Hobbits In Rivendell

Take a peek at this map to get an idea of what our morning was like. Yes, we walked all over the city, it feels like, although it was only 3.73 miles (so says Google Earth). In the process we visited the University, to pre-register & to sign some financial papers. After that we walked up a bit past the main buildings of the uni, to see which buses drop off at the stop there. And then? Well, then we walked down to the main Strathclyde Police Station … to be told that we didn’t have to.

You see, if you’re a foreign national, you’re generally required to register with the local police upon your arrival. You’re supposed to tell them where you live, let them copy your passport … and to give them £34 per person, just because. Well, being good little law-abiding citizens we figured we’d go for a visit, within the first two weeks, as is required. Except that it isn’t. It isn’t required any longer unless the stamp in your passport says it’s required, and since we coughed up £200 for our visas, we don’t have to give the local police any money. Nor do we have to tell them where we live.

In the process of wandering the city, we’ve determined that we don’t much care for Sauchiehall Street (pronounced “socky hall”). And we’ve also determined that the city is full of many oddities, not the least of which are their descriptive signs, or what we believe to be a bootscraper, just embedded into the concrete outside of a doorway.

With that image begins our catalog of oddities, and our new question to the universe: What In The World? To be added shortly will be some street signs (when I see them I ask myself, “no harpsichord strings?”), and various other strangenesses. It’s a different world over here, folks. But it’s entertaining.

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Being away is …a different way to experience what is, essentially, a day set aside for grief in the United States. Today, while my American-ness shows up like a slash of color on my sleeves, I didn’t know what to expect.

I didn’t want anyone to say anything to me today. I didn’t want to wear a flag on my lapel, to elicit comments. I didn’t want to be anything but silent. Silently… wordless. Because it still seems to me that so much of this craziness is simply unspeakable. Yet it rolls on, and on…

Channel 4 showed the Michel Moore film last night, which put me in a state of mind so dark that this morning I found myself almost unable to get on with the day. So, when L. sent me this poem today, a poem she’s recently set to music for a class, I thought it serendipitous.

To honor lives ended, voices silenced, to stop madness reigning; what do you do? How do you act? What indeed will you do with your one wild and precious life?

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

We have so much for which we can be thankful — not only did we find a flat, we found a flat with a ‘roof terrace’ on which we can garden!!!! And the decor is not dead white, either, like so many rented apartments in the U.S. – this place is painted in ‘designers shades,’ but they’re from designers who have worked in the last two or three years… not a trace of red carpets or green drapes to be found. Whew! Now we have to see if we can raise our level of sophistication to match our surroundings! I shall have to take up shopping, cat-eyed sunglasses, laconic speech, and air kisses, or something…

One other fantastic thing is having a flat with a full-sized bookshelf, empty and waiting for our loads of books. I almost wish we’d be able to give away a few more — I am a little horrified now, with the UK custom of renting furnished flats — of how much we own, but I also have no idea if we just have beds and couches, or if we’ll need dishes, too. We have packed some dishes, but most we sold or gave away. It really will seem like some bizarre holiday of Ghosts of Households Past when our boxes get here.

The windows in this flat face South… which meant nothing to me until the estate agent mentioned winter sunshine. Well, ‘sunshine’ might have been somewhat optimistic for Glasgow, from what I’ve been hearing; we’ll say winter light, which is the best we can hope for with all the rain everyone is promising. Friday and Saturday were, at times, rather warm and clear – but I think we’re prepared for the very, verry worst, which will enable us to be grateful for anything other than three solid months of pitch darkness.

These aren’t our pictures — they’re from the property agent’s website, but I wanted to give you a taste of our little corner of the world. We’ll be able to show you pictures from OUR camera — including the view(!) — hopefully no later than Monday. Again, thank you all for all of your prayers and good wishes. We feel so very, very blessed!

