how to stretch your cafe drinks.

As a disclaimer: please remember while reading this that we're students (well, one of us anyway... and the other is unemployed) and have very limited spending money.

When you really want to get your quid's worth of cafe time and substance, a really good strategy is to befriend the older American tourist couple who sits down next to you, have a good chat, and when they leave, casually sort of adopt the two teapots they've left on the table that are still mostly full of really lovely hot Earl Grey tea. Then, consume with as little guilt and weirdness as possible.

Yes, we did this. No, we aren't ashamed.

{This post written in June 2013}

week five.

More Scottish photos for your viewing pleasure -- all these taken during our fifth week in town.

There is a hill in Edinburgh called The Mound -- aptly named, I'd say. Perched on top of this hill is New College -- the place that theology/divinity students at the Uni of Edinburgh call home. Wayne spent a good deal of time in the library here. We met some American visitors at our church and spent an afternoon giving them the grand tour of downtown Edinburgh -- how strange to turn so swiftly from  newcomers in a city to hosts!

Feeling adventurous one day so popped over to the Royal Botanic Gardens for a stroll and a sit. Free entry, lubbly jubbly.

Had ourselves a rainy day in Edinburgh this week so we found a cafe to get a change of scenery and set to work. As you can see from the mother's day card, I managed to find myself a handy dandy print shop -- located pretty much right across the street from our flat, thankyouverymuch. A friendly bunch of employees there -- though they were plenty confused as to why I would be printing mother's day cards in June. Confessed that though I was a tad late (more like a MONTH late), I knew my mom and mom-in-law would still appreciate the gesture. They said my family must be quite forgiving seeing as I was more than three months late. I said no, I'm only ONE month late. We argued for a moment and I doubted my sanity before coming to realize that Mother's Day in the UK takes place in March.

After that we all got along swimmingly. One of the guys who worked there told me about his dream to illustrate comics. I told him he should do it. He said he would if I would sell my cards. I said I'd try, maybe. Jolly good friends, him and I.

Not much to say here. Just a wonderfully wonderful North Bridge sunset. 

And now, looking in the opposite direction down South Bridge -- the red carpet being rolled out for the stars coming to attend the closing night gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Tonight's film: Not Another Happy Ending. No, we didn't attend -- just hung out the window with our chins in our hands watching supposedly famous beings waltz up the steps in glittery dresses. Quite fun.

No, contrary to appearance, I am not stabbing a small child in the eye with a paintbrush. And yes, the child does have eyes in real life but the smudging is due to my weak efforts to create anonymity in this photo. I don't know who this child is, but I figured I should be a responsible blogger and not post photos of other people's children without permission. So, what we have here is a faceless child being face-painted by Suzanne in unbelievably cold June weather.

The Craigmillar Festival Fun Day -- an event that our church in Niddrie helps put on (with the aid of other local organizations) every summer -- is a big old neighbourhood party meant to get the community out for an afternoon of fun. Apparently the summer before this ended up being a total washout -- rain and rain and rain -- so everyone was quite pleased with the balmy 8 degree temperatures and brisk breeze.

Have you ever face-painted for four hours straight in 8 degree weather? I digress.

This festival presents a wonderful opportunity to speak with families in the area and to let them know about Niddrie Community Church, the programs they offer, and most importantly, the Gospel. Being perfectly honest here, I did not do any gospel-sharing while smearing face paint all over those blessed childrens' faces. Us three artists at the table were busily churning through a massive queue of eight-year-olds who would ask for these obscure cartoon characters to be painted on their faces (who on EARTH is Peppa Pig and why is she so popular? Be reminded that I am not British and as such have no knowledge of British cartoon characters).

These children fascinated me. Many of them were seen earlier throwing objects and swearing at an inebriated old woman while at the festival. They often run wildly around the neighbourhood, and stopped me at the church doors on more than one occasion to tell me raunchy jokes.

But as soon as they were in that chair, they'd shrink back from my paintbrush and look up at me with uncertainty in their eyes and when I asked "Well, what shall we paint on your face today?" they'd answer in an almost-unheard whisper,

"A love-heart, please."

These children -- these misbehaved and wild children -- made me think of that story in the Bible where the disciples try to shoo the kids away from Jesus, and Jesus tells them to leave the little ones alone, because the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these. If the kids in that story had been polite, clean, sweet children, chances are that they a) wouldn't have been running around the streets in the first place and b) wouldn't have made the disciples so uncomfortable as to try and send them away. Really, I don't know -- maybe they were well-behaved kids. But after our stint in Edinburgh, I now imagine them with the faces of the kids from Niddrie -- a little bit flushed from zooming around on their bikes all day, cheeks smeared with orange after their latest drink of Irn-Bru, checking over their shoulder to make sure no one's coming after them. And Jesus, being God, loving these children because they are His children, welcoming them to Himself, showing them that He is the Way and the Truth and the Life.

