Light at the End of the Tunnel: Six Months On

We have now been in Glasgow, Scotland a little over six months.

SIX. MONTHS.

At times the days have just seemed to fly by, just one fast new-things-per-minute blur. It’s hard to believe that we’re seeing the end of winter (hah) and some small evidence that the sun will shine again, in between random rain showers.

Other days… have been dark, dark, dark, and we don’t just mean in terms of daylight. We have experienced some of the most mind-numbing and debilitating depression here that we have in our post-adolescent lives. New things don’t always sit so well with the psyche, which rather prefers that nothing ever change. It was the advice of a friend who warned us that some of our truly darkest days would be in the winter that helped us to keep our perspective. Sure, we may have spent some days wrapped in blankets, staring at the wall, but D. never missed a day of classes (somehow) and T. managed to sell another book. Progress, of a sort, was made.

Looking back over some of our earliest posts, we kind of roll our eyes about the things that bothered us. We fussed about the money – bills in varying sizes, coins of the same denomination in varying sizes — but we found that we could simply take a handful of change and storekeepers would take what was appropriate, until we figured out what was what. (And that’s not as risky as it sounds. Shopfolk here are generally helpful, and picking through your coins for you speeds the transaction.) Now we simply look through our coin stash to see if we can find a “new coin,” one marked with a leek or a daffodil or a crown or a lion which we haven’t seen before. (Much like we used to do with American quarters. Oh, the entertainment value!)

At one point we said we could find “no grocery stores.” Mmmm, not really. Maybe we could find no grocers close to us — but a month after we moved in, one opened two blocks down at the end of our hill, and two months ago, a Tesco Express – a mini supermarket – opened up five blocks away. Maybe we should have specified there was nothing close that carried tofu… that would have been specific enough!

As we continued to explore the city we met Raj, the Hindu green grocer with the Muslim wife, who together have come to Scotland (by way of England – apparently his neighborhood was not too cool there) to make a religion-neutral life for themselves and their gorgeous little girl. He’s always open on Thursday nights late as we race back from Choral Society, and we pop in to buy some UK veggies for dinner. He has some of the biggest potatoes on the block. You may not be able to buy everything from him — but you only go to a green grocer for vegetables and fruit. That’s just how it’s done.

We hated getting lost when we first arrived. (Okay, duh. Who likes to get lost?) People do like to be helpful, and they really tried to give us good directions, but often they gave them based on landmarks we knew nothing about. Now, we brave getting on the train and getting off in a town we know nothing about and just… walking around. Looking. We were often frustrated by hearing people tell us, “it’s just a ten minute walk” but have learned that this is based on the Scottish pace.

People, hear this: there is a difference. Scots WALK FAST.

Our amusing friend G. in Dundee, explained this as, “Well, we’ve got to get out of the weather into the pub, don’t we?” but we’re sure that was another of his more charming taradiddles. Or maybe not. Maybe it is something as simple as weather which makes Americans …amble, and Scots move along at a clip, as if they’re doing morning constitutionals or are late to catch a train. Maybe we should check with folks from Seattle, and see if it’s indeed just a need to come in out of the rain…

Some of our earlier annoyances remain. We still show our teeth and hiss at British Telecomm — about as often as we hissed at whatever hybrid of Pacific Bell is now in power back home. We loathe Parcel Force, which is meant to deliver packages, but usually dumps them at the Post Office without attempting to deliver them, annoying everyone, including our local post office. We still find Royal Mail funny — and a little bewildering, as there are no personal mailboxes in our building — or anywhere, perhaps? — and people have to mail things in a …mail box. On the street. And the postman who delivers the mail through the slot in your door will not take misdirected mail — I mean, if it comes to your house and it’s not to you, you then are to cross out the address, write, “Return to Sender,” and take it two blocks away to a box on a main street.

All of these things are confusing and strange to us, but still — they’re no longer cause for real annoyance. Somewhere along the line, our minds lost the baffled frustration and rage with which they met every thing that was close to the way we did it at home, but “not quite,” and we’ve relaxed into that state of shrugging, and going with the flow.

We’ve learned to love fire doors — which every home and hotel in Scotland seems to have. Fire doors keep not only flames and smoke contained in the event of a fire, but make it possible to close off rooms to heat them. Open plan housing? Fuhgeddaboutit! We’ve discovered that though the country is wet, somehow the air is… dry. We love our humidifier, but we’ve learned that it will, in fact, make the air damp enough to mildew the walls. (Eek.) Things here have to stay in balance or else.

D. will never warm up to the British educational system. T. will never entirely become accustomed to being the objects of stares and intense scrutiny. Neither of us will ever completely become accustomed to sleet — but even so, it is what it is. It’s just life. Life in Glasgow. Which isn’t something we ever thought we’d say.

– D & T

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