The Track Suit

Two nights ago, something happened that I have never experienced before.

My house got appled.

What is this you say? It's when someone throws apples at your house.

I was sitting in my living room reading, after the children were in bed, when suddenly there was a loud "Smack" on my window. I looked over and saw a big wet mark on m window. My first thought was it was a snowball, but there is no snow on the ground. I jumped up and ran outside to yell at the kids doing it, but they were gone before I got outside.

They have a word here for these children running around in adult bodies obvious products of their upbringing by parents who themselves are not worth public consumption. They are called NEDs, which stands for Non Educated Delinquent, and they have a uniform.
A tracksuit and baseball cap with headphones draped around their necks. It's usually a white track suit.

I myself have never owned a track suit, but I bought a couple for Isaac when he was a baby. I saw them on sale at Wal-Mart in America and bought them before we moved over here. There was a really cute yellow and blue one that came with a little racing car t-shirt, and a red and blue one that had a baseball t shirt. Once I moved over here Paul would get annoyed when I would dress Isaac in them, saying people here don't wear track suits unless you're a NED. It took me a while but now... but when I look around... I see them everywhere, and two nights ago they were outside my window, throwing apples at my house.

Wardrobes

I'm not a real estate expert or anything, but I am pretty sure that if a bedroom doesn't come with a closet in America it is considered an office. Bedrooms need two things really, a bed, and a place to put your clothes... most people like to spice things up with a night stand, and a desk or vanity, and maybe a chest of drawers or a dresser, but the necessities are bed... closet... so why am I telling you this??

Because the UK has wardrobes... you know what a wardrobe is... it's the secret entrance into Narnia where the winter coats are kept in the spare room. It's like a closet except you can move it around in the room or take it when you leave that residence. Some wardrobes are "built in" which means someone came and professionally measured your room and decided the best use of space would be a specific wardrobe that is now mounted to the wall, similar to kitchen cabinets.
Occasionally you even get a closet... in my house 2 out of the 5 bedrooms have closets. 1 of the closets is in my bedroom, but it's really more of an attic crawl space. I can't stand up right in it, but I keep my clothes in there anyway, because I am an American, and we keep our clothes in closets. The other closet is in my daughter Aria's room. The previous owners turned what was actually a hall closet into a bedroom closet by knocking out one of the walls in the bedroom, and sealing off the original entrance to the closet. Two of the rooms have built in wardrobes, and one room has nothing at all. I use that as my office. :) It's about the size my closet was in America... granted  I has TWO walk in closets so maybe that's an unfair comparison.

Outlets vs Plug ins

In America, we have outlets.
They look like this:

But sometimes, they look like this:

Sometimes you have to remove a child safety plug because you don't want a baby to stick their finger in the little hole and get electrocuted.That is pretty much the biggest obsticle you have when wanting to get electricity to your lamp, cell phone or appliance.

Here, in the UK, the outlets look like this:

Oh and they're not called outlets, they're called Plug Ins.

Do you see that little switch next to the plug in? that little tiny switch?? That turns the plug on and off like a light. This saves you electricity.

It doesn't save you hassle though.

I cannot tell you how many times I have plugged in my cell phone when it has died or been almost dead only to come back an hour later and discover it is still dead, or now dead because I forgot to turn the plug on!!

It makes me absuloutely furious, and then when my husband turns around and says "How long have you lived here, and you still don't remember to turn the plug in on?" It makes me want to say "How long have we been together and you still thing saying that will make things better?"

Oh and I have lived here TWO years, I lived in America where we didn't have to turn plugs on for TWENTY SEVEN years. That wins. If I'm still forgetting to turn on the plug ins after twenty seven years, then he can say that... the thing is, I very rarely forget. I remember probably 99 percent of the time, its that 1% that drives me insane.

For instance, yesterday, a Wednesday, I am in music lessons all afternoon right up until dinner time, I have no time to cook. So I always make a crock pot dinner on Wednesdays so I make it before my lessons start, and it's ready when my lessons are over... yesterday though when I said goodbye to my last lesson, my husband informs me "By the way, the crock pot has been off all day. You forgot to turn the plug in on."

AAAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


EXPLICATIVE! EXPLICATIVE! EXPLICATIVE!

I quickly stuck a steak pie in the oven and we ate an hour late.

Cowboys and Scottish Men

When I lived in Texas, I had to work hard not to listen to country music. I like to say that I can appreciate all types of music, but the truth is, that wasn't always the case. I used to really loathe country music. Now, it feels like home to me. So today as I tidied the kitchen... that's right... tidied... I don't CLEAN anymore, in Scotland, we TIDY up the place if it's mingen (messy)...I put on a favorite song of mine. "I need you" by Tim McGraw featuring Faith Hill... and as I listened to his southern voice, and her spectacular voice singing about whisky, and am radio's and Uncle Joe in Oklahoma, I thought "I love Cowboys!" So how did I end up with a Scot?
Cowboys wear cowboy boots. Scots wear ghillie brogues!
Cowboys wear wranglers. Scots wear kilts.
Cowboys carry a gun. Scots have a Sgian Dubh.
Cowboys have Jack Daniels. Scots have Glen Fiddich
Cowboys have a stetson. Scots have a Sporran... which is worn on their crotch, not on their head...
Cowboys sing about their woes. Scots keep calm and carry on.

Yep... definitely different...

So how did I end up with a Scot?
because a Scot came along and swept me off my feet and showed me how much I never knew that I loved the way their wool socks sag around their ghillie brogues after a night out, and how much I love putting my hand up a kilt underneath the dinner table! How much I never knew I loved whisky, and how great it is to have a man carry my lipstick in his hairy crotch purse (sporran), and to top it all off, carry a little knife around while saying words like "chancer" and "rubbish" and "bonnie" and "brilliant". I love how the scots have as many words for drunk as the eskimos have for snow.

Now, if I could learn to love this lack of visible emotion, I'd be all set... in the mean time... I have Tim McGraw to sing me the things I know my husband feels, but is too calm, and busy carrying on to really tell me.

They're just words, they don't control us...

Today, I was talking to a friend and told her I would "have a think" about something...
3 years ago, I would never have used that phrase..."have a think"... I would "think about it".
Other phrases I have not only learned but adopted against my will, but I think they're super cute are:
"You gave me a fright!"
"Have a go"
"Giving me row"
"Taking the piss"
"Hitdabaw"
"Doing my head in"
"Chock a Block"
Ten points if you can translate all of these!

Kebabs

America has lots of awesome food in giant portion sizes. You couldn't ask for more than that, except kebabs.
It was the first meal I ordered here in Scotland. I looked over the menu of fish and chips and burgers and kebabs and thought... a kebab sounds the healthiest, so a kebab I ordered, and when it came out... it looked like this:


Definately not what I was expecting... which was some meat and veggies slices on a stick... This is a Doner kebab, not a shish kebab... a big difference! Needless to say, I wasn't impressed that first time... but later, I learned how to eat one of these... see I took a fork, and ate the meat one slice at a time....and found it...tasty but...lacking something... because it was! This is supposed to be drizzled with chili sauce and topped with a dollup of peppered mayo, and then you roll up the pita underneath and turn it into something resembling a taco, or pita pocket, or gyro... and it is deilicous! Man oh man, could I go for one right now. This has turned into one of my favorite meals here, and I usually get one when Paul goes away on a three day tour to treat myself. Not sure what the calorie count on one of these babies is, and I'm not even sure it's real meat, but however many thousands of calories I'm eating of horse meat, it's worth it!

