Why I Love Our New Flat

Everything's been moved and we're all settled into our new place! We were assisted in the move by a good friend of mine and her boyfriend, who also lent us his driving skills and his car for an hour on the Friday night and the next morning to transfer just about all of our possessions from the old place to the new one. This time it was a little too far to walk/roll everything over, and we're so thankful for his help. It took another two days to clean the old place, get the last few bits of stuff moved over (Derek brought home an amazing amount of stuff on his back and in each hand one afternoon after a long day of cleaning), and get organised here at the new place. Moving the cable, internet and phone over was no trouble -- they disconnected our service at the old place on Friday night and had the technician in here first thing Saturday morning (apparently we'd normally have to pay extra for that, but I think it was a gift to us as an apology for not being able to supply us with reliable telephone service for the prior two weeks). But now the keys have been handed back, I've learned the necessary bus routes for when I need to get a long way from here on my own, and with all our stuff put away it feels like home!

So why do I love the new flat so much? Here's a few big reasons:

Warm and Bright

We're up on the third floor (what would be called the fourth floor back home), which is also the top floor of the building. The buildings around are all about this height and we see a ton of sky when we look out the window. This is in direct contrast to the old first floor flat, with a bedroom window that looked at a grey cement-block wall three feet away, and a living room window that looked out at the tall office building across the street. We used to get half an hour of direct sunlight at most through each window in June and July, but always on a sharp angle. We'd get indirect sunlight bouncing off the office building's windows into the living room which was quite nice. But spending my first few days here constantly thinking I was leaving lights on in all the rooms has made me realise just how dark that flat must have been.

The sunlight is having a lovely effect on the new flat's temperature. It's so warm! A little too warm in the morning and at suppertime, to be honest. One reason for the hot morning is a southeast-facing window and the sun rising before 4:30am. I'm thinking blackout curtains may be in order. Between the cement wall and the original wooden shudders, our old bedroom was cool and pitch black at night until we decided to get up. Now my body wakes me up at 5, thinking it's time to start the day! The other thing is that here in the UK, duvets are what's available to sleep under. Ours wasn't nearly warm enough for the old place, and now we're too warm in the new one. And yet I can't find a simple blanket the size of a bedspread anywhere, other than fancy-ish quilts and blankets that cost over £100 at the department stores downtown. So I'm still working on this. It's warm in the evenings because our living room is on the opposite side of the flat, and with a big bay window. The table is in the bay window area, and the sun starts shining in around 4pm and sticks around for 3 or 4 hours, making eating a hot activity that necessitates the closing of curtains. But I'd sure rather be warm than cold in my home!

Finally, we have those two coveted items that are all too rare in Edinburgh flats: double-glazing and gas central heating. The boiler got fixed on Monday, and we got to experience how fast and efficient the central heating really is. There's a heater in every room, including in the washroom (which was one of the coldest places in the old flat). Double-glazed windows keeps the heat in and the cold Edinburgh wind out, so the sun is able to heat up the right half of the flat in the morning, the left half in the afternoon and evening, and the heat stays inside for us to enjoy. Amazing.

New-Built

Our building and the surrounding identical buildings have been built within the past ten years. Our old building was built in the 1860s and renovated in the 1980s. This place has insulation in the walls and roof, working windows with that all-important double-glazing, lower ceilings which keep the rooms warmer, clean carpets and linoleum flooring, many electrical sockets in convenient locations (including on both sides of the bed so that we can each have a bed-side lamp), and waterproof tiles and fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen. Electrical wires and cables were in place when the walls were put up, so there are only a few wires running down from the ceiling or along the skirting boards, rather then coming in through a hole cut into the window sill which is the common way to wire traditional tenements here. Our old bathroom was done all in wood, and consequently had rotting areas along the base of the bathtub and mould stains on the paint work. I also feel as though not only was the place very clean when we moved in (which our old place definitely was not), but that I'll be able to easily keep it clean and feel good about the level of cleanliness of my home. With the original wood floors with their large cracks between them and old, unclean furniture and rugs, the old place never felt comfortably clean to me as a whole.

