320 Mile Trip

Yesterday we journeyed (traveled) over 320 miles doing flat inspections.  As senior missionaries one of our responsibilities is to inspect the missionary's flats and make sure that they are doing well in their work, companionship's and are healthy. It is fun to meet and get to know the Elders and Sisters as we travel about.  We have met some really awesome missionaries who are working hard at what they have been called to do here in Scotland. Our mission has 50  Sisters, ( each mission has a quota of how many Sister missionaries they can have and ours is 50, so we have as many as we are allowed to have)  approximately 150  Elders, and 17 Senior Couples.
In the past two weeks we have inspected over a dozen flats. Got to see lots of country.
We left Edinburgh yesterday morning at about 8am and drove to Greenock, then to Beith, then on to Stranraer, then Dumfries, getting home about 8pm.  Even though we didn't drive that many miles for as long as it took us, it takes much much longer to cover miles here because of all the narrow country roads. Was a beautiful drive. That's the bonus of getting to do flat inspections is we get to see and enjoy the country that we drive through.
These pictures are just some we took yesterday:

This was taken down around Stranraer, it is a huge rock,( not a mountain but a ROCK), that was just sticking up all by itself out in  the ocean. We could see it as we drove along for a really long time.

These two pictures were taken between Greenock on west coast and Beith a little south and east of Greenock.

Those rock walls in the top picture are the fences all through the fields throughout the countryside. I can not imagine the work and the hours spent in building so many walls from all those millions and millions of rocks.  It was green and beautiful on our whole drive.
One of the things that has surprised me here is that the grass is green year around.  It gets really cold here, but guess they have hearty grass. The trees and flowers are in full bloom now. It was like it happened over night. I have never seen SO many flowering trees.

These next four pictures were taken between Dumfries and Edinburgh:

words for this post:   RV and or travel trailer = caravan,   on and off ramps for freeways  = on and off slips,  crosswalk= zebra crossing,  dresser= cupboard,  passing lane sign= overtake lane,  trip= journey,  closets= wardrobes, 

cherrio da noo,  until next time

Notice anything wrong???

Yep I'm getting old.  We had to go to the grocery store and as we are walking down the isle of the store my hips begin to hurt and I feel like I am walking off kelter.  I look down and this is what I see.  Both are black shoes but one is higher than the other.  Now you ask how could I possibly get all the way to the store before noticing???? Well to be truthful the roads and sidewalks here are very uneven so I am use to walking on uneven surfaces.  No excuse for how come I didn't notice that the shoes looked different.  Like I said I'm getting old.  Just thought I'd share one of our funniest moments.

Our words for this post: take out= take away,  pick up = collect,  carpenter= joiner,  windshield = windscreen,  master bedroom = en-suite,  living room = lounge

internet FINALLY!!!!!!!

April 28,2014

Finally..... after being in Scotland for two months as of today, we finally have the internet.  We have had to run to the church every time we have needed to get online. So I have not had the time to blog while at the church.  I will play catch up a little at a time. We finally found a new flat. We moved in a week ago this past Friday. We got internet this morning. Took the provider two weeks to get to us. Luckily we signed up as soon as we knew where we would be moving to or we would still be waiting.
To start off with I will post the pictures of our first flat.  It is typical of most flats in Scotland. The difference in the flat that were were in and the really typical Scotland flats is that we had two bathrooms, the master bath is called an en-suite here. Most flats only have one bathroom. Bathrooms/Restrooms are called Toilets here. In homes and business's alike. No one uses the terms bathrooms or restrooms. Toilet is still a hard word for me to use. But I am corrected often by the young adults we work with. It is a bit funny when they correct me. Anyways. I digress, as I was saying its typical for flats here to only have one toilet. Also the rooms in our old flat were a bit bigger than normal. I think at one time the flat were were in was in an upper crust neighborhood. It is on a golf course. Now it its in a kind of cruddy neighborhood. It was 700 sq feet. It also had room in the kitchen for a small table to eat at, also not common here. The kitchens are tiny with just enough room for a couple of kitchen cabinets a sink, a small workspace worth of counter top, an oven with a hob (stove top) over the oven and generally a fridge that sits underneath the counter.  We did have a taller fridge with a freezer in our first flat, also uncommon. Not many flats have freezers. Washers are also in the kitchen and sit under the counter. Our washer was a washer/dryer combination. Also uncommon. Most flats here do not have dryers. They hang their clothes either in a drying green, which is a place outside with a clothes lines or they hang them on drying racks in their flats.  Because the dryers ruin your clothes the only thing that can be dried are towels and sheets. EVERYTHING else has to be hung. I hang all our clothes on drying racks so we generally have clothes hanging in our flat as it takes a long time to dry here because of the humidity. The kitchen in our first flat is typical in that it had little to know cupboards. Here everyone shops for food about every other day because they do not have the space in cupboards or fridges to put much in the way of food. Because this blog is also our picture journal then you all will have to endure all of our memory pictures.

