Home is where the Scotch is

Greetings from over seas-

 So after about 15 signed documents, hours of legalities, and a whopping 2500$CAN Christopher and I have a place to call home. We moved in last Thursday and we both really appreciate having a place to settle in. We've signed a 6 month fixed lease so we committed to this city for at least that long. Additionally after spending 20 minutes on the phone with a lovely man named Derrick, who had an awesome Scottish accent, from Virgin Media, we actually got our WiFi set up by Friday morning because the last tenants had left the modem and router. Things are moving along nicely.

We love our new flat. The subtle differences between apartments back home and European "flats" are interesting but we're getting used to it. It’s a little chilly, but heat cost a fortune here so for now we're getting by with double layers and hot water bottles. The living room is gorgeous with three big windows because our flat is the corner unit, but they are single glazed only (I know I know Mom! But the place was soo pretty :) so it’s pretty drafty. We've stuffed the cracks with towels and odd socks, but this should only last another month or so, and we should be fine. It never really gets hot here in Scotland (Nique, maybe you should bring your warmy bottle when you come visit! Can’t wait to see you guys!) but it gets pleasantly mild. Speaking of weather we are starting to understand why people keep saying "Oh that’s Scottish weather for you". Everyday is a four season experience. Almost every morning it starts off bright and sunny and then as the day progresses we get some clouds, a little rain, then the sun comes out again and then oh look its snowing! Oh there’s the sun again, oh hey nice of you to join us wind, what you feel left out hail, hey the more the merrier!... okay I'm losing my mind. But seriously you can never dress for a day out, you need to be prepared, the only good part is the sun comes out at least once for a period every day.

We toasted our flat with the Scotch we had been searching the city for. I took a video of Christopher’s first sip... . The Scotch is really tasty and we have had some fun trying to find different ways for Christopher to enjoy it. I'm determined to get him to take a sip without having his facial features completely rearranged. We spent Friday job hunting. Also we both got library cards, which gives us access to all the libraries in the city. Christopher took out some anatomy drawing books which he is practicing regularly; he’s actually getting pretty good. We then spent the weekend taking it easy, just relaxing drinking Scotch and tea. Christopher decided he enjoys Scotch the most a little warmed with hot water. Says it takes away the “kick”.

Interesting experience doing laundry. Our washing machine is in our little kitchen, apparently this is all very normal by UK standards to wash your clothes where you wash your dishes. The washing machine is an odd thing. It opens from the top which the women from the renting agency said “well you must be used to that coming from North America, you always have a top openings in laundry machines there” which I thought funny. But this is not like any washing machine I’ve ever seen. The barrel is turned sideways and to open it, I first take up a part of the counter top then open the lid and then there is little trap door where the laundry goes in…. the trick was finding where to put the detergent. The button options were also fun to figure out… I just took a guess and hoped for the best. Seemed to work because the clothes came out clean expect we don’t have a dryer, so I proceeded to hang our clean clothes in various places around the apartment, however about a day and half later due to the fact that it f-ing freezing in here our clothes were still not dry, so I attempted different hanging methods and 48 hours later we achieved only slight dampness instead of all out wet clothes. Yay!! Across the street I see a dryer tube stocking out of the building… it’s the first time I ever considered breaking and entering…! At this rate its not worth it to wash clothes, we should just wear them out and buy new ones, because after a few days when the clothes finally got dry they are rough and stiff… blah, plus my jeans are not shrinking back to they’re usual snugness, , I guess I’ll just have to go shopping, what a shame.

Other then the laundry thrills, we finally went out and got decent bedding. The only option the price range we were looking at was purple and pink, so Christopher is currant sleeping on a set of dark purple sheets while I opted for the fuchsia. We don’t yet have any pillow cases but the duvet comforters we have are blissfully warm thank God! I am still snuggling my hot water bottle every night though.

Yesterday we had our first job interview with a catering company who travels around Scotland and Northern England. We would be away a few days at a time and they pay for all travel and accommodation, we want this job very badly. We’re still waiting to hear back. The interview went though so we’re confident. We also received our first Organic Veggie basket yesterday, which we were excited about because we haven’t had real nutrition in a while. The basket cost a total of 18 pounds a week and is huge and we also ordered some organic milk and eggs. Which by the way are really yummy. The veggies require quiet a bit of washing but are so worth it. Everything taste rich a crisp. I never knew a carrot straight from the dirt could taste so sweet. So this is all part of our attempted vegetarianism. I miss my red meat but this seems like a good as time as any to attempt being a vegetarian. And it means a lot to Christopher so away we go. I’ve found some good recipes online that look fun, I’ll let you know. We also get fruits with our basket which so far we’ve gotten bananas (little ones) oranges, some kind of plum wannabe and apples oh and one tiny avocado.

