Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Hello All! We hope that things are well back in Canada. We know it has been a while since we last posted a note on the blog, and that’s because we’ve been quite busy! First off, we’d like to say happy belated Thanksgiving, we hope that everyone enjoyed their family gatherings and lots of turkey dinner. The Scottish don’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all, so no turkey for us! We did try to simulate the festive atmosphere a little though by making a chicken with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy and squash. To top it all off, Rob made a delicious low cal apple crispJ While it wasn’t as good as turkey, it was still nice, although a little quieter than previous thanksgivings.

Rob is still at school (yay!:) He is enjoying it, and getting a little busier now. He often has days at school which begin with 2 hours of soccer, followed by 2 hours of badminton, and then two hours of boxing (or other sports that they may be doing). Needless to say, those days he comes home quite tired. He does have each Wednesday off of school, and he says that he would enjoy being in school playing sports all day instead of off at homeJ He is enjoying school, and is actually choosing to do the more difficult topics like classroom management for his projects, because he admits that it is something he isn’t as versed in. This is the making of a great phys-ed teacher!!

As for myself, my contract with Scottish Widows Investment Partnership ended this past Friday, and so I was out of a job. I had been looking for a new job since the beginning of September with no luck, but on Friday, I got a call from another financial company called AEGON (they have offices in Canada too) and they wanted an interview on Monday. So I went in on Monday and got the job! I am getting paid a little more an hour than my last job, which will help us out a little. I work for a catering company (that is contracted by AEGON) and my job will alternate between operating the switchboard, reception and other duties. Because I work for a catering company, all my drinks and food is free! That will save us some money, as I won’t have to bring lunches. The best part about this job is that it is permanent, so I don’t have to hunt for jobs any longer.

Rob and I have been doing a little more exploring, not much, but better than nothing. Two weekends ago (or a fortnight ago as they say here) we went to the zoo. It is much bigger than I expected it to be for such an old city, but they don’t have giraffes or elephants. The zoo is located on the side of a hill, and so all the exhibits require walking uphill to visit them. They had monkeys, zebras, lemurs, lions and tigers, camels and these really neat birds called rainbow lorikeets. The exhibit for the lorikeets was quite unique. We walked right into the building and paid .50p for a little cup of a honey solution, which we were instructed to just hold in our outstretched hands for the birds. The birds (and there was at least 50 of them) were flying around freely in the open room, and flew almost immediately to our arms to lap up the honey. It was really neat. The birds were quite friendly, and hung around on our arm until they ate, and then cleaned themselves…Rob narrowly avoided some poopJ It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. The zoo is not anywhere near the size of the Toronto zoo, but it is still enjoyable.

Last weekend Rob and I went to a rugby game and watched two premier teams play. It was also a beautiful sunny day and we quite enjoyed ourselves. Rob is longing to play rugby, but it will still be a little while, as his head is still not 100%. After the game we walked up to the Royal Mile and went to the tourist attraction, Mary King’s Close. This is an ancient street that runs below the Royal Mile. Back in the 1600s, the town of Edinburgh was centred on the great hill (where the Royal Mile is today). Off the Mile and to the bottom of the valley ran many narrow streets, called closes, where the residents lived. Mary King’s is one of those closes, and it had over 700 people living on both sides of the close. It is named for the wealthy merchant that lived at the top of the close. Extremely tall buildings (for their time) were built here, with the wealthiest residents living at the top and the poor on the bottom levels. At the bottom of the hill was a small lake (where Princes St. Gardens are today) and it was called the Nor Loch. Now you might think that having a lake so near would be a nice thing, however it was a cesspit for disease and stench. This is because of all those residents that lived on these streets, they threw their waste into the streets, which would then run down and drain into the Nor Loch. There is a story of a lady being purposefully drowned in the Nor Loch for her crimes….definitely not a nice way to go!! They told us on the tour that the sludge on the streets was often ankle deep….yuk.

In the 19th century, the city built its chambers on top of some of these homes. They knocked the majority of the buildings down (spanning about 4 closes wide) but left the bottom levels to use as foundations. As a result, closes such as Mary King’s, were closed off to the open sky. However, they were not abandoned. Although we were under the impression that people remained living underground, we found out that this was illegal, however to work underground was not. Many remained and operated their shops from underneath the city chambers, and the last family moved out in the early 1920s. The tour took us underground to see these rooms (both how the poor lived and how they worked as well). Mary King’s is just one of the many closes still underground (the others are used for government storage), but it is the most famous as it is fairly accessible and well preserved. The tour took about an hour and was quite interesting (historically), however I did think it was cooler when I thought that people actually lived down there after the chambers were built. But I guess the government wasn’t as cruel as I had thought. We’re hoping to take an underground ghost tour of the Edinburgh vaults in the future (which shows the places where the dead people were dumped-or so we’ve heard).

Last night we went to go see the internationally acclaimed play, ‘Mary Poppins’ produced by Disney and playing at the quite old Edinburgh Playhouse. We were able to get quite cheap tickets as it was a weeknight, and Rob got a student discount. The playhouse is located about a 10 minute walk from our flat, so it’s quite close. This play, at home, would be playing in a theatre in Toronto, and so we thought it would be good to see it when it was so close to us! Riverdance is also coming to Edinburgh, however it is only here for 4 days and will probably be quite expensive, so we won’t see that one. At the moment, seeing such entertainment is cheaper than travelling, so we’re doing what we can.

Well that’s about it for us…not too much exciting. Hopefully we’ll have more to tell you all soon.

Lots of love,
Rob and Sarah