Seeing Scotland

I was extremely blessed in my travels to Europe.

On my first flight to JFK in NY, I was in one of the last zones to board. By the time I got on, all of the overhead bins were completely full. I had a carry-on and a personal item so they said to check with the lady who was tagging bags about what to do. When I told her I wasn't staying in JFK but going to Amsterdam, she wisely suggested that I try to fit both of my bags under my seat. I went to work and was amazed that they fit perfectly - maybe a little squeezed but not in a way to damage anything.

We landed early at JFK which was good because it's a HUGE airport and we had to take a shuttle to the other terminal which was at least a 15 minute drive. 

When I got on the plane, I was very happy with the seat I'd selected - more near the back, but at a window and only 2 seats next to each other there. My seat mate, who was around my age, was headed back to Germany from visiting her relatives in the states. She had traveled to America every year for the last several years so I was getting tips from her on things. On the plane they had a bunch of monitors hanging from the ceiling in the aisle so everyone had to watch the same movie. Wasn't interested in the line-up so that was good because I just wanted to sleep.

Amazingly, the food was delicious! For dinner we had salad, pasta, a roll, cheese and crackers, a brownie ... they also gave us breakfast at like 3:30am local time for Amsterdam even though we were like 2 hours away from landing! Banana and blueberry muffin. And they were giving us drinks like crazy!

So I landed in Amsterdam 5:35 local time, or almost midnight back in Florida. I had a 3 and 1/2 hour wait for the gate to open for my flight .... they had a clear sliding door that kept me out of the seating area so I sat on the cold floor against a pillar and read. A mother and a son - who I found out had come from Ft. Meyers FL almost the same time I came from my FL airport - started joking about getting into the waiting part by way of the video game Portal which was hilariously awesome!!

Finally 9 am rolls around and the crew comes and we have to send our luggage through a little scanner and go through a metal detector ... and when half the passengers had gotten through they suddenly start announcing "This flight has been moved to D16!!" We were at D44 and it was literally on the otherside of the U from us. So we all start walking briskly to the new gate and had to wait some more and go through the luggage thing again. This delayed us about 40 mins.

It was a pretty nice hour flight to Edinburgh and then through customs. The guy I got joked with me a little and then let me on my way. My checked bag appeared with in 3 minutes! I walked out and there was my friend Christy!!! She helped me with my luggage (thank goodness!) and we took a double decker bus into Edinburgh which was beautiful! We then had to walk a little bit to the right bus stop to get us near the flat I'm staying out for a little while. It was really cool because there were street performers (bagpipes!!) and beautiful buildings.

Then it was a 10 minute ride until we got off near our street. As we walked up the street, Claire (who's rents the flat) and Hannah (who is Christy's co-worker) happened to be going to the store! So we exchanged greetings and continued on to the flat so I could ditch the heavy bags and settle in a bit. Christy made crepes for lunch, which were delicious!

When the girls got back - Claire's flat-mate Fiona had come back too - we made some dinner and then went to Claire's church so they could practice the dances they are making for the festival we're participating in. The church is like 2 mins from the flat and pretty cool. The practice went well and I think Christy, Claire, and Hannah will do well for the street preforming ministry that it's meant for. 

After getting a 5th wind at around 9:30 at night here, we all talked for a while and then I fell into a long hard sleep. :D

Today has been nice. Ate porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast. On encouragement from Christy I turned it into "No Bake Cookie" flavor with peanut butter, cocoa powder, butter, and honey. Yum!!

Then I talked with Claire's mom, Faith, for a while. Faith is Scottish but hasn't lived here for a while so it was fun to talk with her about life in the UK as she was thinking back on it. She just happened to be visiting this weekend on holiday. :)

Went to the church to watch the girls dance again and Claire had choreographed a Scottish Céilidh (pronounced "Kaylie) Dance that is so whimsical and gorgeous! I even got to dance a little since they're going to have the crowd join in on this one and needed me to be an extra partner. :D

Breaked for lunch - pasta salad with random vegetables in the fridge. Ate outside since it was lovely weather.  Probably about 68 or 70 F with a breeze and sun streaming into the little courtyard.

After that, the girls went for another dance practice. Faith and I took a bus into Edinburgh - she parted a stop before me, but told me exactly how to get where I wanted. I got off on North Bridge between Princes Street and The Royal Mile. I walked down to the Royal Mile and was surprised that it wasn't as busy as we'd thought. There was a Royal Wedding today, so we thought it'd be chaos downtown. But not a Royal or police escort in sight! I also happened to be going down the street the opposite direction from the location of the wedding so I guess the celebrating didn't extend too far.

I was on a mission to see Edinburgh Castle. It was probably 20 mins from the bus stop but it was a great walk. Lots of little shops and monuments and street performers. I got to the Castle 1 hour and 40 mins before they closed so I had plenty of time to look around. I took a free 25 min tour which was nice. She explained something a about the surrounding area (North Bridge isn't a draw bridge, but a drop bridge and has never had water underneath it fyi ;D) and about the buildings that made up the Castle. 

They have the oldest crown jewels in the UK and the second oldest in Europe housed there. They were sparkly beautiful! It was cool to see the history of it all.

I then walked all the way back to the flat - took about 50 mins because I got a little turned around once or twice when a sidewalk would split off in a random direction. But all things considered, it was a nice walk and I'm glad that I stuck to my guns and did it! Otherwise I never would have heard the Scottish man with a pipe mumble to his white Scottie dog "Come along, laddie." That just made my day! And I must note, he wasn't wearing a kilt.

When I got home, there was Curry (the others had shrimp but I skipped that). Faith taught us how to eat it traditionally - you take the rice, then make a hole in the middle and fill it with curry. Then you take the trimmings and place them in a circle around the rice. We had chopped bananas, grated boiled eggs, homemade Tzatski sauce, and naan bread. Who knew how good those all mixed with strong curry?

Then it was a bowl of strawberries, rasberries, and cream!

I think we're about to eat another dessert that Faith made!! yum!

I hope to get pictures off my camera soon :)

As the Scots say: "See ya la-er!"