Near the Train Tracks

I'm learning that many people wouldn't agree with me on this one, but being so close to train tracks is something that I love. Being close to the train station was very important to us when we were looking for a new place. Derek will be commuting to Glasgow everyday for school, and that's about a 45 minute train ride, so we wanted to make the rest of the commute as short and simple as possible. Happily there was a large new-built community with numerous flats regularly becoming available, and I was able to spot a good one at a better price than most. Now Derek will have about a 6 minute walk to the station with no streets to cross, rather than over 15 minutes fighting past numerous pedestrians on their way to work, countless tourists and fellow commuters on narrow footpaths and getting stuck at several intersections.

What I am really enjoying is hearing the rumbling of the trains going to and from the station. I love it. It makes me think of my grandma's place back home which is located on the far side of a field from train tracks. I find the rumbling very peaceful and almost reassuring, as it takes my mind right back to her place, and so I feel very lucky to get to hear them in my home here. And I just heard another one :)

Well that's some of my initial thoughts and feelings about our new home. I have absolutely no second thoughts about moving, as I'm so much happier here already. The summer's off to a great start.

Exciting News

Big changes are happening here. The biggest would have to be Derek's news and plans for the future. He's been accepted into a PhD programme in Electrical Engineering at Glasgow!!! We're really excited about it and about the future. He'll be one of two PhD students building a better version of an existing laser (just his type of thing!) for a professor who happens to be the partner of a fellow British History One Tutor. The tutor, a postdoc and fellow Canadian, and I had bonded over our similar backgrounds and having partners in physics, and she kindly remembered to mention Derek's continuing job hunt to her boyfriend, who then mentioned the PhD positions he had going on one of his funded projects (because as a scientist his research has commercial applications worth investment by the private sector as well as the government). It's a funded position with a research stipend, so thankfully he won't be hit by an annual tuition bill of £12 950 (about $20 000 CAD)! But there's a lot to do before he can start in July.

First, he has to get his ATAS clearance. This has something to do with giving the UK government confidence that he won't use his acquired knowledge and skills for bad purposes. It takes about 20 business days to get clearance, so we're stuck waiting on that. Next are the UK Visa issues. The Border Agency has changed the rules for acquiring a UK student visa since we got ours less than two years ago, so no information on changing Derek's specific class of visa exists online anymore. But then again there might not be an issue with his visa -- we're still figuring that out.

Next comes the logistics of starting school in another city. We don't have a car, nor are we going to get one (do you know how much petrol costs here?!), and we're agreed that we don't want to leave Edinburgh -- our friends are here, I'm still studying here, it's so much more beautiful and peaceful... So we're doing the next best thing to make Derek's commute easier -- we're moving near a train station in town. In the past three weeks we toured five flats, found the perfect one (and some some awful ones), put in an application, arranged to get out of our current lease early, found a new tenant to move into here (a fellow history PhD from Canada, one who doesn't mind the cold), and got what I think is the perfect flat. It's located about 7 minutes away from the train station and is a top floor flat in a new-built complex. There's a grocery store around the corner, and the building is back in a quiet family-friendly area with dead-end streets and pedestrian paths. Two of the flat's four windows face the South (therefore natural light and heat!), the ceilings are a normal height, we have a separate fridge and freezer (a necessity for us) and we'll have two of the most coveted items that one can find in an Edinburgh flat: double-glazing and gas central heating. Any heat we use won't be flying out of drafty windows anymore. In other words, I'm going to be warm!!!

Everything has been happening so fast! We're picking up the keys and signing the lease in two days, and a week from today we'll be fully moved out of this place with the help of a friend who has a car (it's too far to walk everything this time around!). So if I don't write again for a week or so, you'll know why. Wish us luck for a smooth move!

