A New Year
A New Year
I will admit it, I have lived a home for 23 years of my life. It just made sense, I mean to be fair for 18 of those years I was going through elementary, middle and high school. So most people live at home until their 18th year-not unusual. For me after that I was going to college or working and I was fortunate enough that I liked living at home. It gave me the chance to save the money that I earned, this is what eventually made this trip to Europe become possible. Most of every pay cheque went into the “Take me to Europe Fund” and I really thank my parents for letting me live at home for as long as I did.
In the end it all paid off, I’m in Europe, and I will be able to say that my first ever apartment was in Edinburgh, Scotland. Make that downtown Edinburgh! I’m fairly happy with that. Dian and I have lived here in Scotland now for almost two months. We have decorated our flat, explored the city and are now just getting a sample of how many pubs exist. We have hiked up Arthur’s Seat twice now, and each time we have wondered where are the trees and forests? I’ve job hunted, and hunted and continue to job hunt. We’ve celebrated out first Christmas away from home, (nothing could have been more tragic) and welcomed in the New Year.
We have a Castle outside our door, and two sides of the city to explore. There is Old Town, and New Town, which it should be noted despite its name is still older than our city back in Canada. We have been told plenty of times that we have strong accents, and have been asked to say “Eh” and “Aboot” the moment our nationality has been discovered. And we’ll admit, we humour them.
We have discovered that Edinburgh is like an Esher painting, if you turn a corner suddenly you suddenly find yourself two blocks over. If you think you are going up you are actually going down, and alley ways between buildings are short cuts that cut your travel time in half.
I know of several good pubs to go to, and several bad pubs not to go to. I know where the good cheap eats are, and the odd feeling of seeing Twinkies as an expensive novelty over here. I’m still amazed when people say Glasgow is far away when it’s only an hour by train and still can’t get over that I’m in Europe and London is only 4 hours away.
Now that it’s 2015 I can now say I have been in Europe for 6 months, and don’t plan on coming back any time soon.