This is our car. It's a Vauxhall Meriva, it runs on diesel. We have gotten use to sitting shoulder to shoulder.

This is our flat at 8/4 Carrick Knowe Avenue  EH12  7BX.  8 is the building and 4 is the flat. it  is in the wing that is sticking out on the left of the picture, we are on the second floor. Here in Scotland it is considered the first floor. It was very confusing at first as we were flat hunting. The ad would state that a flat would be on the first floor and we would go see it and would find that it was up one flight of stairs. We finally figured out that  it is ground floor then what we would consider 2nd floor is 1st floor . Every area has it's own post code which is what the EH12 7BX is,  When you need to find an address you put the post code and street into your GPS( SAT NAV) unit and it will bring up all the addresses in that post code on that street and then you just punch it in and you are on your way to the place you need to go.  Is a really good system. Every area also has a name. Like we lived in the Carrick Knowe area.

this is the front of the rest of the complex. That is my back as I am  getting into the bonnet (back) of our car at the bottom of the picture

The top picture is out our front window, that sidewalk was always busy with people walking to and from the buses because the bus stop was just over the hill from our complex.
The middle picture is out of the side of our flat overlooking the parking lot and you can see the bridge that leads over the fast train tracks and to the trolly tracks. Over the tracks are the bus stops. A fast train passed by about every 10 minutes, it was electric and was pretty quite for a train although we could hear it from our flat it was not annoying, It traveled to other cities in Scotland as well as to England. There was about 21 trains that went to London everyday from Edinburgh. The city trolley was also electric, it ran on its own tracks even tho a lot of the trolley tracks ran right along side of the fast train tracks. The trolley only covered Edinburgh.Then down on the roads were the bus stops, you can get to anyplace on the buses, you just need to learn which number of bus takes you to what part of town. We just downloaded the bus schedule and route on our I pads so we can figure out our route before we get on the bus.There is a bus stop on both sides of the streets about every block or two. there are several buses of the same number and a bus pulls into the stops every 10 -20 minutes depending on where you are going. If you are riding the bus at night then you have to be sure and check to see which routes run a night bus and you may have to change buses a time or two to get back home since all buses do not run a night route. We have a mission car of course, but since the parking downtown is almost non existent and very expensive, we ride the bus when we go.
The bottom picture is out our back window.  We over look the Carrick Knowe golf course.  At one time I am sure that this was a upper class complex. The Flats that are on both ends with the bigger wings like the one we were in are bigger than the average flat here even tho it was still only 700 sq ft in size.

this is just some of the trash that we gathered up when we first moved into the flat. we actually had a lot of cleaning and decluttering to do before we could move our own stuff in. sorry about the sideways pic :(

 This is our lounge(living room) those pictures of the men in kilts above the couch,  in the center picture are the only pictures we had in our entire flat.

