Calton Hill

Last Sunday we took a hike up to the top of Calton Hill, which sits just behind our house. Several interesting buildings and structures sit upon the hill, and it offers a gorgeous view of the city when you reach the top. The New Parliament House is pictured here, and can be seen from a distance from the balcony of our flat. In a historical city like Edinburgh, the term "new" can be a bit misleading. This New Parliament House was actually built in the 1820's and proposed as the new site for the Scottish Parliament which was located on the upper end of the Royal Mile at the time. Similarly, there are distinctions here between Old Town and New Town. We live in Old Town where tenement buildings were rapidly put up as the population of Edinburgh increased exponentially between the 15th and 18th centuries. Overcrowding had led to fire, safety, and hygenic problems and plans were drawn up to expand the city across the bridge. Thus "New" Town actually dates back to the late 1700's. But I digress...here is the New Parliament building on Calton Hill.
These columns are the only finished component of a monument designed to honor those who died in the Napoleonic wars. Funding apparently ran out after these columns were erected so this is all that ever came of the monument project. Still a pretty impressive sight!



You can see most every part of the city from the top of Calton Hill. Here's Tony at the top of the hill with Old Town on the left and New Town on the right:

Here's a view out towards Old Town highlighting a church called Canongate's Kirk. This church is just a few doors up from our flat and hosts the graves of many famous Edinburgh citizens, including Adam Smith.

This is a view of Arthur's Seat, a peak (or hill to us Colorado folk!) that provides an excellent view over the city. Our flat is in the lower left-hand corner of the picture. This is the tail end of Arthur's Seat that wraps around to the Firth of Forth.
And here a view of the Firth of Forth and the city sprawling right out to the shores: And finally, Tony indicating that he is ready for me to stop taking pictures and head home!!

Cheers!

This single word, "Cheers!", is certainly the most commonly used phrase here, which makes sense given it's broad range of meaning. Thus far we've compiled the following list of possible meanings of the word cheers:

- Hi
- Bye
- Thanks
- No thanks
- Excuse me
- Sorry!
- It's okay!
- Have a good day
- See you later
- I'll be right back with that
- Nice to meet you
- Nice to meet you too
- Sounds good to me
- No problem
- Take care
- Good food
- Good beer
- Good point

And the most important:
- I don't know what else to say, so I'll just say, "Cheers!"

Browns Close

The lower end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh is called Canongate, which is where we live. As you walk along Canongate there are handfuls of little doorways that lead back into courtyards and "tenement buildings", as they say here. They call these "closes", so as you walk along you see little signs marking White Horse Close, Cowans Close, etc. We live in Browns Close, which we recently learned sits on the site of an old tenement building that was constructed by Bailie John Paterson with his portion of the winnings of a golf match in which he partnered with the Duke of York and to compete against two English noblemen. The Englishmen claimed that golf was an English game, prompting the Duke of York (later known as James VII) to challenge them to a match, which was held in 1681. The matter was settled when the Scots won the match. Paterson established the tenement building with his half of the prize money and the building was known as Golfers Land. The Duke had a stone carving of the coat of arms affixed to the wall and the golfers' motto 'Far and Sure' was inscribed on it. Sadly, the original building was torn down in 1960 to make place for Sir Basil Spence's development of a pub called Jenny Ha's. The pub is still there on the Royal Mile today, and our flat is just behind it in Browns Close. I've never lived in a place with so much history - it's pretty amazing.

After that story, the details of our flat are rather unimpressive, but here they are nonetheless. We are guessing that our flat is about 650 square feet. Our kitchen is definitely not made for more than one cook to be in the kitchen, which is good news for Tony. Pretty much everything here is tiny - cars, flats, grocery stores, grocery packaging, washing machines and refrigerators. Not much more than a few pairs of pants, a few shirts, and a few socks will fit in the washing machine at one time, so we'll have to become more consistent on keeping up with laundry! Here is the kitchen, looking in from the living room (for some reason, all washing machines are in the kitchen here):


This is the counter top that is behind the door in the above picture. As you can see, our stove, freezer and fridge are all very small. We'll have to become more consistent in grocery shopping as well, because you can't stock up for more than a few days at a time with a mini-fridge in the kitchen! This is the view of the living room from the kitchen doorway. We have a small balcony off the living room there which we'll enjoy having on less rainy days.