Other then all that, we’re just getting over a cold front here. On a day that you people in Montreal had plus 7 we were hovering around 0. But it’s creeping back up there and we’re at about 10 now. Christopher and I are going to head out and finish the Portrait Gallery and hopefully have time for the National Museum. Today is St Patrick’s day and I’m missing it badly being over here. But apparently the celebrations here are pretty good so we plan to roam around the Royal Mile (the city center) and see what kind of Guinness party’s we can find! Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone!

Cheers!

Christopher created a IMIGUR account to put all all our pictures up.

chrisandelle.imgur.com 

 We have some on facebook but for all the pictures (much to my chagrin) you can check out the link... although we are having some techinical difficulties and will let you know when its up and running.

Hostels and Scottish culture

Greetings people at home,

So, our first week in Edinburgh is almost to at an end. There are some highlights and some low lights as well. But overall it has been amazing.

Since our last post we have done some exploring of the city, and some flat hunting. During one said flat hunt we were half an hour early for the viewing so went a few doors down to the closest pub. We walked in to a small pub with two older men there. The older gentleman behind the bar was very welcoming. He gave us our Guinness’s free plus a hospitable shot of scotch, which by watching the other guy drink his scotch, we didn’t in fact “shoot” it but sipped it savouringly. After our “Cheers like” experience we went to view the flat near by which we loved. Flat hunting has proved to be a little more difficult then anticipated, mostly because we found out that flats get taken off the market very quickly and almost all renting is done through agencies which require a whole bunch of things. Namely, full time employment. Which put us in a bit of a chicken or the egg situation because to find a job we need a bank account, to get a bank account we need a permanent address… but to get the permanent address we need a job.. see what I mean. HOWEVER the fairies are at work and after seeing the flat next to this awesome pub about 10 mins walk from the city center, gorgeous windows full size bedrooms and a huge bathtub (you have no idea how rare this flat was… you don’t get many decent options around here) The agency that was letting the flat made a special request to the landlord, who agreed to let it to us with a double deposit, a guarantor (thank you mom!) and a reference letter from a past landlord (thank you Mark! Fun note- Mark put in the letter that I was a very clean tenant J) PLUS a credit check phew- well they are just doing the check now and we should hear for certain in the next day or two if we can move in. We have a couple of back up plans which we acquired through talking with some people here at the hostel. Which brings me to the excitement of the weekend.

After the flat viewing on Thursday we went back to awesome “Cheers” Pub where we met the regulars and experienced the height of Scottish hospitality. We left at 3am- don’t exactly remember the walk back to the hostel, but I do remember watching Christopher zig zag the whole way and thinking I need to make sure he doesn’t stumble in the street all the while wondering if I had the reflexes to stop him if he did. We had the opportunity to try various Scotch’s and whiskeys as well as cider and Guinness. We partook in Quiz night where one of the questions were about Canadian geography and embarrassed ourselves royally by having no clue what the answer was. “What is the largest lake in Canada that resides completely in Canada” any takers??? – No google cheaters!

Friday we needed to move hostels as the original one we were staying at didn’t have any extended availability. So after waking up in a haze we booked a hostel near by and had a lot of fun hauling our bags to the other hostel. It took us two very painful trips to get everything there and up three flights of stairs. The new hostel proved to be a peaceful and quiet until around 7:00 where it started humming or rumbling really. We found out the entire Dublin Commerce class which consisted of 180 students was taking over the hostel in Edinburgh for the weekend. This seemed like fun at first. Christopher and I went back to our Pub and had a great night listening to really great band and came back to our hostel only to be woken up 30 mins later by crazy banging on the door. These guys were banging and shouting for a good five minutes. Figuring they were trying to get a hold of some one else in the group, I ignored it, until he screamed he would piss through the mail slot if we didn’t open up, so I got out of bed with not the greatest of intentions, opened the door and told him what I would do to him if he thought twice about sticking his (insert profanity here) through the mail slot. He obviously 8000 sheets to the wind thought this was rude and amusing, he proceeded to express his feelings through a little mooning and I shut the door and went back to my room. Of course still- a group of students together and add a little away-from-home excitement and everything starts rolling down hills. He pounded the door some more and finally one of his friends from another room let him in. So now this one stupid Irish boy decided he didn’t like my attitude and wanted to retaliate… anyway to avoid any rated R content I ended up having to call the cops which by the way if anyone is in the UK the cops are 999, but 911 got me through eventually. Two very nice, young and cute cops showed up at 5 am, and were also followed by the hostel in house receptionist who wanted to take care of things without the cops, which was fine by me. However it turns out this group of guys did more then harass me they did about 1000 pounds worth of damage in they’re own dorms and were disrupting everyone around. This was a very eventful night which ended in the morning with the hostel refunding our stay for us. What did we think in the morning? That those stereo types of roughhousing Irishmen… so far so true, I guess we’ll find out in more detail next year when we go there. Everyone else seemed nice enough; one guy claimed that if he wasn’t passed out we would have gotten really pissed. The school reps came and spoke to me and apologized in person and offered to take care of our stay but the hostel had already done that.

