What a Difference a Year Makes

Mother Nature decided to give us a taste of a wintery wonderland, although there are plenty of people out there saying there’s nothing wonderful about it. The Chicago area received anywhere between 5 to 8 inches. I keep looking out the window, my car piled high with snow, hoping the sun will come out and it will all melt away before I have to go out there and clean it up.

The way it snowed yesterday reminded me of how it snowed in November 2010 when we were stranded in Edinburgh, Scotland. Here’s the link to that post, http://bit.ly/ysBOhP (the beauty of blogging—collected memories), and here’s the link about what we DID get to enjoy while in Scotland-http://bit.ly/gOuoCz.  

It’s amazing how much can happen and change in one year. I spent the winter of 2010-2011 in Germany, traveling to wonderful places, and seeing the bigger picture of life. My favorite was sampling the German Christmas markets in different towns. Here’s a glimpse at a few of the Christmas market booths-http://bit.ly/baJBsK. I also got the opportunity to record a German tradition in the town of Hattingen-http://bit.ly/eVvVp8.

In my 2010 Christmas post, http://bit.ly/vYWRaj, I talked about the changes in my life including my mother and I having the best relationship we ever had. Fast forward a year, and my mother is no longer in my life. If only I could have one more conversation with her, I’d tell her all the things I feel in my heart right now.

A little over a year ago, I finished my first revision of my 2008 National Novel Writing Month novel http://bit.ly/bP4ONG. This revision had transformed into many more revisions until it was published in 2011-http://bit.ly/vAZuqw.

I’ve always been one for change—except for this past year. But with bad things in life, good things do come out of it. I’ve learned who is important in my life—who cares for me—who was there for me in my time of need. I ended some friendships and rekindled some great friendships. I've also connected with my cousins, and can’t thank them enough for their support (life is full of surprises). I’m hoping for a happier future—a ‘life uninterrupted’.

How about you? What good and bad changes happened to you this last year?

Changes and hope,

Bea

Haggis, Snow and Mistletoe

If you read the prior post, then you know that we went to Scotland this past weekend and were stranded for a few days because of the snow. Although our travels to get home overshadowed our trip, we still very much loved Scotland. It has its own flavor, and we are considering going there again…when winter is over. Scotland has many traditions and proud people.

When we arrived on Friday, we setup a Literary Pub Tour for the evening. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and didn’t get any pictures of Edinburgh or the tour. But if anyone ever goes to Edinburgh, I would highly recommend this literary pub tour. The two actors who did it were great, and I learned about Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.  

To start things off, I thought I’d invite you for a nice Scottish breakfast of baked beans, sausage, bacon, tomato, mushrooms, eggs and Haggis. For those of you unfamiliar with Haggis, I thought I’d describe its ingredients and the nature of cooking it. It contains the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep or pig, minced with onions, oatmeal, suet (beef fat), spices, and stock and traditionally simmered in the animal’s stomach. Mmm...I bet you’re hungry now. No, I did not have this traditional Scottish breakfast…well, some of it, minus the beans, mushrooms and Haggis. My Love ordered it the first morning, and because I forgot to take a picture, he ordered it the second morning.  

The next picture is Edinburgh Castle from the park. In order to get the entire castle, I had to be at a distance. This castle was built on a dead volcano and is guesstimated to have the first human settlement around 900 BC. 

This picture was taken from the castle and it captures the Scott Memorial, museums and the Christmas festivities.  

Once we were inside the castle walls, I took this picture of the front of the castle, another volcano and a church in Edinburgh.

I had to post this because it is fascinating to me. This is a prisoners’ door, and as you can see, they scrawled words on it. Can you imagine knowing an ancestor was held captive in this fortress and then finding their name on a door?  

This is a picture taken from a street above a street. 

We went down where the Christmas festivities were held near Princes Street and they had an area setup for rides, workshops and ice skating. I would have ice skated if I had my long underwear on. BRRR!

And this is a picture of the Sir Walter Scott memorial from the back. It was built in 1844, in honor of Sir Walter Scott, and is the tallest monument in the world that is dedicated to a writer.

At night, we went walking around and came upon a procession of bagpipes. I was soo excited that I was able to videotape them.