This is the kitchen. You can see in the picture at the top all the cabinets the kitchen had. that white appliance with the round window is the washer/dryer and the fridge sits just this side of the oven/hob' as you can see in last picture.
Its a small kitchen, but bigger than normal here.

this is the 2nd bedroom.

This is the light in our bedroom. It is at least 36 inches around and made of paper. The light fixtures are huge in each room and they are all mostly made of paper. It is the common light fixtures in this country. Interesting to say the least

This is the master bedroom with the en-suite. There are only three bed sizes in the UK  single(our twin) double (a bit smaller than our double) and a King( smaller than our queen). We sleep in a double. We have learned to sleep in tandem.

The shower unit is how most all showers get hot water, except the newer flats.
They are called electric showers but we know them as on demand water heaters. You have to flip a red switch outside of the bathroom to turn on the unit so that you will have hot water. The water in bathtubs are heated with the water from the main water heater in flat. I really like having the on demand hot water, we never run out of hot water in the shower. Toilets (bathrooms) here have no electric outlets. Drives me crazy. Have to blow dry hair, etc  in the bedroom. Showers and tubs have no shelves in them.  No storage in bathrooms. Some have a very small cabinet for medicine. Lots of wasted space in these flats that could be better used especially considering how small the flats are.

This is the main bathroom. we could never use it because this is where most of the pot smoke and smell came into our flat.  That little white thing sitting on the rug in front of the tub is an air purifier, we kept it on 24/7 with the door closed and it helped keep the odor and smoke down to a minimum.

This is the foyer of the flat. All flats front door open into either a foyer or a hallway where all the rooms branch off from there. All rooms have a door and all rooms have doors that close automatically. 

We americans come over here and block the kitchen and lounge doors open.  You always enter into a flat that is backwards to us.  The front door generally comes in by the bedrooms and sometimes the kitchen.  The lounge is generally at the far end of the flat from the front door, very strange to me. This flat has the kitchen right through the first door as you come into the flat then you pass the master bedroom then the lounge and 2nd bedroom are side by side on far side of flat. The foyers always seem like such a waste of space to me considering how tiny the flats are,  but because most Scots generally heat only the rooms that they are in then each room has its own radiator and a door to keep the heat in.

This is what the radiators look like that are in each room.  they are heated by water and can be run by a central thermostat but they can also be turned off manually on each radiator
Well I guess that's it on our first flat.

Scotland

We have been in Scotland just over two weeks now.  We are certainly going through a learning curve. Me more so than Marshall.  He can at least understand the people talking.  Me... I'm always having to say " excuse me?"  I feel like everyone is speaking a foreign language that I"m not privy to.  :)   We are in the process of finding a different flat.  The one we are in has a drug problem. The guy that lives under us is sharing his pot smoke and it makes us feel icky, and stinks.  The sister over flats came and checked out our foulness and told us to find a new place.  The flat we are in is old and not great but its a bummer we will have to move again. Sure is better than loosing what few brain cells we have left, so not going to complain. I will post pics later.  Got to record our first Scotland flat.
Sat before last we went to Linlithgow and saw an old palace. It is the birth place of Mary Queen of Scots.  It is just a ruin now but it is huge. On the same sight is a Church of Scotland church that is still in use. We toured it also. The Church of Scotland is a cross between catholic and Presbyterian. They do not have the statues and pics like the Catholic's.  The cathedral was also huge. The info in the cathedral said that the church has been there since the 1200's and that before it became the church of Scotland in the 1400's it was the  gaelic religion. Was an interesting tour except it was cold and windy and Marshall was still hobbling around a bit recovering from another gout attack that hit him right when we got here.
Marshall has had no problem driving. It's like its just second nature to him.  Driving here is interesting. We have only seen one little fender ding accident since we got here which is amazing to me the way the traffic is. We have decided its because you have to be super alert at all time driving here because of the way you have to weave in and out of parked cars to drive on any and all streets. Unless you actually witness it you can not believe it.  The cars park any place they want going in any direction and the only place you have to drive is down the middle of the road straddling the white line. When a car comes at you from the other direction which ever of you has a space to pull over that's who pulls over.  No texting and driving here, you would get creamed.
We miss our kids and grand kids like crazy.  More than a few tears have been shed while here but we are getting better.  We are lucky that we can face time them and visit, or i would be one unhappy Nana.
We are still trying to figure out how and what to do as YSA (Young Single Adult) missionaries.  We have met with the kids several times and are trying to get to know them.  The kids here are really good kids and seem to have strong testimonies.  The ward here in Edinburgh is very friendly and there are some really solid families.
I love learning the new words that are used here. I am going to start logging them in my journal.  The real spelling for Edinburgh is actually Edinbvrgh.  V instead of U.  It's the Gaelic spelling.  Just a few examples of words:  shopping cart= trolley, pull out on the freeway = lay by,  7:30 = 7 half,  detour = diverted traffic,  yield sign = give way,  freeway = motorway,  car dealership = auto supermarket,  apartment = flat.
Hopefully we will find a flat soon and then we will get internet and I will be able to blog each week.
Until next time, cherio da noo from Scotland.