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

As part of our (hopefully) last few days of living from a hotel, we elected to stay at the Holiday Inn Express, out by the Glasgow Airport in Paisley. As reward for our patronage, we were given this fabulous wakeup service, ’round about 5:50 a.m. After standing about outside for nearly half an hour, we all filed back in to our rooms, with no explanation as to why we’d all been turned out.

Suffice it to say that we needed our chais and coffees when we finally made it out of the room this afternoon, to have a wonderful meal with Midsummer’s Night Knitter.

Oh — a side note: seeing ‘Fah-HEE-tah’ on a menu caused a burst of wild laughter in a restaurant the other day – but we remembered that Mexican food doesn’t really exist in the UK, so a phonetic spelling of fajita was actually doing quite well for Scotland. TGI Friday’s is… essentially still a bar with incidental restaurant tables around it, but we’ve got to give it points for that. Still think the food hasn’t been as bad as everyone led us to expect – we’re very grateful for that!!

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Happy Weekend to you! Hope you’re finding time to rest — and play, as we wanted to at this great little playground found on the edge of the Glasgow Green, a great huge park.

We’re beginning to see what appeal there is in having a caravan and going to the country. We had a lovely ride through the countryside yesterday, where we found all manner of green hills, ‘ships’ (aka ‘sheep’), and picturesque countryside. While most of this country is green and nice, the cities are… a bit gray and sandstone colored. Just getting away from the endless streams of people, and no longer being dwarfed by tall buildings is a bit of a relief, and we look forward to just popping in to various B&B’s in some randomly selected township very soon. (READ: When we have money.)

The churches here are stunning, edifices of mossy sandstone and granite with swooping arches and spires; even the synagogues are built this way. We’re told that they’re filled with a majority of people in their eighties, which will make us stick out a bit as we make the rounds. Near the University there might be a slightly younger congregation, which would be good. If not, we’ll make do… it’s not like we don’t meet the younger population of the city in every Nero’s, Starbucks and restaurant anyway… Christianity seems to be more of an assumed thing, something that is paired with the word ‘duty’ and has a meaning entirely different than what an American might imply. I don’t know how people react to church-goers here – I remember the faint disbelief I ran across with some of my graduate professors. In such an older country, perhaps people here feel they’ve grown out of church. Remains to be seen…

And now, for some disordered observations:

From the Land of Sky Blue Waters: In a country where it seems to rain a bit daily, the Scots are not into saving it. There hasn’t been one low-flow toilet in the country we’ve encountered thus far, and we both had quite a startled reaction from our first flushes — gouts of water from two different directions, geysering up with a great watery roar. We both emerged from the bathroom looking a bit startled.

The Sun Has Gone To Bed (And So Must I): Changing latitudes is not so bad. Changing longitudes is confusing. D. can no longer tell directions of North or South because the sun is in the wrong place. This means that his usual confident lope is a bit …hesitatant. T, who is a born passenger, is actually doing better at finding her way around, and she is completely directionally dyslexic. This is an exciting five minutes for her — because we know by next week that D. will have pulled it together and started being annoyingly accurate once again.

Cab Drivers: Someday, I want to write a book on The Collected Wit of Glasgow Cabbies. We have had some of the most… unique persons helping us navigate through the twisty streets of this town. “For heaven’s sakes, don’t mention football!” several of them have told us — which was unnecessary, as we don’t have any inkling about either rugby or soccer, both of which seem to be covered under the name ‘football.’ “Be sure you visit Saucihall Lane, all the pubs and clubs are there,” another assured us. “You’ll want to be in the West End. That’s where everything’s happening,” everyone says. And each of them has gone out of their way to be helpful — curiously asking if we’re just sightseeing, being astounded that we would leave California to come here, remarking with fond disparagement on their country.