Pretty neat way to end week five. However I will say that I hope never to have such cold and wet and pink and blue and red and green fingers ever ever ever again.

asteraceae

Scots love their thistles! Well -- perhaps they don't, I never actually asked, but tourists certainly do. Thistles practically cover the Royal Mile in the form of keychains and t-shirts and magnets and shot glasses, and they really do cover the Scotland landscape in plant form as well -- they're everywhere, and come in a vast amount of flavours (don't actually eat them please). 

Legend has it that while a Norse Army was creeping up on a Scottish encampment long ago, a Norseman stepped out on a nasty thistle, causing him to burst into loud anguished tears of pain, thus alerting the Scottish camp of an impending attack. Okay, maybe not the anguished tears, but you get the picture. Don't know if this is true but it's cute. Cute and painful.

Couldn't live in Scotland for a few months without drawing their national flower! 

{Drawn in June 2013}

week four.

We did something brave and daring in week four. We rented a car and whilst driving out of the car rental parking lot on the wrong side of the road came to the realization that our GPS wasn't going to work and we didn't have a map of Scotland and there was a four-lane roundabout coming up and we had said we were going to be at our Bed & Breakfast at six o'clock PM and had no idea how to get to Aberdeenshire. 

After Wayne narrowly missed driving against the curb (or kerb, as they spell it here) several times and after I had very unhelpfully squealed in fright every time he almost hit the curb we crept our British Honda Civic into a petrol station and bought a great big map that helped us escape the Edinburgh traffic. Two overpriced Costa coffees later, we had successfully made it onto the highway and were headed to the great green northern Highlands of Scotland for four glorious days of exploration... 

 

Wayne is now a UK driving pro. We had hit the east coast and were winding our way along the ocean headed to Aberdeen...

 Our first stop: Dunnottar Castle. Old. Crazy old. A ruinous castle perched on cliffs next to the sea. Beautiful. Lots of sea birds. Inspiration for the castle in Disney's Brave. 

 Wayne is fishing in tidal pools! Had to get our dinner somehow. 

 Classic Loch Ness surrounded by yellow gorse. Huge. So huge. No monsters, only tourists. 

After getting a good look at Loch Ness, we headed west and crossed a big bridge onto the Isle of Skye. This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. Ever. Ever ever ever. It's like Lord of the Rings amazing. And obviously photos won't do it justice. 

Everything here is just so blazingly green and untouched and... sheep. Sheep everywhere. 

If you are not careful you will hit a sheep and get a dent in your rental car, and even worse, be pursued by an angry Scottish sheep farmer which would probably be a situation you would want to avoid. 

Eilean Donan, Scotland's most photographed castle. Had a starring role in a James Bond film. 

Low tide at Loch Harport in Carbost. There are some funky crustaceans happening on these beaches... 

 Up near Dun Flodigarry near the most northern tip of the Isle of Skye. Windy, dramatic, stunning.  

 We happened to be up north right around summer solstice which meant the sun didn't really fully set. The clock is creeping towards eleven PM and still no sign of darkness...

Couldn't keep this week's photos at only three, no surprise there!

gutted, chuffed, skived & scuppered.

The Scottish accent is really really hard to pick up. I consider myself to be fairly proficient when it comes to imitating an English accent (at least better than Drew Barrymore's attempt in Ever After... though I do love that movie), but with Scottish? It's an odd breed. If you're not careful you can quickly turn it into some weird British accent with an Eliza Dolittle kick, or suddenly you've become Irish or gone all Aussie, or, when things really go off course, you're sounding Punjabi. Not sure how that happens, but it does.

Wayne and I have worked fairly hard at trying to master the Scottish accent. Being surrounded by it helps greatly, but there's certain things that we just haven't been able to grasp -- like that tiny roll of the r in words like "sorry". So far I just sound like I have a weird speech impediment when I attempt that level of accent mastery.

{Eating Scottish shortbread helps improve your accent, really truly!}

Besides the accent, there's a whole extra category of Scottish vocabulary that we didn't really anticipate. We've had conversations with people where the whole thing is really one-sided -- they seem to understand us but we're just nodding and smiling because we can't understand a word they're saying. You know how sometimes while watching BBC flicks you need to turn on the closed captioning to see what on earth that angry old British lady is saying? Well... with this, it's ten times worse, and sadly there's no closed captioning in real life -- just two nodding Canadians with confused smiles plastered on their faces.