Same room, but looking back towards the kitchen. Every room has a door that can be closed to section it off from the rest of the house - they seem to like that here as we've seen it in every flat thus far. Between the kitchen window and the balcony window we get a lot of natural light, which I'm so thankful for.
This is the hallway that the living room door above leads to. If you take a right, you're in the bathroom and if you take a left, you're in the bedroom. Here's the bathroom!

And the bedroom...The bedroom has good closet space and a small built in desk in the corner. Tony doesn't plan to use it for studying, so I've taken it over for my jewelry, perfume and array of hair products since there's so little storage space in the bathroom. Thanks honey!
This is the view off of our balcony - Calton Hill.

And to conclude the tour, this is the courtyard behind our flat.

Last night I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies, Tony's ultimate comfort food. I had heard from a friend that they don't have chocolate chips here, which is still rather surprising to me. Ingredients are slightly different around the world, but even so I wasn't expecting the cookies to come out as strangely as they did. The batter had a hint of the tangy flavor of muffin mix, but was still pretty good. The cookies themselves, however, came out with a very odd texture and flavor - much more like little cakes than cookies: Perhaps the milk chocolate Cadbury's bar I chopped up is too milky to be substituted for semi-sweet chips. It's hard to say what went wrong because the ingredients all seemed fairly comparable to the US, so I'll have to do some testing. This batch will go with me to the dinner I'm going to help serve to the homeless here in partnership with the church we visited on Sunday, and I trust they will enjoy them more than we will.

Week 1 - Scotland

We left Denver on Sept. 11, and yes the airfare was much cheaper on that date than any other date in the entire month. Not surprisingly, they have trouble selling tickets for that date. We decided that we were much more motivated by the financial bottom line than the eerie feelings and many memories that go along with that historic date. Ultimately, it worked to our advantage that many flights weren't sold out for that date because when we arrived at the airport we learned that our first of 3 flights had been canceled, causing a domino-like collapse of our entire travel schedule. Within an hour or so, we were booked on a flight to Munich, hustled our way down the terminal, said our rushed and teary goodbyes, and made it to the gate just as they were calling standby passengers for the other remaining seats. It was quite an exit, and the agent checking my passport and airline ticket actually stopped when he saw my tears to ask if I felt I would be okay to travel. That motivated me to pull it together!

Our flight from Manchester up to Edinburgh whet my palette as we soared over small villages scattered throughout the gorgeously green countryside. The lush vegetation here is such a change from the deserts of Peru that I oohed and aahed the entire flight as Tony tried to squeeze in a little nap.

To make a long story short, the housing that we had originally secured through the university fell through about 2 weeks before we were supposed to arrive. They found another flat for us in time, but when we arrived we discovered that it was not at all what had been described to us. We had about 450 square feet in total (dirty and damp square feet at that!) and no washing machine, living room or furnishings. We did some looking and realized we could get a much nicer, furnished flat for less than we were being charged by the university. Having arrived on a Friday, no leasing agencies were open over the weekend so we ended up spending the next 4 days wandering from place to place for a cheap night's stay until we moved into our new flat on Wednesday. We now have a place to call home and are starting to feel settled in. Our old building was much more traditional and charming on the outside, but the new one is MUCH more cozy and comforting on the inside. It's a good trade off, all things considered!

The view from our old flat's kitchen window. A beautiful, historic area!

Standing under our new flat's balcony during the evening rainstorm.

We've had so much fun exploring the city and learning our way around. I'm amazed at how quickly a large and overwhelming city can start to become familiar. We've been taking many buses, and usually plant ourselves on the upper level in the first row to get a good look around. The city is beautiful and predominantly filled with old stone buildings, each of which is filled with solely white squared window frames. This makes for a stunning view from the outskirts of the city. A friend here gave a great description of the city when he said, "Doesn't it all feel so Peter-Pan-ish?" And indeed it does. It's an enchanting place to be. Our first night here, we ate at a restaurant called "Ye Olde Peacock Inn", which was constructed in 1767. I love the feeling of being in a place with so much history -you can just feel it seeping through as you walk the streets.

We've laughed at the number of British sayings and sights that truly are everywhere! We've lost count of the number of times we've heard "Cheers!" and "Cheerio!". We've both used a red telephone booth to make a few calls and can affirm that it is much more enjoyable to use a payphone in one of these red booths than any of the ones we've used in the US!

