Sylvia's Journal

We are in Scotland now. 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 the sun comes out (not in the next few days, 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 singularly uninformative and unhelpful bus driver who gave us no change from a 5 pound note (sorry ma’am, exact fare only) for dropping us off at the wrong stop. 

Around lunch time things got better. We got eggs, ham, bread, some beer and a bottle of wine at a local Co-op. After messing up the self checkout, the co-op staff who came to our rescue, gave us several ideas for out of town outings, written on a cash register receipt, and pointed us to a place for lunch. It was a nice contrast with the dour bus driver. 

The recommended lunch, Espy on the Promenade in Portobello, was exactly what we needed. We sat outside (according to locals it was warm, 68 degrees), drinking great beer and enjoyed watching the activities on the wide sandy beach (mostly dogs and kids). We noticed no one was swimming. This was later explained by an electronic signal that said the water quality was poor (we suspect the water temperature was also poor). It felt a bit like Holland (especially seeing only clouds hanging low over the water) except that there was a city across the bay (Edinburgh) and 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 now use my computer teacher (Yousician), who I pay 10 dollars a month to help me get better.

This morning I watched out over a rather bleak and wet garden (thinking with a sigh about sunny Lobster Cove) and reading a very funny introduction to a guide about pubs in Edinburgh. Being a rainy day today (and tomorrow and the day after), I see at least a few pub visits in our immediate future.