Alex and I have been tourists more than I thought. While swimming through all the red tape and bureaucracy of -well, living, I guess- I hadn't thought much had happened since we moved here. However, things have been happening little by little. So, to keep up with our bureaucratic matters: we got a phone today! Not two, but one, because I "haven't been living in the UK long enough to establish a credit record" so TalkMobile won't allow me to purchase two phone lines. But one phone is not none, thank goodness. Also, Alex's computer is fixed and we should be getting internet tomorrow (yay!). Oh, and we got our cost of living check that I deposited in our fully functional bank account! Things are coming together!
Our adventures started with haggis. We went to Greyfriars Bobby's Bar for dinner one night and Al got haggis. Before I talk about haggis, a little background info on Greyfriars Bobby, the dog. He was so loyal that when his master died he laid on the grave for 14 years until he himself died...so they say. Anyway, haggis. It's actually not that bad. It usually consists of heart, lung, kidney, rusk (?) and is mixed with oats and onions. Basically, it tasted like meatloaf-good meatloaf (Mom, your meatloaf tastes like haggis...heehee).
Last week we also toured the Palace of Holyroodhouse ('rood' being the ol' fashioned way of saying 'cross'). We got to see bed chambers and sitting rooms, the dining room etc. I don't think the Queen uses these rooms much. We only got to tour the second floor. We got to see Mary, Queen of Scots' bed chamber and where Rizzio, her personal secretary, was stabbed like 18 times by her husband and bled to death in front of her. The gardens and abbey ruins were awesome. I took a picture of Al standing exactly where the Queen and Pope were standing in the picture I took of them. That was cool. We also got to turn our tickets in to annual passes, so if anyone comes to visit Alex and I can go for free!
You can go a little stir-crazy living in a busy city and I really needed to get out. So, last Saturday, Alex and I took a bus to Stirling, a town comparable to Edinburgh in layout but a lot smaller. It's only about 30 miles away. We climbed up the streets of the old town to reach the castle which, like Edinburgh Castle, is situated at the top of a volcanic rock formation. Alex and I paid 26 pounds each for free access to all the castles in Scotland (basically if you go to two castles you've paid for it)! The views were amazing (I prooooomise pictures soon). We got to see the foothills of the northern highlands in one direction and the lower hills of the southern highlands in another direction. Sterling Castle had a panoramic view of the whole valley and was certainly advantageously situated. Nearby is where William Wallace fought and defeated the English. Mary, Queen of Scots spent most of her early childhood in this castle but was born in nearby Linlithgow.
We walked to the royal gardens, which have long been deserted, to see the castle from below. It was a beautiful day with little wind and a bright sky. The leaves were beginning to turn as well. Also, we got to go to Primark. For those of you who know, this is God's gift to the shopaholic. Cheap(!!!), stylish clothes. It was awesome.
I'll write my next blog about my classes, which are in their second week now. The odds and ends are slowly coming together and maybe life will soon be a bit more normal. For now, we are settling in, figuring it out, and having some fun.
Pictures of Week 1:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111472&id=15303278&l=
Pictures of Week 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111473&id=15303278&l=1c2b4d57c1
Primark! and Haggis! and Greyfriars Bobby's! and Stirling! >sigh<
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