I'm on a boat!

Written October 12

Catching up again! All this pressure to keep up to date! Just kidding. We’ve been busy and I just haven’t had the energy to write in the evening.

So to begin, last Saturday we took a long, somewhat damp stroll to the Leith Docks where the Royal Yacht Britannia is docked. By accident we found out how to go in as we stopped at the shopping mall there to eat first. This was a great thing to see. It’s huge! And thankfully we were allowed to take pictures everywhere. The best parts were seeing the Queen’s bedroom (Prince Phillip sleeps down the hall!), the dining room and then in rather stark contrast, the quarters for all the Royal Navy and “Yotties”, as the crew were called, on board. The royal apartments were beautiful, but not nearly as fancy as I thought they might be. Everything still looked very old fashioned – or well, kind of Seventies fashioned. It was very interesting though to see photos everywhere of the royal family having fun and dressed more casual. The yacht was a real vacation for them even though they were still served as they would be at home. The audio guide said that the front deck was often home for an inflatable pool that the family could swim in while sailing! I also really enjoyed seeing the various messes on lower decks where the crew could unwind. They very much reminded me of the messes in the armouries back home.

We got back to the hotel and after a bit of a nap for me, we got ready to go out for dinner with Jesse and Katie Third. We met them at an Italian place just off of Princes Street and had a great meal. I’d never officially met Jesse, the day he brought his kit back to the armouries was the only time I’d ever seen him at Highlanders practice. But he and his wife Katie are great people and I’m so, so glad to have met them. We laughed a lot and told stories and shared bottles of wine. Afterwards, they took us to two pubs – one close by and the other in the Grassmarket area in the Old Town. On the way to that one, we wandered through Greyfriars Kirkyard. It felt rather odd to be strolling through a graveyard at night while Katie told us stories of the area. It’s built up rather higher than the streets around it because as they ran out of room for graves, they just added more dirt and started digging more. Because of this, the  ground is very soft and it’s not uncommon to find bones from time to time sticking up out of the earth. There were lots of people around though and it really didn’t feel as creepy as you might think it would. This place also gave us an awesome view of the back of the castle all lit up from below.

We sat in the pub for a while and listened to a little band play. There was a guy playing a whistle, a girl on fiddle, two guitars and an old man playing double bass. He was quite the character! He engaged us in conversation and eventually ended up inviting us to come outside and share some of what he was rolling into his cigarette with him. We all politely declined. It was a really great night.

Sunday we got a late start and actually missed breakfast at the hotel. Turns out being at sea-level does not allow me to drink more before I get drunk. But it’s not entirely my fault for needing to sleep a little extra – the people in the room above us were engaging in some rather…ummm…squeeky physical activity in their bed and I couldn’t stop giggling. In spite of our late night and late start, we got some more sightseeing in on Sunday. We had lunch at a French café on Leith Walk and got lattes to drink while we meandered our way up to the Royal Mile. Thankfully St. Giles Cathedral wasn’t closed for the day so we toured ourselves through. It’s a very old, very nice place with amazing carvings and masonry work. I think Brandon said there’s been some sort of church on that site for more than 900 years. The highlight for me was the Thistle Chapel though. That’s where the Order of the Thistle, the highest order of Scottish chivalry, meets. The ceiling, the seats, the alter and just about every surface is carved from wood or stone and it’s stunning. The best part is the angel playing bagpipes. We bought a little replica from the shop.

After touring the church we found our way back to Greyfriar’s Kirkyard again to check out some of the monuments. They’re so, so old. Most of them date from the 17 and 1800’s. A lot of them you can’t read anymore and the sandstone is worn away causing breakage. Brandon kept looking for bones but only found sticks. Maybe next time! There’s a large section that is locked up behind an iron gate that we couldn’t go into. I’m not sure why exactly, but it’s the section reserved for the Covenentors. I don’t have all the information on that particular movement in Scottish history so I won’t comment on that just yet. I would like to take an official tour of the cemetery though so we could go into that section as well.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the mall and bought the fourth season of The Big Bang Theory on DVD. And that’s how we spent our evening – eating Pizza Hut delivery and watching tv in bed. It was pretty awesome! I’m having some trouble with my knee being stiff and a little sore from all this walking I’m not used to doing. So a night off to veg out was totally fine by me.

Monday morning we got up early and headed over to the letting agent’s office. We read through so much paperwork but finally got our lease signed and handed over six-month-worth of rent. It felt great to have that done and secured. After that there wasn’t much to do for the day. Brandon had a lesson back in Glasgow at 4 so around 1, I walked with him up to Leith Walk, picked up some lunch at Tesco (a great grocery store with loads of pre-done lunch stuff), and then saw him off to the train station. Then I spent most of the afternoon catching up with photos, cleaning the room and packing my backpack. We had Chinese food to celebrate Thanksgiving, packed Brandon’s backpack, sent the last emails we needed to before we lost the internet for a while, and hit the sack.

Tuesday was moving day! We got a taxi from the hotel to our new flat even though it really wasn’t that far of a walk. But we had accumulated so much laundry that it needed a bag of its own and there was just too much to carry. The letting agent finally arrived with our keys, we did a quick walk through and got some instruction on the boiler and electric-heated shower and the place was ours! It felt wonderful to walk around with so much space and to put our backpacks down, knowing we won’t have to be packing them nearly so heavy for some time. We did a quick little inventory of what was in the cupboards and wrote a list of the necessities, then headed out to shop. We stopped in at what we hoped would give us everything we needed, but they were seriously lacking in selection and a little higher than we had in mind for price. So, into a cab and out to Ikea! It was great. We got almost everything we needed in one trip for under 200 Pounds. Good thing those little black taxis aren’t so little inside! We got back home, unloaded and then went out again for groceries. Our cab driver told us how to get to the closest Sainsbury’s, a large grocery chain here in the UK. And it was great. It’s the biggest grocery store we’ve seen here and we’re so thankful that we know where it is now. It’s within walking distance as long as you don’t buy as much as we did and everything we bought filled up our kitchen rather nicely.

And today, Wednesday, we had another productive day. We bought two small tables from a second hand charity shop for the living room that will be delivered tomorrow, we bought a TV from the cash converters store, Brandon got us signed up for TV and internet and I found us a coffee maker and a few other things we forgot to put on the list yesterday. It’s starting to feel like home and in spite of the fact that we don’t quite know how to make the heat and hot water work properly, and that the laundry takes forever to dry on our tiny drying rack, and that there can only be one person in the kitchen at one time, we are loving our home. It’s great to be able to cook in our own kitchen and do as many loads of laundry as I want one right after the other. It’s wonderful to walk around barefoot and to leave things out on the table without worrying that someone will take them. It’s fabulous to unpack the toiletry bag into the bathroom and not have to worry about taking up too much space or that you can’t leave your shampoo bottles in the shower. Finally, Scotland is feeling like home.