What are you thinkin’?!: Actually, it’s been more than the cabbies who have marveled about us leaving California. The girl who got our luggage out of storage last night remarked on it. All of our cab drivers and the woman we met on the bus. People at the Vodafone store. Everyone has said almost exactly the same thing about the weather, their countrymen (“Glaswegians are REALLY helpful, you’ll find,”), and our general craziness. It reminds us once again that this is one country and one people, despite superficial difference and in marked contrast from our own mishmashed world. Granted the state of California is bigger than this whole country of Scotland, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that you couldn’t get ten people to make even similar statements about it, as there is simply too much to cover, but bigger doesn’t mean better, and there is something to be said for a group this in sync.

Stand By Yer Man: Of course, that being said, the thing that is making T feel a little loopy are the numbers of people commenting on her “following her man.” As a writer in her own right who can work anywhere, it simply didn’t make sense to stay in California whilst D went on his way, and while it didn’t feel particularly …heroic to do this, the numbers of people commenting on it have made her uneasy. “You’re so good,” is one prevalent statement, usually from women. “So, you’re following this crazy man?” is the cabbie rejoinder. “But what will you do?” is the most common question we hear, most surprisingly the last time from the estate agent, who said she wasn’t even asking for professional reasons, but on a personal level. Everyone seems terribly afraid that T is going to be roaming the moors, wailing or something. It’s making her twitchy.

Tea for — Two?:

The other question comes from other college students who ask how many bedrooms is our flat. When we tell them “two,” they nod, and then appear bewildered later to find that we’re married. Apparently the flat room count is a euphemism we hadn’t caught. We almost had three bedrooms… I wonder what that would have signified! Of course, the room question does make a change from the question we got at home about when we would have children… the UK birthrate is very low, so no one cares about that here. (Whew.)

It’s been a looong week, and we looked forward to “having a lie-in” with no one to bother us this morning. Well, of course THAT wasn’t going to happen. At ten to six, alarms shrilled and we flew out of bed, seeking only to end the source of that hideous sound… three minutes later our foggy brains registered doors closing, so we stumbled into our clothes (T’s shirts inside out, shoes — when finally located — slid into with heels left out) and joined the rest of the hotel in the road, waiting for the Strathclyde Fire & Rescue team. I am not sure we ought to be pleased with our performance. The many Americans in the group called anxiously to each other, “You got the passports, right?” Um, no. We had not. Nor the computers, nor the camera, nor, in D’s case, a jacket. I keep thinking, “Tomorrow. We’ll be prepared for anything tomorrow.” Brains will work better with a lot more sleep…

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

John Howard Payne immortalized the words in song: “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Truly: no place like the place where you can COOK for yourself, and not depend on the varied seasoning habits of strangers. No place like the place where you can wander around in a t-shirt and socks. No place like the place where you can loll around in bed with the paper without someone knocking on the door and telling you about check-out time…

WE HAVE FOUND SUCH A PLACE!!!

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, crossed fingers, lighted candles, and good wishes. It has been a kind of grueling week, though we did meet the awesome food blogger Pille, and actually, tomorrow we plan to get away to Moffat to visit yet another denizen of the Web (who has recently learned to LINK! Whoo hoo!). That has made this bearable — moments with friends, and time to laugh at ourselves.

Anyway — the Web time is running out — more news soon, and pictures to follow!!

Cheers, everyone!

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Day — what, two? Is it only day two? — of our UK sojourn, and I still can’t say I’m “excited about going to Scotland,” but I have some moments of being amused. One of them was going to the Braehead Center mall, and finding… Claire’s jewelry. (Of course, it’s ‘jewellery’ ’round these parts.) Tatty, tacky, plastic and gilt Claire’s … some things are exactly the same. As we rode by on the bus, we saw the waving flags of Ikea — so we know for sure as soon as we get a flat, we can have a bed!