Making Our Way Back

It occurs to me that I haven't yet shared the story of how we made it back to the UK. In the days leading up our flight airport closures continued in the UK and beyond into Europe due to the volcano, although the news in Canada rarely mentioned the closures anymore (old news I suppose). We'd already learned that Air Transat, both online and on the phone, had very little information to provide to us their customers, so we stayed glued to Toronto Pearson's website, the UK airspace authorities sites AND Air Transat's. Our flight wasn't until 8:30pm, but we wanted to check-in early, so we planned to leave Waterloo at 3:30 to get to Toronto by 5 (and beat rush hour traffic). Then Derek told me on our way to Walmart that he had spotted a new departure time from Toronto of 12:45am on Air Transat's website.

I got on the phone with Air Transat and asked what was going on and when check-in now was. They said to come to the airport for the original check-in time, between 3:30 and 6:30pm. I questioned it, but they said that the departure time was just a suggestion made by the airport taking into consideration the weather forecast, and that as recently as that past Saturday the delayed departure time of one of their flights ended up being brought forward an hour, so that convinced me to stick with the original plan. But by the time I made it back upstairs and onto the computer I saw that the departure time now said 2:45am.

I called Air Transat right back, and asked them if now that the estimated departure time was 2:45am, did they expect me to check-in at 3:30pm, and as I'd reached a different woman this time, she said of course not, but maybe give it an extra hour ie. arrive 4 hours early, just in case it changes again. She didn't bother to mention that our plane had been held up in Spain on its way back to Canada via London that morning because of the volcano, so it was still in Europe and wouldn't have even left the UK until after we'd left for Toronto. Therefore we decided to give ourselves lots of extra time by aiming to get there around 8, which also meant that my dad would get back home before midnight. So we got there at 8, and having carefully weighed our luggage, we proudly squeaked under the weight with 1.2kg to spare. We had a coffee with Dad, who headed out around 9, and then inched our way along the security line, where even though the metal detector didn't register anything, we each received two options: get patted down or go through the body scanner. No question -- we both chose the body scanner. I was excited to be able to say I've been through one. And I think Derek wanted to check it out, too, although probably for a different reason that will be expanded upon at a later date.

So by 10pm we were walking around the gates, deciding how to spend the next 3 hours before boarding began at 1:10. I bought a People magazine, and we bought a sandwich and a bottle water (since you can bring your own anymore!). At one point we heard a familiar noise on one of the tvs. It was a hockey game! Vancouver was trying to stay alive in the third period of what would turn out to be their last game in the playoffs. Within about 2 minutes of finding a seat they went from being at the losing end of a 3-1 game, to it being 4-1. About 25 of us all groaned in disappointment. We didn't make a noise when it became 5-1 a minute later. I think we were all in shock. I thought we were watching a replay. So there went our entertainment to keep us going.

At another point I managed to catch about 45 minutes of sleep on a bench at a nearby gate. We got to see the British Airways passengers spend $10 vouchers on food because their flight was also delayed, but then watch their tired and distressed faces as they heard the pilot apologise to them at 12:30am, but say that the fuel pump was faulty and they weren't going anywhere that night. After that ours was the only flight left on that day's list. A line had shown up underneath it with the next morning's flights. 1:10am came and went with no sign of airline staff. 2:45am came and went. Around 3am staff showed up and the people closer to the gate applauded. We eventually pulled away from the gate around 3:45am, exhausted.

After about an hour's sleep on the plane, they woke us up for a meal. We fell asleep again afterwards for a bit, but since we'd taken off so late it was already broad daylight within a couple hours, whereas normally you'd fly through the night and get there around 6 or 8 in the morning. We were also flying farther north due to the volcano, so between the new route and the sunlight I got to Greenland! We flew south of Greenland's south coast, but we could see its mountains and glaciers in the distance, and icebergs in the sea below us. And then we were told that we were flying over the northern coast of Iceland, and although it was covered in a thick layer of white cloud, we'd be able to see the volcano's ash plume out the right side of the plane. Very exciting. We were over on the left, but the ladies in the seats across the aisle would lean back to make sure we could see. I was worried that I'd miss it, but Derek spotted it first with a better angle and told me not to worry -- I couldn't miss it. And then there it was -- a black arm of smoke reaching out suddenly from the blanket of white. People were standing in the aisles looking out, taking photos and chatting about the sight. It was pretty cool, and makes for a good story.