I had to take a picture of Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. He lived a double-life; by day—a skilled cabinet-maker and Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights and Masons, by night—a burglar. It is assumed that his double-life was an inspiration for the book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. In Scotland, Jeckyll is pronounced Jee-kle.

This is a picture of the Christmas celebrations at night. It was beautiful. Cold and beautiful, but we cuddled and kissed to keep warm. 

Those are just a few of the pictures I took in Scotland. Hope you enjoyed them.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hello Everyone! We had another adventurous weekend, but a little more than we bargained for—after arriving home a few days late. This post will be in two parts: one for obstacles and the other for pictures. On Friday, we traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland to experience the Christmas celebrations even though we didn’t know it at the time of planning. We stayed in a—“colder than a well digger’s ass in Montana" Inn--because apparently they shut off their heat to save on energy. I guess they didn’t read about the dropping temperatures into the 20s, so by the time Sunday rolled around, we were ready to head home and thaw out.

Before leaving for the airport, we ate breakfast at the Inn and saw this outside (picture). The owner said this amount of snow was very unusual for Edinburgh as we looked out the window—mouths wide—hoping we’ll make it to the airport in one piece.

While we were driving to the airport, I decided to take a picture of some sheep’s grazing…or trying to keep above the snow, and the snow-filled trees. By this time, I hoped they had an “Oh Shit” handle on the passenger’s side, because the snow wouldn’t let up and traffic crawled.

We arrived with enough time to drop off the car, walk fifty miles (that’s what the European experience is at airports—walking down long hallways and going up and down stairs), and go through security. We made it, BUT the flight is now delayed four hours—more than enough time to find somewhere to sit and grow anxious while watching the falling snow. The delayed time creeps up and we find out the flights canceled. Ryanair so graciously stated if we want to rebook or cancel to please go to ryanair.com. BLAH, BLAH! They left everyone stranded—no one could even get to the website to do anything.

My Love contacted his mother to see if she could get us a flight from anywhere to anywhere in Germany or Brussels while we talked to different car companies to rent a car. AHA! We had a flight booked at Gatwick Airport, and we got a great deal to rent a car. Our driving journey began Sunday night for a few hours before we decided to stop at a hotel to sleep. We had been dealing with travel since the morning, so we slept and woke very early to continue on. Below is a map of the U.K. and I circled our beginning point, Edinburgh to our destination, Gatwick Airport.

I must stress that I didn’t do any of the driving. My Love was stuck since I left my driver’s license at the flat, I’ve never driven a manual car, and everything is on the opposite side—drive on the right and the roads are on the right. He drove the entire way—AND STILL—after all this time—did not complain. He just went along with everything. Psstt…I think this is why I fell in love with him…anyone who knows me knows I’m high maintenance, compulsive and anal. He’s VERY good for me.

We did make a stop at a town called Windsor before getting to the airport. At first, we thought about Stratford-Upon-Avon, but I was already there. Here are a few pictures of Windsor.

We arrive at the gate 1-1/2 hours prior to take off to find out the flight is canceled due to snow in Dusseldorf. We just drove 356 miles! It’s Monday—another day lost! At that moment, I was about ready to cry and I dropped the F-bomb a few times. Now what? I pull my Love with me and we head up to the EasyJet desks to rebook for early tomorrow morning. The line behind us was extremely long, but we ran to get there before most. My Love had his mom try to rebook us online, but she couldn’t. When we got to the counter, the representative was about to book us on a 7:10 a.m. flight to Cologne, but because my Love’s mother was online, it locked the account. The representative said it takes about 15 minutes to unlock itself; meanwhile we waited as seat-by-seat started to fill on this flight. FINALLY, she was able to book us seats on this flight—the last two seats. I couldn’t believe it and I thanked God right there and then.

EasyJet set everyone up in a hotel room for the night and fed us. Thank you, EasyJet. You guys ROCK! This morning, we sat on the plane (delayed) while they de-iced the wings and arrived in Cologne later this morning. From there, we had to take two trains to get to the station in Hattingen, where we walked home with our heavy carry-ons.

We’re Home!

So, how was your weekend? Get any shopping done?