Our humble MTC abode

I forgot to post a pic of our room in the MTC.  As you can tell the room is tiny, which has been no problem since we spend very little time in it..The most important part..... the bed is smaller than what we are use to but very comfortable.

First Week Accomplished

We completed our first week at the MTC.  We spent everyday in classes and learned and learned and learned, with LOTS and LOTS of role playing. Not our kind of thing but we did it. There was 84 senior missionaries is our group this past week, or 42 couples. And 1600 young Elders and Sisters.  We had a really fun group of Senior Missionaries in our district, so we had lot of fun too.  There was Clair and Janet Jaussi from Provo UT going to Novosibirsk Russia, Larry and Nona Thompson from Blackfoot Idaho area going to Slovenia, Douglas and Judy Erickson from Beaver UT serving in the St George mission, but living in their own home and serving in their home stake in Beaver, then of course Marshall and I going to Scotland Ireland. We had a very diverse but fun group.The Thompson's and us are left because we are both CES couples and have to attend this weeks training. 
  This week we are in CES training for two and a half days. We will be done Wed afternoon and then have the afternoon to repack our stuff and get ready to fly out on Thur morning.
We have been able to spend some time visiting with Grandma, Grandpa, Geralyn, Keith, Terry, Dean and last but not least Ryan.  It has been fun to spent time with them.  They fed us well which was a bonus. There is volumes and volumes of food here at the MTC, but it is less than tasty.
Got to face time with Hallie, Jaxson, Kamryn, Addie and Kimber last night and then with Kendilyn, Savanna, Mason, Rylee, Brooklyn and Ethan this afternoon. Missed seeing Gavin he was napping. Was so fun to talk to them and see all their smiling faces and hear their voices. I loved them calling out Nana and Papa. Sure do miss them.
When I write again next week we will be in Scotland.

  

Oh my... oh my.... oh my....... so much to get done.  Grateful that we are getting to leave earlier but one thing after another just keeps popping up.  This visa thing is a nightmare, and the UK is easy to get a visa for, or so they tell us at the travel service.  I hope we get them in time.  I am wondering how I am going to pack for 18 months in two 50 lb bags. It has become a challenge. May have to do with less than I want.  As Marshall says, "all you need is three or four dresses/skirts",,,,,,,, ya I don't think so.  I'd like to at least wear a different outfit each day of the week, then start over the following week.  That too much to ask? Friday the 14th is coming really fast.  This is going to be one long Valentines date for us.....an 18 month date.  Couldn't ask for a better date. 
Saying goodby to our grandchildren is proving to be way too hard.  We've said our goodbye's to the Mesa/Phoenix bunch. Tears and more tears.  The kids don't get it that we are going away for a long time. They are so use to us coming and going. I think it may be hardest on the Gallup grands. They are accustomed to us being around all the time. Well..... guess that's all of my thoughts for now.....