Summer Wrap-Up

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!

Royal Wedding Prep

The Big Day is almost here! I can't turn on the news without seeing a reporter in front of Westminster Abbey or having to listen to a 'Royal Correspondent' speculate on what they couldn't possibly know about the details of William's and Kate's big day. My personal preparations have involved buying bunting (a 5 metre string of little Union Jacks to hang up in my living room) and deciding to wear my Garden Party and make scones with Derek. I'm having a good friend over, and we'll be spending the morning nibbling on British foods, glued to the television. I'm looking forward to it.

I certainly don't envy everyone back home who would have to wake up at 3am to watch the entire coverage, or at least 6 to watch the ceremony. Here the wedding starts at 11am, a very reasonable time for a wedding if I do say so myself :) We've been getting tons of informative and fun resources on the day and I thought I'd pass a few of them along to my non-British-resident readers.

The most important for following the wedding would have to be the day's schedule. For that I've turned to the couple's blog. It's amazing how precisely the day has been planned out. I'm sure with many millions of pounds being spent on security, weeks of bomb checks, days of police-lined streets and bodyguards and policemen disguised in other ceremonial uniforms throughout the processions that everything will go amazingly smoothly.

The government has been trying to encourage Britons to hold big street party's in honour of the occasion. I don't think I'll see any around here. Scotland just doesn't seem to be getting swept up in Royal Wedding fever. Glasgow was actually on the news this morning for having not put in a single request for such a party. But if you were to have a party, of course you'd need appropriate food. Where better to turn than BBC's own selection of Royal Wedding recipes? I can't stomach coronation chicken myself, but that's just me.

Finally, Derek caught an interesting news clip this morning of all the betting on the Royal Wedding that's been taking place. I would never have thought of such a thing! People are betting on everything from what time Kate will arrive, to whether Harry will forget or drop the ring, will Philip fall asleep during the ceremony, and what colour hat will the Queen wear? (My guess is turquoise, as I've been seeing her in a lot of blue lately). It looks like all the major betting firms are taking bets on these and more. Crazy.

I'm excited about seeing the big day. I'm sure Kate will look beautiful, and I hope absolutely nothing happens to spoil their big day. This means that the rain showers that are threatening London had better hold off! I'm also looking forward to Edinburgh welcoming its own Royal Wedding this summer, on July 30, when Princess Anne's daughter Zara Phillips will marry England rugby player Mike Tindall. They're planning to have their reception at the Palace of Holyrood House, where Derek and I attended the Queen's Garden Party last summer. So there's another wedding to look forward to in the near future, but I don't think it can compare on scale, excitement, or international interest. I'll be looking for it though :)

Winter Wrap-Up

It's been a very interesting couple of months, with time just flying by. So here's my attempt at a recap in order to capture it on the page.

A winter storm rocked Britain at the very end of November. Government officials said that due to the 'unprecedentedly' early date they couldn't have been prepared. And they sure weren't. Everyone had a good chuckle about in hindsight, as if the snow had begun a day or two later, once it was December, we doubted they would have suddenly had enough snow plows, shovels, salt and grit to deal with the snow. There were a number of factors that made handling the snow difficult. It snowed day after day for several days in a row, leading to a foot of accumulation in some areas of Scotland. However, the temperature stayed fairly warm by Canadian winter standards, which led to the snow being heavy and damp, hard to clear, and prone to melting in the day, freezing over night, and then ending up as a layer of ice under the next day's snow fall.

The infrastructure just isn't in place here to deal with continual or large snowfalls. There just aren't enough snowplows in the cities, along the main highways or at the airports. This led to many airport closures, dangerously icy city streets and the closing of the highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The trains in some areas stopped running. Between Edinburgh and Glasgow trains were officially reduced to 2 an hour, making every stop rather than alternating and turing the 40 minute journey into about an hour 20. City buses gave up on following any schedule and would suddenly change their routes due to road conditions (and/or hills). One day they were suddenly cancelled at noon, then slowly reinstated around 5, even though it was barely snowing. People are not required to shovel the sidewalk in front of their homes or shops, so people don't have shovels, the pavement isn't cleared, and huge stretches of sidewalk became dangerous slippery ice rinks as the snow was packed down by boots in the day and freezing over at night. I felt so bad for older residents of the city who would no doubt feel trapped by the snow and ice. I took the bus a lot more often than normal because it seemed a lot safer than walking on ice or along streets with dangerous drivers. People here don't know how to drive in slippery conditions, leading to countless vehicles getting stuck at the bottom of hills. On the no. 2 bus we came across the previous 2 that had gotten stuck at the bottom of a hill. Our driver briefly pulled over to heckle the other's driver... For me the worst consequence of the dangerous roads was the lack of food staples reaching grocery store shelves. We went days without being able to find milk or bread in the grocery stores in our area. The few deliveries that did make it in were snapped up quickly. I was so happy to come across a well-stocked Tesco's the one day that I scooped up two containers of milk on my way to school, stuck them in the office fridge, then carried them home again.

