburgh.

Most of the complication in grocery shopping is the fact that you have to walk to and from the store or take the bus. In either case, you have to lug the groceries a bit further than from your car to the door. It's amazing how quickly your outlook on things can change when you're placed in a different context: a month ago I wouldn't have dreamed of walking to the grocery store (and there was a very nice one just half a mile away). In fact, I would drive around the block several times just to find a good parking space so as to minimize how far I had to walk with all those groceries (and, let's just be honest, since I got married, Joe unloads all the groceries from the car). Now, I think it's quite quaint to walk to the store. And, I think a 1-1.5mile walk (one way) is quite close.

We made our first venture to the grocery store on Friday when we stopped at a little store on the way home from Joe's school. The store wasn't the nicest and we couldn't get everything we needed, so it was evident I was going to have to find another alternative. But, the walk home wasn't too bad. About a mile, but with both of us, the walk home was pretty easy. Perhaps bolstered by the ease of Friday's excursion, or encouraged by my desire to reexperience a pleasant grocery shopping outing, I located a lovely grocery store about 1.3 miles from our flat. The walk there was great. The shopping was fulfilling. Then came the packing up and lugging home....

I must have been a little overzealous in my shopping because these bags were heavy! I made it about 10 steps before deciding I was going to have to take a bus home. I made it about two blocks to the bus stop, when I had to call Joe and tell him he had to meet me at the bus stop by our flat or I was going to have to take a taxi. These bags were just too heavy. We decided to meet but I got there first and being impatient and cold I starting dragging those bags home. Joe caught up with me and we split the load. It was still pretty heavy. But we made it. When we got home, I insisted on weighing it.....

80 pounds. No typo there. It was 80 pounds of groceries. Check it out:

It doesn't look like much, but it sure was heavy

All six bags are mine: The black one is full of laundry supplies and the blue one is full of bottles and cans of things. The 4 plastic bags are full of dairy, fruits, and veg....I think I'll be making smaller trips from now on.

Our New Home

We have a flat! On Wednesday, after a bit of drama, we moved in to our very own flat! We were supposed to move in to a different flat on Tuesday, but Monday morning our letting (British for leasing) agent e-mailed to say the owner has spontaneously decided to renovate the bathroom. A new bathroom sounded great, but no one was certain how long the delay would be. Turns out Scottish work crews are similar to American and by Wednesday the estimate was 2 weeks. 2 weeks. We really couldn’t wait that long—as gracious as our host was, the train ride was long and expensive; we needed a permanent local address for banking, phones, jobs, etc.; and we had told our host we would be leaving early in the week, he had other plans for our room!

After several hours of phone calls with our letting agent, we discovered that another flat was available on the same street. We had actually looked at this one last week, but it was way out of our price range. But, I had noticed earlier online that the price had dropped—it was still more than we wanted to pay so we made an offer. I think the property had been vacant awhile and the owners motivated to let it, so they accepted and we got to move in that afternoon! Our letting agent was really helpful and personally did a few things outside of his job description (like the inventory) to get us in so quickly. We love this flat.

The owners actually were the previous occupants so it is well kept up and very nice. They also left behind a slew of finds (like a food processor, juicer, grill, nice knives, etc.) that I don’t think are that common in flats around here. We are really thankful and enjoying our own space in this super fun flat. Neither of us feel quite cool enough to be living here, but maybe we’ll get cooler now that we live in a great flat in Europe.

Getting to the flat was a bit of an adventure as we were staying quite a ways out of Edinburgh. After we packed up our stuff, we lugged it to the train, on the train, out of the train station, to a taxi and then up all the stairs.

Everything we presently own, all packed up, after unloading it from the cab:

Our flat has two bedrooms (and we found a blow up mattress) so we can definitely accommodate guests (who’s going to be first??). But, in the meantime, will give you a bit of a virtual tour:

Here’s the front of the building

Our flat is the second row of 4 windows. The 2 on the left are the living room, the next one is the dining room and the one to the far right is the master bedroom

Aview down the street:

Our kitchen:

You may notice that outside the window is a little window box. I’m thinking about trying to plant something, herbs or flowers. But given the weird daylight situation here (very long days in some parts of the year, and very short days in others), I’m not sure what would do well. Any ideas?

This is our bathroom:

Our living room (we need to get a few pieces of furniture here):

We're not sure if the fireplace is actually functional, but it is pretty: The living room also has two big windows overlooking the street. And, I don't have a picture of it, but there is a a little garden patio right on the other side of the wall to the left of the fireplace. It's outside and the only access is by climbing through the window.

Our bedroom (needs a bit of decoration):

The guest bedroom:

The dining room

The dining room, hallway, and master bedroom have really great light fixtures, but the pictures didn't turn out great--you'll have to come see them for yourself).

We hear that this building was built in the 18^th century (1700s). Evidently, the area and the building got pretty run down and was kind of a slum in the 1950s. The local government came in and tried to revitalize the area. They must have done a great job because just 50-60 years later, this is a pretty desirable place to live. We’ll do another post soon to tell you all about Dean Village, our new neighborhood.