European Toilets

This is not a post of the faint hearted, so if that is you, I suggest you read no further.
Here is the thing... I have always hated the toilets, not just in Scotland, but in Europe in general, and here is why.
The flush buttons confused me for years, and there is not enough water in the toilet bowl.
I'm all for being green, but not when it makes my toilet brown.
The water in the toilet bowl in America, is quite high up in the bowl. If you do a number two, it floats around in the water, then you flush, and occasionally it leaves a streak, but a second flush will take care of that, and you rarely have any sign that a number two just took place.
Here, you have a tiny bit of water that just covers the small opening in the toilet. This makes it so that your BM hits the back of the toilet bowl and slides down into the water leaving something resembling a  cow patty on the back of your toilet, forcing you to give the toilet a good scrub with a toilet brush every time you drop a deuce, and keeping you in fear of having a number two if you visit a friend who doesn't keep a toilet bowl brush in their guest bathroom.
The amount of water in the bowl is supposed to keep you from wasting too much water, but when I have to flush the toilet three times before I even get the brush out, I feel like this doesn't actually save much on water.
Now for the flush buttons. In germany, we had a big button you pushed on the wall, here you have two bottons either on the wall or the top of the toilet tank. I have never been able to tell the difference between the flush of one button to the other, so for a few years, I just pushed both buttons at the same time. As it turns out, one button is for flushing pee, and the other is for flushing poo. One has a slightly bigger flush, and if you push both together, it does the bigger number two flush. This is to conserve water when you flush the toilet.
Now I have hated the toilets here for years, but figured I wasn't going to be gross enough to say anything to ANYONE until my step daughter, Amy, came to America with us last summer for a family gathering.
We just arrived at the hotel when she announced she didn't like the toilets in America, because it was disgusting to see your poo floating around in the bowl.
Then Paul, my dear husband whom I love but have nothing in common with, agreed with her, and I had to admit that I missed that part of the bathroom experience...
That said, I would much rather have these toilets than the one I had in Ethiopia... a big hole dug in the ground.

Other Americans in Scotland

I like to call them "The friends I haven't met yet."
Before I go on, I just want to say that I have incredible friends here. After having Isaac, I spent the summer here before returning to the states to go to school. My friends through me a surprise going away party.
After I had Aria, they brought me meals for two weeks. They don't begrudge giving me rides to things if they can, and in general are all the kinds of friends I know my mom would approve of. Godly women, who know how to laugh, have a good time, give good advice. They're really great, but American's living in Scotland are kindred spirits. See...Every American living in Scotland has one thing in common. We are all Americans LIVING in Scotland. We feel out of place in Scotland longing for the things we miss in America, but we no longer fit in in America because we LOVE Scotland, and when we're in the states, we don't feel home either, so we get together in the place we love and talk about all the things we love about America, and because the list is endless, we always have something to talk about.
Saturday I helped a friend out by taking her friend from America into Edinburgh and showing her the sites, and we had a brilliant time. I've never had more fun with a total stranger. We climbed all 287 steps to the top of the Walter Scott Monument, took a ghost tour of the vaults, saw Mary Kings close, had lunch at Gordons, saw the Castle, and St Giles Cathedral, and it was a brilliant day. I love that living here has given me the opportunity to belong 100% in the "American's Living in Scotland" Group.

That bloody ice cream man!

It's cold in Scotland, about 11 months out of the year. It'scold, and dark, and rainy or snowy, and yet no matter how cold or dark and miserable it is outside, without fail the bloody ice cream man drives slowly down our street BLASTING "Anchors Aweigh" about 15 minutes AFTER I have put my children in bed for the night. Does anyone buy ice cream from the ice cream man at 9:00 at night in the middle of winter?

Sibling Rivalry

The United Kingdom is made up of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland...The tiny northern part...Southern Ireland...or Ireland has their independence.
Even though all these countries make up the United Kingdom, similar to how the 50 states make up the United States to say that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are states is wrong. According to Wikipediea,
"They are individual countries, that have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capital cities. Devolution refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliamnet of the United Kingdom to the Scotish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly and to their addociated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government, thus the state remains, de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the same way as any statute."
That's a long way of saying it's like 4 siblings sharing a house and all competing to be in charge. We fight and bicker among outselves, but no one else better mess with our family. But Scotland is like Isaac's song Esau, the independent, wild hunter, and England is like Isaac's son Jacob, tricking the older brother out of his birthright and inheritance, and Wales is like their siblings that were never mentioned in the Bible. (Poetic license has been taken here.) Ireland is a bit like the red headed step child, if the step children were twins, where one went off and got his own apartment, and is doing his own thing.

