26 September 2010

Edinburgh Opens its Doors!

Between the job hunt, the broken boiler and trying to find things to cook (with a celcius oven and some major shortcomings from the Somerfield supermarket it is not an easy task), Matt and I made an effort this week to get out and have some good, free fun in town. Thanks to the help of Brother Van Hagen at church, we heard about "Edinburgh Doors Open" event this weekend. It was a great way to see some of the hidden gems of Edinburgh. It was sort of like a Parade of Homes, only instead of seeing how rich people live with their home theatre system and themed rooms, it was more like how dead people lived a couple hundred years ago. Needless to say, it was pretty cool.

We went to the private Drummond Gardens in New Town. It was a lot of fun since it felt very exclusive and almost like getting to go into the Secret Garden - well Matt didn't think that so much as me; however, we both agreed it was lovely.


Closeby was an old Glasite Church off Broughton Street. Ever heard of the Glasites before? Well, I hadn't until yesterday. They were a Christian sect founded by John Glas, in the 18th century, who thought that the Church of Scotland was great but that church and state should be separate. He started the Glasite church in Scotland and his son-in-law (Robert Sandeman) started the Sandemanians in England and America. Maybe this doesn't strike you as interesting but Matt and I enjoyed our visit to the church.

Here's the restored cupola in the church.

The church had these narrow pews, rather than the wider ones with the kneeling bench, since they prayed with their hands in the air so they could be closer to God. Learning how the architecture revolved around their practices made me nostalgic for the ol' Art History days. Very interesting stuff to me.


Our walk through the city raised the spirits quite a bit and helped remind me why our cold flat, being without work, smelling breweries everday and not very social life here is really something I am glad we signed up for.

Other things I enjoy about life in Scotland:
1. How everytime I turn on my tele - it is the BBC. If you knew me as a late night British Comedy junkie as a kid you would know why this is so grand for me. My favourite shows here are Britain's Next Top Model and the shows where the bobbys come down on petty crimes such as "fly tipping" (they are obsessed with catching fly tippers here) or bullying other drivers by honking at a roundabout when you are irritated rather than when there is actual danger. It is like Cops meets the People's Court all in English or Scottish accents. Really quite fun.
2. Sharp (and I mean kick-in-the-pants sharp cheddar) I can get at the grocer
3. Listening to everyone talk at church or around the city. (Although I will say that Stake Conference is still boring, even with everyone talking in a Scottish accent).
4. Chocolate covered Digestive Biscuits
5. Running in Holyrood park. It is something incredible - truly it is.
6. Walking around. Doesn't matter where, for the most part. I see something unusual everytime I go out. For example, here's something I see routinely walking to campus with Matt.

21 September 2010

Cures for a Homesick Texan/Utahn

It has finally arrived in its first wave! What I would give to watch an episode of King of the Hill right now...

Well, since Netflix and Hulu don't have license to provide me with comforts like that, I have compiled a brief (but growing list) of things that help:

1. Bluegrass music from the UK Pandora equivalent (lastFM). Doc Watson has a House of the Rising Sun and an Amazing Grace that brought me to tears last night. Oh it was so great to hear it though.

2. Maple syrup and pancakes. The smell of the syrup alone is enough to bring me to my knees nowadays. Thank heavens for the little shoppe south of city centre that carries maple syrup!

3. A good, hard swim in my new pool. It's old timey, with big vaulted ceilings and bay windows that let in the short moments of sun and sky for all backstrokers to enjoy.

4. An FHE game of Scrabble (I am pretty sure he let me win last night to make me feel better - good man).

5. Thoughts of running like crazy up that glorious Holyrood highland. Its a bus ride or a several mile walk/run to get there but I will go. I will go and it will be magnificent.

6. Reading Ramona books. So grateful there are nearly a dozen in the series.
I'll let you know if I come up with anything else. In the meantime, any ideas you might have to fend off a case of the "missing the familiar and comforting" would be much appreciated.

19 September 2010

Exploring Edinburgh - some sites and shops

Now that us Sweeneys are settling in better here on William Street, I have had some time to explore a bit of Edinburgh this last week. My feet are still recovering from this last Wednesday when an ol' mate of mine, from my BYU Art History days, came to visit me. Rosalie just finished her Masters in Archaeology at York Uni. She made for about the best traveling and exploring company you can find anywhere. She was broken into the traveling on foot routine in these parts and so she nearly wore me out (I always hear people say that about me and now I am humbled to be on the other end of it this time).