Camelon

We've spent these first few days in Scotland living with Joe's advisor, Mike Purcell. Fr. Purcell lives in a home outside of Edinburgh in Camelon (near/in Falkirk). It's a nice little town and we have enjoyed it a lot. The other evening Fr. Purcell suggested a nice walk for us to take to the Falkirk Wheel, a significant landmark and engineering feat close to his home. It was a beautiful evening for a walk and we were able to time it just right for some great views:

The Falkirk Wheel was constructed to connect two canals in order to transfer barges from one canal to the other. It uses water displacement and, they say, takes the same amount of energy to move the barges as it does to boil 8 kettles of water.

You can actually take short tours or trips on a passenger barge to experience the lift in action. You can also take whole week trips and slowly move down the canal to Edinburgh and/or Glasgow. We met 4 gentlemen who take a yearly holiday to tour barges and canals and who had just completed a one week trip. They loved it.

Here's the view from near the Antonine Wall just behind one of the canals. It was a really beautiful night.

We’ve also really enjoyed Fr. Purcell. He is a really nice man and we’ve had some great conversations. Not to mention his outstanding hospitality. I hope we can return the kindness sometime. Fr. Purcell has two sweet Bearded Collies: Henry and Wesley: (this is Wesley)

Henry is about 13 years old and the most mellow dog you ever encountered. I’m not sure he even realizes we are here. Wesley is 1 year old and he knows we are here. He is so friendly and loves to be right in the thick of things. He is a sweet dog and we’ve actually grown quite fond of him (but no worries, our future children will still only ever have an imaginary dog).

We interrupt this programming...

Just a quick note to say we are still here and doing great. For some reason, blogger is giving me fits about uploading pictures, so I've got several posts waiting and I'll get them up as soon as I can get the pictures to cooperate.

In the meantime, read the previous posts to catch up on what we've been doing. Coming soon: Camelon, New Friends, Stirling, and Homeward Bound!

Since a lot of our family members are kind of new to the whole blog thing, here's a quick note that might help you navigate some of the postings: anything you see underlined is a hyperlink. If you click on the underlined word or phrase, it will take you to another site or blog, usually with more information about whatever it is I've been writing about.

Finally, while you hang on baited breath for our next exciting post (and to elicit a few comments), here's a quiz for you:

When a Scottish person says they are, "going to messages" what do they mean?

If you think you know the answer, without asking a Scottish person or someone who lives in Scotland, or want to take a guess, post your guess in the comments are. There may even be a prize for the first person who gets it right!

Jet Lag

I have just this week discovered the true meaning of jet lag. I now believe that every time I have traveled in the past, I have experienced being tired. Jet lag, on the other hand=sheer exhaustion! Total and complete upheaval of your natural body clock. I naively thought that I was not going to have much trouble with jet lag after our first night here. We painfully stayed awake through the vast majority of our flight over and, somehow, managed to stay awake until 11:00pm on Tuesday. We slept a good 11.5 hours. I figured we were good to go, on a normal sleeping schedule. Seriously. I was so wrong. I was so tired that night, like crying I was so tired, but could not fall asleep until 5:00am. We had appointments to see flats on Thursday, so I only logged about 3 hours of sleep. This, naturally, brought about terrible headaches and more tired crying (honest to goodness tears of fatigue). Between appointments, I caught a couple of catnaps on park benches (thus further authenticating my homeless experience). Now, we are taking some sleep aid to help us fall asleep. I don't know if our body clocks are adjusting--actually, I've read that taking sleep aids prolongs the adjustment, but I don't really care. We're sleeping. That is all that matters to me.

Oh, and I think I have shin splints.

Warm Welcome

We arrived in Edinburgh, to a very warm welcome, on Tuesday. The trip over was long and fairly uneventful. It was a busy week leading up to our departure with the drive from St. Louis to Virginia, a two-day trip to DC for fun (with my parents), unloading our truck and storing our things, and packing for the move here (which was much more difficult than we imagined). We finally headed out last night (Monday) on a 9:45pm flight from DC. We had a bit of a delay in the London airport for our connecting flight, but made it to Edinburgh around 4:30pm (an hour behind schedule). All of our bags (about 300 pounds total) made it through and we are feeling very fortunate to have gotten so much stuff over on the plane (we really got more on than we probably should have and didn't have to pay any extra fees).

Joe's advisor, Fr. Purcell, has opened his home to us while we look for long term housing. He is out of town right now but arranged for a very kind couple from his parish to pick us up at the airport. They took us on a bit of a detour to their home, on the way to Fr. Purcell's, where they served us tea and cake and finger foods, then showed us how to use the train (about a 5 minute walk from the house). They were so sweet and even had a bag of a few staples (milk, bread) for us. Fr. Purcell left us a nicely made up room, complete with train passes, postcards and stamps, a bottle of wine, electrical adapters and a few other helpful items.