See in the past, Scotland was Independent, with it's own Parliament, and King. England historically has always tried to rule Scotland and Scottish hero's like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to fight it. When one English king died, the closest heir just happened to be the reining King of Scotland, so he became king of both countries, and later parliament in Scotland was disbanded.

What a nasty little twist of fate. Since then Scotland has been used for it's natural resources, their political voice has been disregarded, and an independent and wild country has been placed under a rule that continuously tries to break and train them, and they are still fighting for their independence.

Next year there is going to be a vote in Scotland for Scottish Independence from England... ok technically is the UK, but really it's from England.

I'm not British, I don't have a say, but since I moved here the amount of ANTI Scottish propaganda I have seen is amazing. 

England... or should I say LONDON, doesn't give a crap about Scotland on so many levels, and I'm not even going to mention the poll tax of so many years ago.

England wanted to get rid of Daylight savings, saying that it would be better for everyone except for Scotland  who would then be thrust into darkness from about 3pm to 10am...I realize regardless it's only 5 hours of daylight anyway, but to have darkness from 3pm seems way worse than darkness at 4...kids would be walking home from school in the dark, but it's better for England.

We use pounds Stirling here. Some of the pounds are issues by the bank of England and others from the bank of Scotland...like having a penny minted in Philadelphia of Denver... except when  you go to England, often times, a shop wont take your Scottish Pound. That's illegal, but they still do it.. Can you imagine going to a store in the US, giving them some coins and they say, "Oh I'm sorry, we only except coins made in Denver." It's really annoying.

BP stands for British Petrol. One of the largest oil wells is in the North Sea...Scottish territory... lucky for England that we're part of the UK, so London pipes it down to England where they put a 20% tax on it, and ship it back to Scotland and the rest of the world. That's right, Scotland buys back it's own oil, while England makes A FORTUNE and then they give Scotland a tiny little kickback... If we get our Independence, they will lose all the money from the North Sea Oil, and they are TERRIFIED! Which brings me to the amount of ridicule they are subjecting us to in the media, like this picture here

If I was undecided before, I am for independence now! 

As an American, the best thing we did was win our independence and the freedom to govern ourselves. I don't know anyone in American who says "I wish we were still part of the Brittish Empire, where they make all the decisions for us from 5000 miles away."

Scotch Whisky

Now, I didn't drink much alcohol prior to having kids, and whisky was definately not something I would ever CHOOSE to drink, however being in Scotland, I had to try it. My first time...so painful. Burned the whole way going down, and I couldn't force myself to take a second sip.
Fast forward two years.
Paul is having a small dram of 10 year old Jura while reading in bed. He turns out his bedside lamp, and goes to drink the last little bit in has glass... he underestimates the amount in the glass and it spills down his chin and onto the bed sheets.

I smell the whisky all night long, but instead of a strong alcohol smell, it's a lovely scent of Vanilla, and honey, and cinnamon.... golden honey dripping off a vanilla blossom in the morning sun while the cinnamon fairies since and an angel gets it's wings... it was lovely.
The next time he had a dram so did I, and since then, I've been sold. I've never met a whisky I haven't liked.
For my birthday, Paul took me to Jura so I could visit the distillery there.

We have a book called the "Whisky Companion" or just "THE BOOK" as we call it, that has all the single malt scotch whisky's listed there along with all the information on it, history, distillery location, tasting notes, whisky score.
 We're drinking our way through the book! I love learning about it, and it's a wonderful little hobby that Paul and I enjoy together!

What's a Gallon?

In America, we know gallons.
We by gas by the gallon.
We buy milk by the gallon.
We get Gallon cans of paint.
We have 5 gallon buckets.

Ya know what you can by here by the gallon?