Here's a shot of The Royal Mile, which runs from the Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace of Holyrood. Scottish Royalty used to hold their processions down this road when they moved from one location to the other. We live on the lower end of this road, just about a block before it hits the palace.
There are statues of famous philosophers, politicians, writers, etc. scattered along The Royal Mile - Adam Smith, Sir Walter Scott, David Hume, to name a few. Here's Tony standing next to Hume holding and his tablet. Tony saw a great quote about him recently - "David Hume - may the soul he denied rest in peace."
Here Tony is overlooking the courtyard at New College. John Knox is there in the middle, the key figure in the Scottish Reformation.

Here we are at New College just before Tony's orientation.

While Tony attended his orientation and registration events throughout the week, I explored the city with my dear friend Krista. She was able to tag along on her husband's business trip and spend a few days with us this week. It was so great to see she and Mike after our stressful first days here. Krista and I found a great little French Bistro for a hot bowl of soup on a cold and rainy day. Here I am in my raincoat outside Cafe Marlayne.

Krista and I waiting at the bus stop - a common activity!

So, that's our first update from Edinburgh. Tony's classes start Monday, as does my intensive job search. More pictures and updates to come. Cheers!

Here and There and Everywhere...

The title of this post is the best description I could come up with for my frame of mind over the past month. It's rather descriptive of our physical locations as well as we traveled out of Peru, stopped in Florida, arrived in Denver, cruised out to Nebraska and are now preparing to leave for Scotland on Thursday. It's been hard to create time to sit and update the blog, not solely for lack of convenient time but also because of the many emotions wrapped up in the last month. While we've been back in Denver, my thoughts have been split between the kids and church in Peru, treasuring the moments we have here with family and friends, and mentally preparing for our move to Edinburgh. This morning I watched the promotional video for New Hope with Tony and my dear friend Dayna and was in tears within the first 5 seconds. I cried and cried as I looked at those little faces again and it gave me the extra push I needed to get over the fact that I don't know where to begin with the next post and just begin to write.

Our last few weeks in Peru were filled with many special memories. The kids were on vacation from school for two of our last three weeks, which afforded us many precious moments with them we would not have had otherwise. We hosted a quinciniera (15th birthday party) for three of our young ladies in the home, which was a great cultural experience for me. We celebrated two weddings with our friends before we left. Tony's mom and I baked, baked and baked with the kids and several ladies from the church. I was enchanted with the number of children I saw flying kites in the weeks before we left, which I learned is the official season of kite flying in Peru. (They also have a "season" of playing with marbles, which I didn't know about either.) I requested and subsequently received an abundance of hugs from all of the kids at the home. Those tight squeezes feel almost real when I think about them now, so far away from the arms that wrapped around me almost hourly for the last month.

Leaving Peru was quite possibly the most heart wrenching thing I've ever experienced in my life. Last year as I bawled my way through the Denver airport on my way to Peru, I had the underlying assurance that my family would be okay without us and that they were supporting us in what we were going to do. This time, my heart ached most because I knew the kids didn't totally understand why we were leaving. How can they understand what this opportunity represents for us when the implications of our departure are so huge for them? I found my deepest consolation in affirming in my prayers that God knows the deepest emotional needs of each one of the kids and asking him to meet those needs in the way that only he can. I pray that somehow the kids will come to know him more as he meets those needs in our absence. It's easy to feel irreplaceable and overly important when involved in supporting and caring so intimately for kids who don't have much in this world. It was good to be reminded of my ultimate inability to provide what these kids need, and to be challenged to trust God enough to meet their needs.

I was humbled beyond words to hear the kind gratitude and reflections from so many people during our last weeks in Peru. We were honored by a special church service that was hosted for us on our last Sunday, a special lunch with all of the workers at New Hope, and many moments of tears, hugs and expressions of thanks that were sprinkled throughout the week. I think it is inevitable to be overcome with a certain number doubts and regrets when a season of life comes to a close, and I believe it is God's grace to provide so many kind comments and affirmations to be spoken during those moments.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to be recounting some of the moments I've treasured and tucked away in my heart. Somehow writing and sharing them with others seems to acknowledge the significance they're due. My heart is overflowing with love for the people of Peru right now and I want to share that with those who may be reading along. Thank you for sharing in this journey with us -I'm back in the blog world and will be writing more regularly again!! Your prayers are coveted for our transition, and for the kids and members of our community in Peru who are feeling the impact of our transition as well.