Tomorrow we are hoping to meet up with a letting agent to view some flats (we are picking up the vocabulary quickly!). There is a couple here from St. Louis who have also been really welcoming. Rebecca (Manor for you St. Louis-ans) has generously offered to show us around and help us with opening bank accounts, finding groceries, getting phones, etc. It will be so nice to have fellow Americans to orient us to this new culture!

We are exhausted and our bodies are totally off schedule. Neither of us slept much on the plane last night. It was a HUGE plane and we were really fortunate to get a last minute seat change (thanks to Joe who stood in a really long line to ask) so that we were in the set of two seats with one window and one aisle seat versus our originally assigned seats in the middle of the 5 person middle section. But, still it was cramped and uncomfortable and sleep was not easy. I did not realize what a long trip it would be. All said, it took 19 hours from my parents' house to Edinburgh. And, we have not slept in quite awhile. So, we are hoping for a long night's sleep.

It does feel a little far from home, but it has been nice to be welcomed so warmly. We do miss our friends and family and are looking forward to getting settled so you can come visit us!

Long Awaited Updates

Wow. It has been a busy summer. We finally update the blog (though had to leave lots of important things out). Check out what we’ve been doing:

June 7: Our first anniversary
July 4-10: Schmitt family vacation to Lake Michigan
July 10-13: Long weekend in Chicago
July 17-20: Visit from the Rippetoes
July 25-27: Visit from Joe’s mom, Ronda
July 31-August 2: Visit from Ricky, April, and Ella Rivera
August 14-16: Visit with Joe’s family in their hometown
August 21: Evening out with friends
August 22: Another evening out with friends
August 25-28: Amanda’s trip to San Diego
August 29: Good-bye party for Amanda’s work
August 30: Our last day in St. Louis
August 31: Moving day!
September 4-5: Trip to Washington, DC

So, what’s next?

Joe and I are leaving on Monday evening for Scotland. We leave around 9:30pm and arrive in Edinburgh around 3:30pm the next day. We have a 4 hour stop-over in London somewhere in that journey. We are looking forward to getting there and the next stage in this adventure, but we do think we are going to miss the US, our families, and friends. We hope to have lots of visitors in Edinburgh (please, consider yourselves invited). We actually were not able to line up a short term apartment but Joe’s advisor really generously offered for us to stay in his home while we are locating long term housing. We are so grateful to him for this and for all the arrangements he has made (someone is even picking us up at the airport). We’ve got a few appointments scheduled to see apartments (flats, as they are known in the UK) and hope to get something together quickly. I have an interview on September 14 and just submitted an application for another job yesterday.

We should be online shortly after we arrive and are looking forward to updating the blog regularly with all of our adventures! Thanks for coming along with us!

Virginia

We’ve been in Virginia since Tuesday, following a very long drive from Kentucky (16’ Penske truck + West Virginia Mountains = LONG, slow, winding drive). Since we’ve been here, we’ve unloaded our truck, taken care most of our major moving related tasks (well, not packing) and become totally addicted to the Wii.

We also decided to venture to DC with my mom and dad. It was a great trip and we got to see lots of DC attractions. On the way home, Joe said, “I wish I knew about DC sooner.” Since I’m pretty sure he knew about Washington, DC long before this visit (heck, we went last April), I think he meant he wished he had been to DC earlier in his life since it is such an interesting place.

Our two days in the nation's capital were pretty packed. We finally took a tour of the capital after two mad dash trips back to the car to stash the fam’s contraband—food and drink and yes, a concealed weapon (in the form of a money clip with a pocket knife)—and then ventured over to the Library of Congress. I’ve been to DC a lot, but I’ve never been here. It was beautiful. The architecture and design were really stunning.

Library of Congress

Outside of the Capital

We also went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, the American History Museum (my favorite part was seeing the flag that was flying in 1814 that inspired the creation of the National Anthem. It was a really moving display), the Lincoln Monument, and Arlington Cemetery.

In front of the Lincoln Memorial

Excerpt from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Senator Ted Kennedy's grave

MOVING DAY!

MOVING DAY! I can’t believe today has come! Somehow, we managed to get out of St. Louis without a single picture of all our boxes, rental truck, or empty apartment. So, you’ll just have to take our word for it that there were a lot of boxes, a big ole truck, and eventually a very empty and clean apartment.

Joe’s mom and older brother were AMAZING and drove all the way to St. Louis to help load the truck (thank you Ricky) and clean the apartment (thank you, Ronda!). I’m embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t even there to load a single box or clean a single thing, as I had to work that morning. When I got home they were done with everything! We were SO thankful to them—there is no way that we could have gotten everything done without them and been on the road on today.

We drove about 5.5 hours to Lexington, KY where we are staying at a really nice hotel (thank you, Hotwire)! Joe and I are so happy to be sleeping somewhere clean with no boxes, no HVAC holes in the walls, no water damage, and temperature controls. Tomorrow, we’ll drive the rest of the way to Virginia, to my parent’s house where we will be storing our things while we are in Scotland.