I really have no clue. In the last two years I have never purchased anything by the gallon.
We buy out PETROL by the litre.
The largest milk we can get:

That's six pints....I will do the math for you.
2 pints in a quart. 4 quarts in a gallon. 8 pints in a gallon.
So for whatever reason, they don't like to give you those 2 extra pints of milk... which when you have two kids drinking 8 cups of milk a day...you really wish you could by a gallon of milk.
I think, the reason they don't have bigger jugs of milk, is that it wouldn't fit in the normal refrigerators sold here. 
Most homes don't have room for a full size fridge, they use the small college size fridges with a little ice box at the top.
Fridge Freezers such as this one:
 
like what we have are so much better, but still...not a lot of room for a gallon of milk as you can see, however, those skinny little milk jugs fit quite nicely in the door.
It takes a bit of practice to be able to pour from one though... for about a year I spilled milk every time I went to pour milk into a cup or bottle, and I feel like I'm a relatively graceful person having mastered the gross and fine motor skills some years ago... 

Alternate Spellings

I saw alternate, but it's probably more accurate to say CORRECT spellings, as the UK was here first, and they do not accept the American spelling of:
Center (Centre)
Color (Colour)
Honor (Honour)
Flavor (Flavour)
Aluminum (Aluminium)
Theater (Theatre)
Traveler (Traveller)

That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there are more.
It's really not a big deal, but when I write on any social media such as facebook, I have both British and American friends, and I'm always afraid that one or the other of those people group will think I am stupid because I can't spell those words... I tend to go back and forth with the spellings since I can never choose which one to use.
On one hand I want to hold onto my American education, but on the other, I live in Scotland and should embrace the language and culture...if not for me, for my children... who by the way, already say 'Z' as ZED and call pants "trousers" and underwear "pants"

Walkers Potato Chips

Ok, So in the states we have LAYS potato chips thanks to the good people in Texas where their corporation is located.

Here, we have WALKERS!
I guess "Lays" didn't translate well in the British English, which, you can understand why....what I don't quite understand is why our flavours of chips didn't translate... What's wrong with, Original, and sour cream, cheddar, BBQ, even Salt and Vinegar... and occasionally, Ketchup flavoured... but here... oh here, we have:

Oh Yeah... Roast Chicken flavour chips... prawn cocktail, worcester flavour, bacon flavour, roast beef, and other strange, but mostly delicious flavours...also flavor is spelled with a u.".flavour"..but we can cover alternate spellings next time!

Where's Waldo? Not in the UK

That's right folks! There is no Waldo in the UK. He's WALLY here! Isn't that so random?? I need this to go with me outdated version of "Where's Bin Laden" book. :)

Grocery Carts (Trolleys)

If you need a grocery cart, be sure to have a pound coin on you.Why? Because they're not free. NOTHING is free in the UK.
Lets face it, in the US we have all had the unnecessary car ding from a rogue shopping cart that someone didn't bother to put away. Or found a perfect parking spot only to find out there was a cart right in the middle forcing you to get out of your car and move it in order to park.
It can be argued that this problem has created job opportunities for some lucky individuals who traipse around the parking lot wind, rain, snow, or shine rounding up the carts like cowboys with cattle, however, for the consumer, this raises the cost of your consumables to pay the salary of the cart cowboy, so the UK and Europe, and the middle east, and most countries really, have developed this locking chain system. Want a cart? Put a pound coin in that slot there. It will unlock the trolley and a grocery shopping you will go! When you're done, simply take your trolley back, insert the locking chain and out pops your coin! Too lazy to put it back? Or maybe you're shopping alone with two babies and after you put your groceries and kids in the car you feel it's too dangerous to leave your kids unattended in the car while you run your trolley back...it's only going to cost you a pound and the shopper who does pick up your cart and return it is rewarded with a whole pound! TAX FREE! It really is a brilliant system... until you find yourself with nothing but 20 p and a debit card.


I found myself in this situation...well numerous times really... but the first time, I went to customer service and said "Hi, I need to get a lot of grocery's and need a cart, but I don't have a pound coin. Can I trade my ID or my keys for a pound, and I will get it back to you when I'm done shopping?"
The manager at the counter replied "You want a cart for free?"
I said "Well I will trade you and pay you back when I'm done shopping."
"You can't get a cart for free, and just say you'll pay us back."
"Do you want me to shop here? I have a lot to get, and I can't get it all if I don't have a cart."

Turns out, they thought I was asking for a carton of fags (cigarettes), saying I would pay them back later...
Now I know...I need a trolley.