Scotland - Day 2

Sorry, you'll have to wait for pictures. Our laptop is still down (long story).

Day 2: Did I mention that we didn’t receive the message that we needed to bring our own bedding, so had none upon our arrival? Someone from the church did bring us each a sleeping bag, but we didn’t have pillows. I did get some much-needed sleep, but it was a wee bit uncomfortable without a regular pillow. I used 2 neck pillows that some of the other team members gave me. Otherwise, our sleeping arrangement are fine. All of the women are sleeping in the senior Sunday school room at St. Andrews Church (Church of Scotland – basically Presbyterian). It’s upstairs – meaning the only downside to this arrangement is that the bathrooms are downstairs. Of course, since it’s utterly inconvenient for me to have to go the bathroom in the middle of the night, I had to. Fortunately, someone brought a flashlight, which we hung on the doorknob for easy access.

This morning we left the church around 7a.m. and headed for Stonehaven – the town where Matthew grew up. (If not mentioned previously, Matthew is the pastor of Bardstown Christian Fellowship - the church from KY we have joined with on this trip.)

We rented a small bus that fit all 17 of us; it was comfortable, and the scenery was, of course, AMAZING! I got sleepy for a few minutes, but otherwise enjoyed the view. It took us about 3 hours to get to the other side of Scotland where Stonehaven is. After stopping near the harbor where the bathrooms were, Matthew gave us a little driving tour of the city. Then we went to Dunnottar Castle, on the North Sea. The tower on the cliff was built in the late 14th century. I have never in my life been in anything so old! My brain couldn’t quite fathom the history that went on within the walls. A minor highlight of our trip to the castle was when we were buying our tickets to get in. The guy behind the counter dropped something, and he said, “Schizzle.” It just made me laugh.

For lunch, we met several of Matthew’s friends from Aberdeen at the Bervie Chipper – said to be the best fish & chips restaurant in the country. (“Bervie” is the name of a nearby town, and “Chipper” is the generic name for a fish & chips restaurant.) Matthew ordered “black pudding” for our table, which looked like a large fried egg roll, but the inside looked like black dirt. Matthew said it tasted kind of like sausage, but the truth was that it was a cow blood product, basically - cow blood, oatmeal, other stuff – congealed & fried. Matthew said he used to have it for breakfast every Sunday morning, and many people like them. I did taste it, because I didn’t want to be a spoil sport. It didn’t have too much flavor and wasn’t really gross. But, I don’t really want to ever have it again.

There are so many wonderful ways that Scotland is different than America. One, of course, is that it’s so much older and also smaller. The town we’re in for most of the week, Ary, is rather small and so quaint. The houses, though small with small gardens (front yards) are so quaint and lovely. The flowers in the gardens here are so pretty. They have many beautiful colors and many perennials – so much prettier than the baskets and flowerbeds of just one color in the U.S. Stonehaven is much the same. Aberdeen is a bit different. It’s not a large city necessarily, but because of the granite quarries nearby (now exhausted), Aberdeen is called “Granite City”. EVERYTHING is built with granite. (A man must of thought of this practical, drab idea.) This afternoon when Michelle (a friend of Matthew’s) drove us into the city from Stonehaven, it was nice and sunny out, and things didn’t look so drab. But Michelle said that 60% of the time, it is rainy or dreary in Aberdeen; and all of the granite doesn’t help the mood. I know there will be days when the weather gets to me, but I’m just thankful that I didn’t grow up in sunny California.

Some other small differences: the drinks you order in the restaurant are barely cold. Our Coke had 2 ice cubes in it, which made it a tad cooler than luke warm. Water is also served warm. A more obvious difference is the driving and cars. It’s my first time riding on the left side of the road. The turnabouts and exits are quite confusing! Another difference, which could pose a problem for us, is that 95% of the cars here have manual transmissions. Last night on our walk, we counted that 3 cars out of 20 had automatic transmissions. I guess we’ll have to find someone back home who has a stick shift so I can learn and Chris can brush up on stick shift driving.

I always knew that Americans liked things big, but now I see how most things we see as average size are much bigger than in Europe (or at least in Scotland). Tonight and tomorrow night, Chris and I are staying at a flat in Aberdeen owned by the owner of a drilling school. He belongs to International Baptist Church (more about that later) and offers it free to businessmen and people he knows visiting Aberdeen. This would be considered a very nice and upper class flat and would probably cost about £800 (about 1600 US dollars) to let. It has two bedrooms and would be considered quite modern (Michelle told us this.) I will take a picture of the refrigerator and stove, which are both quite small, and Michelle said that the fridge is actually larger than most refrigerators. Just picture the little fridges that you had in your dorm room in college and you’ll know what the average fridge in a home looks like. I guess that means I’ll go grocery shopping more often and will have to stop buying in bulk!

Let’s see here, these are some common words the Scottish use:

Flat = apartment
Let = rent
Holiday = vacation
Take away = take out (as in Chinese)
Pram/Buggy = stroller
Toilet = bathroom
Football = soccer
Solicitor = realtor
Jumper = sweater
Nappy = diaper
Rubbish = trash/garbage
Snickered/shattered = extremely tired
Creche = nursery


I’m still really emotional when I think about moving here. On one hand, it is incredibly beautiful and seems like a quaint, nice pace of life. But on the other hand, I miss my boy so much, all I can think about is how far away from my family I’ll be. Obviously, I just want to ultimately be with Chris and Luke, but I know it will be hard to be so far from my parents and other fam too. I will just have to leave that to the Lord. A key to feeling at homing and liking it here will be to KNOW people and make FRIENDS – something I LOVE to do! Today we met mainly 5 friends of Matthew’s from the Aberdeen area: Emma, Michelle, Scott, Rachel and Karen. They all have been extremely friendly and are actually going out of their way to help us this weekend. Michelle drove us from Stonehaven to Aberdeen this afternoon and drove us to the university after getting us into our flat. Emma is meeting us outside of our flat tomorrow morning and taking us with her on the bus out towards the church. We can’t take the bus all the way to the church, so will walk the rest of the way. Not everyone has a car here in Scotland - especially around the bigger cities – so life involves a lot of walking, which I actually kind of like! And after church, we’re having lunch with Scott and Rachel (and maybe others); they also said they’d show us around a bit and take us back to church for the evening service. Scott is a deacon at International Baptist Church, where Matthew was the youth pastor before moving to the states. IBC is actually a church plant by the IMB (International Mission Board with the Southern Baptist Convention). It consists of about 60% of Americans, I’ve been told, and has about 100 members – a good sized Baptist church for Scotland. Michelle told us this afternoon that Scotland has a rich theological heritage, but sadly today is extremely dead spiritually speaking. We passed a beautiful, big church in downtown Aberdeen that is now a restaurant/bar/night club. It was a strange and sad sight.