We were very lucky really during the bad weather. Our flat is decently insulated, has double-glazed windows and good gas central heating, so we were warm. Derek couldn't get to school much during the last week before we travelled home for Christmas, as inter-city buses were completely cancelled and the trains were few and sporadic. Concerned that we might miss our 9am flight out of Glasgow (the plan had been to take the first train out of Edinburgh in the morning, but we knew we couldn't rely on them to be on schedule anymore), Derek booked us a room at an airport hotel for the night before, and we took a mid-afternoon train the day before. The train was slow and late, and the main transport routes (both road and rail) still weren't running at full capacity even though it hadn't snowed for 3 days. It was really nice getting to spend a night away, and we made our flight with no problem (except perhaps the inconvenience of having to pull our luggage along the snow-covered streets between the hotel and the airport).

Scotland's transport minister was interrogated about why the country was allowed to shut down for day after day. People had been stuck on major roads for up to 14 hours at a time. Dairies had to dump expiring milk because their trucks couldn't transport it to the waiting cities, and city dwellers in Scotland's capital couldn't get milk and bread. He said the snow was unprecedented. Really? It's snowed every winter we've been here, and that's three in a row. It might be worth investing in a few more snowplows. Britain's GDP growth for the last quarter of 2010 was negative 0.5%. They blamed it on the weather.

Now that we're back in Edinburgh our lives are dominated by schoolwork, as it should be. I'm hoping to have handed in the final product by the end of 2011, and that goal has me reading a lot right now. Most of my reading is of journal articles found online, so when I'm done work for the day usually the last thing I want to do is is stare at a computer screen for another few hours, hence the decrease in blogging and other electronic communication. Derek's gone for over 11 hours a day during the week, and is enjoying his work, research and teaching in Glasgow, so that makes both of us happy. A concerted effort over Christmas to find a couple good board games and other games has resulted in more evenings spent away from the computer and tv screens, which is a good thing. We've been playing Scrabble, Scrabble Upwords (very fun -- we highly recommend it!), Yahtzee, cribbage, The Game of Life and Boggle (both on my iPod, so still a screen but lots of fun). And of course there's socialising here with friends and chatting with family back home. In all I think we've settled into a somewhat new routine for 2011 and are feeling very optimistic about this unfolding year :)

Rome!

On October 3rd we took the train from venice to Rome. It stopped a few times, including in Florence (although in the station was in such a sketchy area of town that its hard to believe the city is actually beautiful), where it then reversed out of the station and travelled the second half of the journey backwards. Not great for those of us who get motion sick.

When we arrived at Termini Station in Rome we were prepared for large numbers of people, and we found them. The first thing we did was look for a travel agent to buy a Roma Pass from, a tourist pass that combines 3 days of public transport with free and discounted entry to sites around Rome. Then we picked up a few groceries at the grocery store in the station's basement and made our way down to the subway (a long, confusing, winding journey down). The subway line to the hotel (which was on the far side of the Tiber River, near Vatican City) was nice and new, and not too busy. Way nicer that Toronto's. The other subway line that we'd end up taking to the Colosseum and Forum, on the other hand, was crazy packed. When we emerged from the subway station we went the wrong way and walked a few blocks in the heat and sun before turning around and having to wait outside the office building where the hotel was located.

The hotel, Caesars Rooms, was more like an apartment, but with 3 or 4 separate locked bedrooms. There was no staff on sight except the cleaner in the morning and the owner whenever a guest was due to arrive, and since we'd made it there early we had to wait outside. It was nice to have the use of a kitchen and a computer with internet access, as well as being able to come and go without having to hand your keys in or get them back from the front desk. We'd both stay there again, and highly recommend it.

Our first destination was the Spanish Steps. They were full of people, tourists just like us who wanted the perfect photo, and to say they'd sat on the steps and walked to the top. During a photo op halfway up Derek got pulled into a conversation with a guy wanting to sell him a bracelet. The rather protracted encounter concluded with two very ticked off guys and Derek sticking to his guns. We decided not to get pulled into any more conversations with opportunists. At the top of stairs was a beautiful church, the Trinita dei Monti, which we checked out.

Next on the list was the Trevi Fountain. I was really looking forward to seeing it. It was just so beautiful that it really left an impression on me. It was also very, very packed with people, making it difficult to make it to the water's edge for a photo and a good opportunity to throw a coin in (and therefore ensure a return to Rome). We did make it up to the front, and just as we were posing for a nice photo of the two of us Derek got hit with a coin missile from somewhere up in the crowd. He was hit so hard that it left a pink circle on his upper arm! (which I took a photo of :) ).

We walked to the Pantheon and walked around inside. Despite the numerous signs asking people to be quiet, as it is a religious building, there was a constant drone of loud voices. The domed ceiling was really amazing, and I liked seeing the bronze plaques that depicted scenes from Jesus' life. I've read these about in history texts as a common method of sharing the story of Jesus to largely illiterate populations, and before the Bible was widely read or published in the vernacular. But I digress. We walked to Area Sacra, ruins of a sacred area that archaeologists aren't sure what it was and I believe its also where Julius Caesar was killed. But now its a cat sanctuary, so there's kitties all over the place! In the beautiful, bustling Piazza Navona we sat in the square, saw a number of buskers, looked at the fountains and went into the church (which had very cool marble statues and its relief walls made to look three dimensional, as though the room stretched out the sides when it was really just a wall. A great trick of the eye using fake columns on the walls.