We went up to the observatory where we some neat, unfinished architectural projects.

Apparently the place was meant to become a monument to the Waterloo battle but they never completed it. Still, it makes for some great views and pics.  

It was a good intro to the city sites since you get an arial view of the northern oceanscape

the southern cityscape,

also a great view of the spectacular Holyrood Park


After descending Calton Hill, we walked past the Scottish Parliament office on Regent Street, on our way to Holyrood Park. A view from the street looked down onto Kirkyard Church.

The graveyard looked so intriguing and picturesque (if a graveyard can be picturesque that is) that I insisted on finding our way to it. Rosalie, being the laid back pal that she is, said a detour would be a-okay. So glad she was because I think that it was one of my favorite things I have done here so far. Apparently the place is famous for having Adam Smith's grave there but I was so distracted with other small intrigues walking through it that I didn't even notice. My favorite encounters included:
this red doorway on the side,

looking for the oldest graves through stones like these (I found one from 1701 which since the place was erected in 1690 is probably nearly as old as it gets there),


getting Rosalie to dish out all of her superb archaeology analyzing skills (why rock weathers in places that it does, which rocks last better than others, etc),


seeing the vine plant remains leaving a mosaic on the wall of a tomb,
and the mossy letters of a shaded, broken gravestone.

It was great fun and I couldn't help thinking back on a stellar children's book called The Graveyard Book I just read by English author Neil Gaiman. The images in the book seemed to take on a new life walking through there. It was spooky delightful.

On to Holyrood we went. The views were incredible and out of sorts a bit. So strange to stand on a wild island of land in the middle of such an old and developed city. There was towering cliff on one side.

Then there would be huge vistas of cityscape on the other.

It was really something else. Rosalie and I celebrated our grand adventure walk by stopping and picking handfuls of wild blackberries. They were marvelous. When we finished, I felt my feet aching subtle complaints to me, so we began a descent once again into the city.

Our final trip of the day was to see the Lewis Chessmen at the National Museum of Scotland.

They are on loan from the British Museum just until this weekend, so we counted ourselves lucky that we got to take a look at the little wonders and speculate on their mysterious story before they left the city. Again, Rosalie was great company to give me insights into the nuances of the terminology used about their discovery and history. If for nothing else than the great friends I have to go to museums with, sometimes I just am so grateful I got to study art history.

And if you aren't tired of the travelogue yet, let me tell you that a couple days later my friend Alyson took me to an absolutely splendid hat shop on Friday in Haymarket. Never had the desire to go to the Kentucky Derby until stepping into Fabhatrix. If you come visit me, I will take you.

12 September 2010

Life in Lists.

Things that are better than I expected here:
-Candies. My favorites thus far are the Curly Wurly for 30P, Vanilla Filled Fizzy Pencils, Crunch bars (milk chocolate covered honey komb), Kinder Bueno.
-Walking about the city
-Our lovely wee flat
-The Edinburgh Ward

Things that have not been ideal:
-The smell of the city. At first I thought it was stewed meat but then when I smelled it early Saturday morning, I talked to a friend and realized it was the smell of breweries. Not sure if the meat smell is a worse thought than beer or not...

-Washer/Drier combo units really don't work in practice as well as you would think, especially the latter part of that combination.

-The Uni is not so welcoming as others Matt and I have encountered (ie library has gates keeping out the "riff raff" which happens to be Matt until he gets his matriculation card)

Things I didn't expect:

-Never knowing which way to look when crossing the street

-Wireless internet is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find (unless you are at an American establishment like the McDonalds where I am right now)

-Scottish people are the most matter of fact folk you will meet. This is a good thing when you want the straight story but not so much when you are needing some empathy about something not working out for you in a new place.

-Our flat's boiler to break the 2nd day (thanks to the fiddling by our landlord) we were in our place and to be freezing in September

-To have a tele here, you have to pay 140 pounds tax to the BBC. Seriously guyz?

Things we've accomplished thus far:
-Found a terrific flat in City Centre

-Got a public library card

-Found some friends

-Walked lots (and discovered a few bits of the city)

-Visited the CarPhone Warehouse and got a "mobile handset"

-Signed up for internet


Things that have yet to be done:
-Site see (anything)

-Set up Scottish bank account

-Get internet set up

-Learn how to cook Indian food and put my Mexican recipes on hold (Indian is about all there is to work with at the grocery stores)

-Find a reasonably close and priced swimming pool to keep me in a happy state


In the meantime, we are having a great adventure here...