Saturday proved to be tame in comparison. The group was spoken to and I think they were told to stay off our floor because when speaking to reception on Sunday they had disturbed another floor and threw the huge dining room table out of the third floor window. Retards-  ANYWAY

Sunday Christopher and I walked around the city, and it just seems everything is more beautiful then the next. We found some job openings and as soon as we have a address we shouldn’t have any trouble finding work.  We went to the National Portrait gallery which has free admissions and is IN-CR-ED-IA-BLE we didn’t even finish half of it because there so much to read and see. I kept getting the feeling that Christopher was getting a little impatient with me reading every description. But I haven’t seen any art gallery like it! They give detailed history and corresponding events to each portrait and how they are important, and where they come from and even the artist’s background… ahhhh so wonderful. Can’t wait to go back and we haven’t even hit the other museums. Stone of Destiny here I come!! The whole city though seems like you’re in a museum. We tried all day to find a specific Scotch we were recommended at our Pub and it doesn’t seem anywhere sells it but were told it was a Scotch that is distilled in Edinburgh and has the highest concentration of Malt something or other - my understanding dropped there. Either way it’s a great Scotch that is apparently decently priced so the hunt is still on.  We hope to find it and toast our new flat with it.

 To wrap up this post-Turns out Christopher isn’t the easy-gong-passive travelling companion I once thought… this guys a tyrant! Until we get jobs he won’t let me shop or even get a drink with our meals! I drew the line at the no beers though; I mean someone has to bring sanity into this partnership.

Other then that, I have actually met someone who eats faster then I do! It has been the oddest thing. I’m not used to be watched while I’M the last one to finish a meal. Also really funny, I found out that the tiniest spiciness give Christopher instant violent hiccups – l o l really hilarious to watch.

Little Scottish or UK observation. No one here seems to know how to end a conversation… every phone call I have or encounter there is always this awkward pause and each person talking over the other… very strange. Christopher and I have discussed this matter at length and think it’s because everyone, and we mean EVERYONE here leaves or ends with “Cheers” so we’re going to try and take that up so as to avoid this constant awkwardness. We’ll keep you informed on our integration into the UK culture

Sorry again about these long posts. I’m thinking about writing more often so they’re no as long. We’ll see. But writing to you all out there is really nice; make us not miss you as much.

We’ll write soon hopefully with news on our apartment and employment.

Cheers!

Arrived! Day one - tea, beer and castles

Written on March 1st
"We're leaving ona  jet plane, we don't know when we'll be back again (low tenor) LEAVING on a jet plane...." hasn't everyone wanted to do that? Well the day is here! This post is written waiting at the airport for our first flight which is delayed 30 mins, no biggt excpet our netbook is having problems connecting.
We toasted our departure with a Double Rye and Ginger, and a Amaretto Sour... guess whose drink was whose??? :)

We have spent the the last few weeks saying good bye and preparing the best we can, we only had to do one turn around for our laptop mouse, otherwise everything went smoothly.. except I have already lost my travel pillow somewhere between taking it out of my bag during security and realizing it was lost. So that was sucky.
Good news! I know you were all holding your breaths, but I got to bring a second checked bag!! As you will see from the attached pictures it is a mammoth of a bag