We landed around 3pm, sailed through customs, and two buses and a short walk later we were home just in time for dinner. Apparently I slept deeply on the bus back to Edinburgh, not even waking when Derek was poking me to show me the church he'd spotted which we'd recently discovered was probably where my great-great-grandpa was baptised back in 1821. What a day/night/another day! And here we'd again gone about 38 hours with only a couple 1 hour naps in the middle to keep us going. It took a few days to over the jetlag, which is very unusual to experience coming back this way. I'm glad it's over. It'll be interesting to see just how long the volcano continues to erupt. I think it's pretty cool that we got the chance to see what all the fuss is about :)

Culture Shock

Alright, so maybe the term 'culture shock' is a bit of a stretch, but being home in Canada after almost 11 months away had its surprising moments, particularly when it came to everyday sights and items. Let me explain...

The most obvious surprising moment to me that made me realise that I'd gotten used to the British way of doing things came about three days into my trip. Around 8am I decided to do the morning Tim's run. I got behind the wheel, backed out of the parking spot, and drove to the end of the parking lot where I needed to turn left onto the street. There I found myself in a position I never thought I'd be in: wondering which side of the street I was supposed to drive on. I genuinely couldn't remember. With no cars on the road luckily the stop sign gave me a clue, and as my hunch had been 'the right', I stuck with that and thankfully was correct. That was quite the experience. It's not like I had driven in Britain, and had only been in a vehicle maybe 8 times over those 11 months. I guess I'd just gotten used to watching for cars on the road as a pedestrian.

Walking through a grocery store had become an exciting experience. They're so large! I noticed a lot of new brands and more space devoted to international foods, including some of the Indian foods and sauces we're used to here. I made a number of trips to Zehr's and made good use of President's Choice's sale on Decadent Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies (which I highly recommend!). Walmart was also great for clothes and food and generic pain killers to bring back with us. But I was also surprised at how much the price of some groceries had gone up since I was last home. I was under the impression that £2 for a bag of Doritos was expensive, but here I was being asked to pay $3.59 for a bag at Sobey's (which I didn't buy, by the way -- just couldn't bring myself to).

There were also little surprises here and there, and things that I wouldn't have noticed before. For example, last June we moved to our current flat which is rather cold and damp all year round, so to be in a warm, dry home with central heating and air-tight windows was amazing. I was actually worried about getting too used to being warm, for fear of how bad our Edinburgh flat would feel (and I have been having some trouble falling asleep at night due to feeling so cold, although it's getting better). Normal smallish Canadian washrooms seemed huge compared to our tiny washroom here, where the two of can brush our teeth at the same time only if the door (which opens inside for some reason) is shut. The bathtub also seemed crazy wide. Being able to hop in the car and drive places was amazing and so convenient. The dishwashers were huge! and held so many dishes that it seemed to take forever to empty them!

And finally, something that struck both Derek and I was what I suppose foreigners might call 'Canadian politeness'. Cashiers chatted with us, even at large, busy department and grocery stores. I didn't see any angry yelling on the streets or public drunkeness in the mornings or evenings (except at a friend's birthday party :) ). And even the toughest-looking men walking towards us on narrow sidewalks moved to the side so that we could pass without running into them or having to walking on the street. People said 'sorry' and 'excuse me' if they came close to bumping into me. That would almost never happen here. You just get used to having to walk around like a bulldozer if you don't want to end up on the street with cars flying by. So good work Canada on living up to your polite reputation. It was a very nice break.