Getting to Edinburgh

We made it to Edinburgh! We left our house this morning to catch the 7:44 bus to the train station where we were catching another bus. There we waited about 10 minutes and took the other bus for about 30 minutes to the Lech Wałęsa Airport in Gdansk.

There we showed our passports and our residency papers. We do not have residence cards yet. The lady who was inspecting passports was unsure about our papers so she called a supervisor to come and look at them. The supervisor took a quick look and said that our documentation was acceptable. So we went through all the security fun: coats, laptops, shoes, cell phones, cameras, backpacks...awesome! We took a budget airline, Ryan Air, based out of Dublin. They allow only one carry on bag, and they charge to check any baggage. And there are restrictions on the size of the carry on bag. So we each brought the clothes we are wearing, and two changes of clothes, a pair of pjs and that's it.

The plane was about half full, if that. It is about a two hour flight from Gdansk to Edinburgh. There is no complimentary anything on Ryan Air. They have soft drinks, food, smokeless cigarettes, lottery tickets all for sale though. We did not purchase anything. I had some granola type bars (called Corny Bars--made in Germany) with me that the kids snacked on during the flight. We arrived in Edinburgh at about 12:30. They are an hour behind Gdansk, so at the moment we are only six hours ahead of home! Since we have American passports, we were lucky enough to go through the "All Other Passports" line instead of the "EU Passports" line. We did not have to wait at all to have the lady check and stamp our passports. The "EU Passports" line was very long. Ironically it was much more bureaucratic for us to leave Poland than for us to enter the UK.

We took a cab to our apartment. The cab driver was very friendly and talked to us quite a bit. He told us that our "accents" sound like Helen Hunt! We think that we are not the ones with accents--everybody here is! It has already been fun to be able to understand people and to be able to make small talk when we are out and about. Our apartment is very nice has two bedrooms and a fold out sofa. It is located near the historic Princes Street and is about 30 yards from the US Embassy. We are happy to report that unlike Budapest, it appears that no one actually lives here. There is no underwear in the drawers, no food in the fridge or cabinets. There are however, smoke detectors in this apartment, which we have not had in our other travels. It does not seem to be standard in many parts of Europe like it is in the US. Our house in Gdansk did not have any when we first arrived. But soon after we got there I bought a couple just for my own peace of mind. Oh, and there is a combo washer/dryer here! Woohoo! There is a lot of laundry line drying at our house in Gdansk as of this writing! It should be dry by the time we get home on the 13th! As soon as we dropped off all of our stuff we went out to find some lunch. We found a little restaurant that to the kids' great delight, served nachos!

After lunch we wandered 

just a little bit and found a big book store, an ENGLISH bookstore! We need to check our school book lists and we will for sure be making a return trip to that bookstore! On our way back to the apartment we stopped at a little grocery store and got a few things for breakfast. They had Kraft mac & cheese there. Who knew how excited some American children would get buying two boxes of that? They are also very excited that there is Dr. Pepper here. They are on the look out for root beer. They have Diet Coke here instead of Coke Light (like they have in most other parts of Europe). I had some Diet Coke with lunch and it sure tasted different to me. I don't know if it actually tastes different here or if it's been so long since I've had it that I don't remember what it tastes like. We came back to the apartment and the kids have been having fun switching from one English television channel to the next.

We left our apartment at 5:40 to go to dinner. Our very good friend, Cara, who we both know from our KU days, has a cousin who is living here and working on her PhD in Linguistics. Cara put us in touch with Lauren, and we were able to meet her for dinner. She is also a KU grad, though MUCH younger than us! It was so fun having dinner and wonderful conversation with a fellow Jayhawk!

We ate at an excellent Italian restaurant that she knew of and she gave us all kinds of tips on what to do while we are here.

In our efforts to reduce the amount of stuff we were bringing on our trip, we left one particular bag that we usually always bring at home. In it is our computer attachment to download our pictures. So, for tonight we cannot download the few pictures we took today. I am going to go ahead and post this entry, and tomorrow when we pick up the attachment we need, I will insert the pictures. So our pictures from today will be posted on the actual blog site tomorrow (2-5).

And one more thing...we heard that the temperature in Gdansk was 34 degrees today. Whatever! We have been waiting and waiting for some warmer temperatures and it finally warms up a little the day we leave! It is about 42 here in Edinburgh so we're doing ok.