08 September 2010

Welcome to the McSweeney's on William Street

Life is moving along here. Today, Matt and I became official letters of:
30/2 William Street
Edinburgh EH3 7LJ
United Kingdom

In case you don't believe us, it's true!


Take a look if you like - This is a bit of what it looks like from the street:

Opposite our flat is a cafe that looks like it has some good comfort food that may be ideal for a quick hot meal during a bad weather day (many to come I hear).
Our bit of bedroom here...hard to get an easy angle of it as there wasn't much space to back into for the shot. The thing is, it epitomizes "cozy" in the best way.

Here is a view of our wee kitchen... Our new Aberdeen friend from the Edinburgh Ward, Alan Adam, gives our place his blessing. Thanks to him and Alyson for driving our luggage across the crazy roads off Princes Street. We love it! And feeling very much relieved to finally have a place to call our own after weeks of trying to plan ahead and then paying day by day at a hostel until everything worked itself out in its own timing. I will admit that I will miss passing the time with new, interesting and international company each day, it will be nice not to sleep with earplugs and wake up every morning wondering where I am and why my back hurts so much.

05 September 2010

Day 2 in 1


I just asked Matt what the most memorable thing from the last 24 hours was and he responded by saying, "honestly, it is all a bit of blur right now - kind of like a dream." Well, I wish there was something more we could say for ourselves since last Friday morning but actually there isn't a lot of details you can make out from your surroundings when you have only cat napped for several days.

We missed Hurricane Earl, by some kind of miracle, and boarded our Aer Lingus flight 1/2 hour early. Our connection in Dublin had a small (20-30 people) group of us shuttled out to our model airplane of a flight. I had kept my cool the whole trip, being the one to reassure Matt over and over that "we are okay - consider the lilies" from one step to the next (checking luggage, security lines, making our flight connections, finding the hostel when we get there, finding apartments, etc); but when I saw that propeller plane a day with no sleep, I started to loose it a bit. When we got on, they began moving people from seat to seat "to even out the weight" of the flight. That was too much for me at that point so I closed my eyes and breathed deep listening to the safety instructions for our flight attendant "Kitty" in English then Irish. When I opened my eyes for a moment during take off, the cabin was shifting back and forth as I looked straight ahead. And forgive me for being overdramatic but somehow I found comfort in thinking of Mr. Ernest Shakleton (I recently read Shakleton's Stowaway) and how him and his crew did way more scary things. It made me brave. Luckily the flight was only 50 minutes long - by the time we leveled out, we headed back down.

The travel details are mundane really but for us they were exciting since they marked a beginning of an era for us and everything had a charming ring to it. From our shuttle driver to our hospitable hostel host, there was a thrilling feeling to the whole thing. Even an interaction on the street with an elderly pair of Jehovah's Witness ladies was a fun little moment. After handing us their pamphlets and seeing us waiting for the hostel to open with all our luggage, they asked what our story was. Matt and I have decided to tell people we are from Austin, TX because then people know where to place us better. The two ladies were convinced that we had "brought the warm weather with us" since the city was sunny. Matt and I shivered in our sweatshirts at the brisk sub 60 degree weather and smiled "why yes, the warm weather..."

The jet lag hit us hard. Matt was knocked right on his bunk bed several times with it. "I didn't know it was an actual thing!" he cried. "I always thought it just meant you were tired". He was a man without a time zone and that resulted in many headaches, a lost appetite and a grumpy Cate who wanted to find housing pronto. I walked through Meadows Park when he became helpless, watching the football players, passing the National Museum of Scotland and even getting a slightly obstructed view of the castle. When I got back, we passed the time by talking to our Swiss roommate (who happened to be a law student as well from the summer). He loved my joke about the heaven an hell of cultures (in Heaven the British are the soldiers, the Italian are the cooks, the French are the lovers and the Germans are the mechanics while hell makes the Italians the soldiers, the Germans the lovers, the French the mechanics and the British are the cooks). He laughed so hard at the British being the cooks - "I miss Swiss bread and cheese" he kept saying. Poor fellow. I think he was ready to go home. As for me, I will miss TexMex.

We more or less made it until 7pm and slept through the night. Off to walk to church today in a minute. Pics will come later.