Today -

We made it!! Our flight from MOntreal to London was smooth and uneventful, unfortunately neither Christopher or I could sleep, not for a lack of trying, but we had a awesome variety of movies to choose from to keep us occupied. We arrived in Heathrow airport a little tired but mostly excited. We were told that the best way to beat jet lag was to push through the day with coffee and go to bed when the sun went down, unfortunately I think that only works when you have actually slept the night before. BUT we made it through anyway. My first culture shock was when ordering coffee at the airport I asked for cream and milk and the guy behind the counter said "Sorry babe, we don't put cream in coffee in the UK",  well, milk it was then.
We spent the waiting time reading our orientation for Edinburgh and eating porridge. Very exciting.
The flight from London to Edinburgh was short and gorgeous. Christopher had the window seat and was very fascinated. I sat next to this women who gave me a run down of the Edinburgh culture and tips on the citys workings. I took notes. The last thing she said to me was "Don't be deceived by the sun, its really cold out there" The first thing Christopher and I said to each other when leaving the airport was "Oh  my God its so WARM!" The travelling fairies and Gods were on our side. Our welcome to the city was with warm weather and sunshine, everything was booming. I felt as if we were watching a movie. Now the REALLY eventful part was picking up all our bags and taking the bus from the airport to the city center. You have seen the pictures.... good thing the bus driver was nice! The drive from the airport to the city center was exactly what you think Scotland would look like. Stone fences, fields, farms, really old stone houses, it was un real.
Getting to the city centre we had to take a taxi with all our bags. So after unloading all our bags on the street corner in front of our to-be accommodations, we couldn't actually get in to the hostel... so Christopher waited on the curb with all our bags while I ran down the street like an idiot finding a pay phone, I found the pay phone (no it wasn't the cool British red booths) I had to go find out how much a call was, realize I didn't have the change for it, go to a shop near by buy a bottle of water to break a bill (or "note" as its called here) go back to the phone booth, realize the coins I had were to big go BACK to the store to ask for change, jay walk quickly across the street to get to the phone again only to figure out the phone is broken.... Welcome to Edinburgh!
However the travelling fairies were with us, because when I went back to tell Christopher, the women who handles the bookings was walking in the building. so we lugged all our bags (okay okay all MY bags) in the building. After we settled in we went out to explore!  We walked around the city and stopped in a Waverly Station and had a fresh baguette sandwich, bri fresh basil and tomato's... mmm warmed, it was delicious. We sat on a bench at the gorgeous station and people watched for a while. I then paid 30p to pee. After filling our tummies we walked to the apartment (sorry "flat) that we were going to be seeing the next morning. Great walk... we couldn't get over just how amazing the whole city is. Together we figured out its Old Montreal times 20 plus add about 8 castles mixed in. At this point we were exhausted. We hadn't slept for about 30 hours so we got our PJ's on, put water in our hot water bottles and get comfy to watch a movie.  Turns out, Christopher was the hero of the hour! We packed the extra travelling pillow we had! So I was not without a place to rest my head. :) Christopher fell asleep and I just couldn't get comfortable. At about 10 pm Edinburgh time, Christopher woke up and said "Want to go get a beer?" and I knew I had made the right choice in a travelling companion. We go up and expected to walk into a cold night air, and realized its warmer outside then in the actual place we were staying!  We walked down the main street to the Royal Mile (the oldest street in Edinburgh where most of the museums are, and ends with Edinburgh Castle at the top) found a Pub called "The Tass" and walked in because of music playing. We walked into this old Scottish Pub and were greeted with this wonderful scene and sound of traditional Scottish music. Just a group of people sitting around the table with about 5 different instruments and a casual deep Scottish voice singing along. Man it was incredible. As were went to the bar and ordered our first European Guinness it struck me that this was exactly what you would think a pub experience would be in Edinburgh. We finished our beer and hunted for food, which we ended up have a Falafel and chatted with this really nice Lebanese ex-sailor. We then ended our night with a pub across the street from our hostel called "The Brass Monkey" apparently there are a few in the Edinburgh, and I know why, great music, awesome settings and we got some ordering tips from the barmaid. Which are "DO NOT TIP" they always know when amaericans are ordering because of how they tip, they think its funny apparently to tip at every drink. If you spend alot of time at the bar and buy alot of rounds its common to buy a drink for the bartender, but that's it.
SO we left the pub and found no trouble sleeping the night. We woke up early to walk in the traditional Scottish weather to a flat viewing which we were stood up by, but we have other viewings today. We will keep everyone posted I know your all on the edge of your seat. BUT for now Christopher and I leave you as we go a tour Edinburgh Castle. We will post photos tonight. 
Wow this post was long.
We love you all and miss you terribly! No time to minus all the "so"'s in this post, so sorry!