On the walk back to the hotel we walked around Castel Sant' Angelo, past the Vatican City's walls, and up to our room. No luck trying to find any grocery stores on Google maps, we walked to a Spar (a convenience store), but it was closed, so we wandered around a bit a came upon a market. We also took some money out (the hotel owner hadn't told us until we got there that we had to pay cash, so that caused a bit of unnecessary stress and currency exchange costs as we had two use two different ATMs two different days). We went back to the hotel to eat, I had some coconut and banana gelato, and Derek found a grocery store on a map for the next day. We watched BBC news and then a funny Italian game show where the contestant has to guess the professions of a line up of people. To cap off a very busy, fun day we saw an Italian ad for long distance phone calls starring John Travolta.

On our second day in Rome we decided to go see the Colosseum and the Forum. On the subway a woman came on with a microphone and speaker on wheels, sand a song, went around asking for money, then moved down to the next car and sang again. Very odd, and definitely annoyed those with ipods. Waiting for the second subway at Termini was crazy. It was packed, the train was late, and the train platform was longer than the train so we almost didn't get on.

The Colosseum was amazing, even better than I'd hoped. I love stadiums and places for shows, so to see something so massive and so old was really impressive. We walked all around the inside (having gotten in quickly thanks to a fast lane for Roma Pass holders) on two different levels. They're rebuilding the floor, which seems a bit odd. I'm all for restorative work that keeps an ancient building or monument up, but I understand rebuilding part of a structure that covers up other original features. But I'm pretty traditional about things -- I like to see the real thing.

Even though it was lunchtime by the time we left the Colosseum, we decided to go on to the Forum which was just across the street. I didn't realise just how large of a site the Forum is, although if I'd thought about how the site was the centre of Roman life and politics, I probably should have had some sense of the scale. We saw many ruins as we walked around the ancient city centre, saw the circus maximus, the Roman forum, and fought through what felt like a sand storm. I didn't know a lot about the forum, so at a great lookout point we paused and listened into an English tour guide's talk. We were tired and hungry by the time we left around 3, although well hydrated thanks to the many fountains that we'd come across. We hopped on a bus which we'd hoped would get us back towards our place, and it did, so that was fun. A stop at a nearby BILLA grocery store got us set for lunch and dinner: pizza, meat, cheese, wine, apples and pears. We had lunch (at 3:40!), then went to walk around a local mall which turned out to be a large department store -- the BILLA took up the basement. We stayed in for the evening and ate pizza, open-faced sandwiched cooked under the microwave's grill, and wine for dinner.

On our last day in Rome we joined hundreds of people in line to enter the Vatican Museums before they'd even opened. At £15 a head they must take in a fortune every day! Luckily they have a great student discount, so we had money left over for a nice dinner of pasta. Once inside we followed my travel guide's advice and went straight for the Sistine Chapel, which is at the end of the route. What an amazing, impressive, beautiful building that took my breath away. I was studying the ceiling so intently that I almost fell over backwards I was leaning so far back to take in as much as I could. Luckily Derek managed to find the path back to the start of the route, and we spent the next few hours going through wing after wing of the various Popes' collections. Each was unique, focussing on different types of artifacts: Greek pottery, Egyptian sarcophaguses, Roman statues, metal fragments from wooden medieval items like bed frames, helmets and chariots. Plus the halls themselves were each different and beautiful. There was so much stuff there! I found myself feeling bad that its all so closed off and expensive, so that its not accessible to the general public the way the British Museum is. Perhaps its the Vatican's main source of funds.

We went home for lunch, then came back to St. Peter's Square in time to queue halfway around the Square as we waited to go through security and be allowed in St. Peter's Basilica. We did our best trying to hold off those inevitable queue-jumpers (although no one minded the little group of nuns who were in the wrong line going ahead). Inside the Basillica a service was going on, so we could only visit half of the building, but the choir music made it a very nice atmosphere. There were some amazing sculptures everywhere of the different Popes, whose similar outfits really transcended time, but I didn't like seeing the lit clear coffins of a couple Popes. They were different colours. Afterwards we stopped in the Vatican's international bookstore (lots of John Paul II memorabilia!), then went back to BILLA to get dinner. I had my last gelato of the trip: raspberry, chocolate and kiwi. If the chocolate hadn't been in the middle between the two fruity flavours the kiwi would have been a bit more enjoyable :)

That's the basic run-down of our whirlwind, 5 day trip to Italy. I had a great time, can't wait to go back to Venice, and it reassured me that you really don't need to know the language in order to communicate and get along in a new place. A great trip, lots of a good memories, and over 500 photos to make me smile :)