{Hullo! Jolly red phone boxes on the Royal Mile. They have accents, too.}

Words and phrases that Scottish people use all the time:

Aye & Nae: Yes and no. I think this is great. One time a this little kid at church was asked if he was hungry and ready for lunch and he responded with a giant, "AYE!" Made my day.

Being cheeky: This is also used all the time and can be used for varying degrees of cheekiness -- ranging from being generally saucy to nastily sarcastic to disrespectfully mouthy to dumping all your food on the floor in a toddler-esque rage. Don' bae cheeky!

Wee: Probably the most flexible word in all of Scotland's vocabulary. It's used repetitively as a fill-in adjective, even if the thing being discussed isn't "wee" at all. Example: "Yesterday mornin I took a wee hike up that wee mountain and when I got home had a wee bath and a wee cuppa afterwards." They can't all be wee!!! But they are. Scottish magic. 

Fortnight: This means two weeks, but you probably knew that. It's not really the uniqueness of the word as being Scottish... I just think it's brilliant that they actually use it in common vernacular!

Skived: Avoiding/shirking duties etc.

Scuppered: Mixed up, wrecked, sunk. Example: "My schedule's been scuppered due to the overwhelmingly massive amounts of The Great British Bake Off that I've been watching." Btdubs, TGBBO is a huge deal here. Like... huge. 

Chuffed: Pleased. Example: "I'm chuffed that my apple pie turned out so well!" or "I'm chuffed that I have avoided eating haggis so far!" Which is entirely and amazingly true and I intend to keep it this way and I will not regret it at all. 

Gutted: Opposite of chuffed, meaning very very disappointed. It's like you're so disappointed that all of your insides have been torn out which is rather revolting but there you have it. Example: "Gutted when I think about going back to eating American yogurt after enjoying Scottish yogurt all summer."

We've got a small obsession with yogurt quality. We're yogurt snobs. If there was a yogurt connoisseur reality show, we'd be on it. If you're interested, the best yogurt in the world is located in Austria. We follow the yogurt. 

Pants: Underwear. Completely embarrassed two wee girls by using this word incorrectly, but that's another story for another day...

There are so, so many more, but we'll keep it at this short list. Pull these out on your friends! You'll be British-cool! Or they'll just think you've gone a bit nuts. Either way is good. 

 {This has nothing to do with accents. Wayne is perhaps contemplating accents. Or he's just annoyed that the fire alarm went off and has forced us to sit outside... which isn't all that bad}

{This post written in June 2013}

week three.

By our third week we were feeling pretty swell. We knew our way around the city by this point and decided to check a few things off our touristy to-do list.

First stop: Edinburgh Castle. Easily the most recognizable feature of the city, mostly because it was built upon Castle Rock, a giant volcanic heap of... well, rock. There has been a royal fortress here since the 12th century -- it's home to the Honours of Scotland (Scotland's crown jewels) and has hosted many members of royalty (and many fierce battles... though not recently). Always a bit weird to stand by a giant fireplace and realize there's a good chance that Mary, Queen of Scots stood in that exact same spot warming her rebellious little fingers over the fire... 

Here's a fun view from up inside the castle -- the bleachers were being prepared for The Military Tattoo which runs six nights a week for the whole month of August. It's basically a giant outdoor show with all types of music and dancing and fireworks and such -- we were too late to get tickets! It sells out in a flash every year. We did, however, go down to see the fireworks a couple times per week... we could set our clock by them. 

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags sat smack dab in the middle of the city -- giant peaks of volcanic rock with man-made paths ribboning all over their surfaces. When we arrived the yellow gorse was just blooming (as seen in the photo), making the whole area smell like coconut... weirdly pleasant. During this week we took our first of many hikes up and around the crags -- it only takes about 45 minutes of decent walking to get to the top of Arthur's Seat. The area as a whole is known as Holyrood Park, taking its name from the Queen's royal residence located just at the base of the crags -- the palace of Holyroodhouse. If you look just above the centre of the photo, and a wee bit to the left, you'll see a boxy square building with a cathedral chunk sticking off the end -- the Queen's hangout when she's in town. I think she was there once or twice over the summer, and I know that Prince Charles was certainly in residence for awhile as well. I used to run past the palace on one of my running routes and had this weird scenario play out in my head where I'd happen to run into the Queen and she'd invite me in for tea and I'd say "Sorry Lizzie, I'm a bit of a sweaty mess and I wouldn't want to ruin your nice furniture but if you'd like I'll take your corgis for a wee jog."

Your mind goes to strange places when you run. On that note... I'd better stop writing before I reveal any more weirdness about the inner workings of my mind.