As fall closes in on Edinburgh, with the light disappearing earlier in the evenings and the orange and red leaves blowing in the wind, I've found a few minutes to try to summarise some of our summer adventures in preparation for an equally busy few months.
2.5 Canadians?
I may need to change the title of the blog one of these days. Not only do we plan to move to Glasgow at some point this school year, we are also expecting a little Scottish Canadian to join us in a couple months. We found out the exciting news on April 2nd and are due December 7th. I'll go on leave from work a few weeks beforehand, so I'm now working very hard trying to complete as much work on the thesis before I take a break. It's looking good! I'm so thankful to have felt great through much of the pregnancy (at least after week 15 or so) and have even been able to do some traveling...
Off to See the Fjords
Derek and I fulfilled a very big dream of mine back in June -- going to Norway to see a fjord. It was a really wonderful trip. We went for a week and it ended up being divided into 3 very different sections. I went on my own on a Wednesday evening and spent two nights with a friend from school over here who is from Oslo. I ventured around the city, seeing the major sights (Parliament, the Royal Palace, the opera house, the fort, etc.). Then Derek flew in on Friday night and first thing Saturday morning we took a train into the mountains to Flam and from there hopped on a ferry part-way through the Sognefjorden to the picturesque town of Balestrand, where we stayed for two nights. There we did some hiking, waded in the fjord at a rocky beach (terribly painful but a great experience), and enjoyed picnicking on our balcony at the hotel.
On Monday we caught the first ferry out to Bergen and tried to do a bit of sightseeing in the pouring rain before catching our train back to Oslo. We then succeeded in completing another dream of mine that I'd held since Grade 5: seeing a Viking ship. In fact, at this one simple museum I got to see 3! The weather was lovely -- mid-20s, sunny, and just so much nicer than in the UK -- so on our last afternoon Derek, my friend and I all had a barbecue in a big park overlooking some of the city. And after picking out the perfect Norwegian sweater (my third wish for the trip) we headed home happy and tired.
Family Comes to Visit
Derek and I hadn't had many visitors before this year, but in May I was so happy to have two of my aunts and my cousin come to visit us and the wider UK. They made the wise decision to rent a holiday flat in Edinburgh for 2 days at a time, alternating between being here, seeing our lovely city with us, and seeing some of northern Britain's prettier areas. They took a trip up to Inverness and the Isle of Skye (which I'm determined to see at some point while we're here), and a second trip down to the Lake district (another beautiful area I have yet to see). It was so nice to be able to stop by their place and just hang out, or have them over for a truly Scottish meal of (vegetarian) haggis, neeps, and tatties. I certainly missed them when they flew home, and look forward to having more family come up early in the new year once the baby comes.
The (Other) Royal Wedding
While it sure didn't get the press coverage or all the hype of The Royal Wedding, Edinburgh did get to host its own royal wedding in July, when Princess Anne's daughter, Zara Phillips, married England rugby player Mike Tindall at Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile, about a block away from Holyrood Palace. With all the big-name royals planning to attend my good friend and I knew we could not miss it. But the wedding was not a public affair (even though the British public paid the half-million pound cost for security on the day), the time of the ceremony wasn't made public, the crowd numbers allowed to line the street were severely limited and the church itself is small and along one of the narrowest sections of the street, so this created a number of potential problems to overcome. But we made it! We stood for five and half hours just down from the entrance to the Kirk, where we could see its front doors clearly, and watched as the cars quickly drove by and the guests quickly made their way inside.
We got to see the groom and his groomsmen pose for photos, William, Kate, and Harry who arrived together, Princess Anne, Edward and Sophie, Andrew and his daughters (in much less outrageous hats and outfits), Charles and Camilla (looking drab but with a wild headpiece), and the Queen and Prince Philip, and then the bride herself, who looked lovely (although from our angle she appeared to be all veil -- I had to rely on the magazine photos to get a good look at her dress). So there we had it, all the royal watching one could ever want in one afternoon, and they had come to us. Amazing.
Those were certainly the highlights of my summer, although I could have left something out accidentally in my haste to put it all down. Edinburgh's weather overall was just awful this summer -- cold, damp, windy -- we could probably count the number of summery days on one hand. Fall is somewhat of a relief because at least the weather feels fitting now. But I sure miss having daylight light the living room past 10pm!
