Sylvia's Journal

We are now, what the Brits call holiday makers. We exchanged Manchester at its summer best for a cool, rainy and cloudy Edinburgh. After a short flight from Boston we arrived mid-morning just when the sun was (kind of) peeking out from behind the massive cloud cover. It’s a familiar climate – like Holland, probably a bit worse. 

The Exchange home we will be inhabiting for the next two weeks is lovely. We can see the bay over the roofs of two more rows of houses that separate us from the beach at the most eastern end of the Portobello promenade. A big deck and decent size garden will be nice once and if the sun comes out (not in the immediate forecast unfortunately).

We exchanged leftover monies, some very old British and Scottish pounds, for real money at the bank (except for the 20 Shillings piece from 1964 which is worthless now). We had our first encounter with a most uninformative bus driver who was singularly unhelpful and gave us no change (exact fare please!) from a 5 pound note for dropping us off at the wrong stop. 

Around lunch time things got better. We had a wonderful lunch at the Promenade in Portobello,  overlooking the wide sandy beach, drinking great beer and enjoying weather that the Scots said was warm (68 degrees).  It felt like Holland except for the views across the bay and the hills on the horizon. We were served by a young man from Australia who had studied aeronautical engineering at Purdue University in Indiana, where Axel studied as well (Indiana, not Purdue).

We paid a price for all the walking we did (having no exact change for the bus fare back and underestimating distances).  Back home we watched a video on how to get the knots out of our leg muscles and relieve our sore legs and ankles. We sat across from each other on the small Ikea couches (in this Ikea-furnished house) massaging our legs with ‘Tranquil Chamomille’ oil. Axel is better at this than I am – he has done it before and is treated by the guy from the videos so he knows the drill. I got impatient quickly. 

I brought my ukulele. I have stopped taking lessons in order to focus fully on my violin. Without a teacher to hold myself accountable to I figured that taking it on this trip would impel me to keep playing. I use my computer teacher (Yousician), who I pay 10 dollars a month to continue the teaching job.