Speaking of beds… We’ve had a heckuva time getting a decent hotel. We booked through Expedia, just as the hotel we were staying in went through a major computer overhaul. Their system dumped our reservation, but since we had a copy, they apologized for giving our room away, and sent us to their sister hotel — a place with a hot tub, spa and pool, thank-you. (Boy, aren’t some things just MEANT?!) Granted, we can see the Erskine Bridge from our window, and we’re in the back of beyond, but it’s nice, affordable, and has some really great food. What’s annoying is that tomorrow we are being moved back to the first hotel… and we still haven’t found a flat. We were hoping!

Some of you have wondered how the vegetarians are eating in the UK — well, rest assured, we’ve had some really good food! For lunch today we had grilled veggies – onions, bells, and the like — seasoned and wrapped in a tortilla. That with a salad made me smile and think, “Yeah, who said people in the UK didn’t eat vegetables!?” We had risotto stuffed bell peppers last night. Tasty, tasty. And Scottish breakfasts… WHOA. Sautéed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, potato scones (basically fried mashed potatoes), hash browns, oat porridge, and plain yogurt with toppings of melons, prunes and oranges (!), assorted cold cereals, toast, and then the blood puddings, bacon back, sausages, and other unidentifiable meats. Unbelievable. I’m pretty sure once we have our own place, we won’t be eating like this, but for now, we can say we’re on vacation… kinda… *ahem*. (We found rhubarb yogurt at the grocery store, by the way. It’s excellent!)

I have high hopes for what we will be able to eat and create here — which brings me to a question for our UK friends: do any of you buy soy products, like tofu, soy beans and/or milk? We can make our own ‘tofeta’ as we did awhile back, and our own tofu, but wondered where even to get the beans… this far out of “town,” we visited the Morrison’s and saw only one carton of soy milk… next to the goat’s milk. No tofu or anything else so far, which means I need to locate an Asian market soon… Granted, grocery shopping is different here — and we ARE at the back of beyond, away from the city center… but I do hope I can find something once we get settled… and figure out the labeling on the backs of packages (sometimes they list kJ – joules – instead of kC, which are the kilo calories. We have much to discover before we bake!)

Boy, you never know how much time everything takes when you need to depend on buses and trains. Granted, the buses are all over town, and the trains seem to appear every five to ten minutes — we haven’t had to wait for long — but just walking between stops and everywhere takes awhile. We were astonished to map it on Google Earth and discover that today we’ve walked SIX miles. Six. We got lost on our way to see a flat, and — well, what do you do? You keep walking and phone the Realtor until you can get one last set of directions. You arrive rain spattered and perspiration drenched… and you get on with seeing the flat. ‘Cause there’s nothing else to do.

Quite a few of our friends felt like we were making a political statement by leaving behind our cars. As they rolled out of the drive, we both felt a little pang – for various reasons, but neither of us really realized the full extent of our decision. Not just because we are now having to walk (until our bikes arrive), but because I don’t think we ever realized how isolated we were in cars, how self-possessed in our little pods, whizzing through the world -arriving at whatever destination or appointment picture perfect, everything under our control, as far as controllable appearance goes — having yet one more layer pulled away is even more immensely challenging than we even knew. People told us we wouldn’t always be happy, living abroad. Well, no one is always happy, but if this is as bad as it gets… maybe we’ll be all right.

With so many people staring at us (and you find the weirdest questions running through our minds as to why: is it the hat? The hair? The coat? Is it because of my orange shoes? Is my button gapped? Standing out in a crowd is the nightmare of the extrovert, let me tell you), listening to our accents, and …sort of observing us, the need for a Hobbithole is stronger than ever. We really hope to find our own little home soon…

Our Bank of Scotland PIN numbers are …in the mail in NY. Our desks and books are… in the ocean on a ship, having been bumped from the order of shipping — AGAIN — and now on schedule to arrive at the END of September. But we’ve walked through the center of the city, seen gorgeous old buildings and soon will have the opportunity to meet with some of our UK acquaintances face to face —

And tomorrow is another day of the adventure…

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.