Scotland: Cultural Differences Part 1

After nearly two years in Scotland, the cultural differences have become normal to us. But as I contemplate the American visitors who are coming to see us in this, our last summer in Scotland, I think about all the things that will seem very foreign to them. I tried to make a list of all the "cultural differences" topics that I talk about when people ask how things are different in America. It's definitely too long for one blog post. So, here is Cultural Differences, Part 1, not necessarily in order of "importance" but in order of how I thought of them, which is generally how I experience them in everday life, too! 

1. Cultural norms are different
This takes lots of forms.  The most obvious examples I've run into concern customer service, tidyness, supermarket layout, and the house/garden distinction.

Customer service, in the UK, is generally minimal. And it's not just me. British people agree with me on this one. This is true for corporations - one of Paul's favorite stories about our move is that when he called to set up Internet service, British Telecom (BT) told him it would take 3 weeks. He said something along the lines of "I'm going to call your competitor! (Sky) and the agent replied, "Go ahead, they use the same technicians we do, so your Internet is still going to take 3 weeks." Customer service in shops and restaurants also tends to be very low-key. Part of this (especially in restaurants) is likley because tipping is uncommon.  A 10% tip would be generous. This may be more Scotland than other parts of the U.K. (Scots do have a reputation for penny-pinching).  On the flip side, however, you can get very personal service because the U.K. is a small place (well, maybe except for London). People know you. So I've received a personal call from a local librarian to tell me that a book I ordered is in. Also a call (probably from that same librarian) to tell me my 5-year-old forgot her kittycat stuffed toy at the library. I've also watched the owner of a small post office/corner store come out from behind the counter and help a woman with mild dementia do her shopping, while 6 or 7 people waited patiently in line while he helped her.
  
The supermarket layout in the U.K. is mystifying.  It totally reminds you that you are not in the U.S. Two particularly puzzling examples are pancake syrup and straws. In the U.S., the syrup would be in the baking aisle, near the pancake mix, and the straws would be in the paper products aisle, near paper cups and napkins. But in the U.K., pancake syrup is in the dessert aisle (because pancakes are generally a dessert/sweet treat) and straws are with the party stuff (because, why would you have a straw if you weren't having a party?) Also, tissues. Again, with the paper products in the U.S., OR you could buy them in a drug store. Makes sense, right - you have a cold, you go to get cold medicine, and tissues. Not so in the U.K. No tissues to be had in the drug store. Drugs, yes. Feminine hygieine products, yes. Hair products, yes. But no tissues. The upside was that during my fruitless search for tissues, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while.  She didn't seem to mind my runny nose.

Tisseus finally purchased at the supermarket, Tesco

Which brings me to...cleaning up after yourself, and your dog. I'm not saying that people in the U.K. are untidy. It's just aparently not as much of a cultural norm to pick up after yourself as it is in the U.S.  It starts early - I think Audrey is the only kid in her (first grade)  class who throws things into the trash bin in the schoolyard. It's just not expected.  If you go to a cafe, you leave your teacup and trash on the table. Someone will come clean it up. Audrey's school employs a janitor to pick up ofter the kids. And the local city government employs people to pick up the streets as well. You see them walking up and down the streets, wheeling along a trash bin and picking up everything that's left on the street. Except dog poo. Of which there is more than there should be. In the middle of highly traveled sidewalks. Big poo, small poo, what I have come to call "dog-a-rhea" for obvious reasons. Some people do pick up their dog's poo.  There are small bins for that purpose stuck to posts at regular intervals, and signs or stickers on the bins/posts to remind people that it's actually the law to pick up your dog poo in Scotland, but it doesn't seem to be changing anyone's mind. So watch where you step.
 
Speaking of stepping, you have to watch your step in people's houses, too, although not quite as literally.  In the U.S., if you invite someone to your home, it is likely that you will give them a tour of the house, especially if they have not visited you before. In Scotland this would be unheard of. If someone invites you to their home, you are expected to stay downstairs, probably in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. The only possible exceptions are if their only bathroom is upstairs (in which case you are allowed to visit it) and if they have kids (in which case the kids, if they are old enough not to destroy everything in their path, can go upstairs, but you should still ask before going to collect them from upstairs- it is likely that the Scottish person will bring them down rather than let you go up.)  Gardens, on the other hand, are a point of national pride.  You may be asked to visit a friend's garden and tour it, and you should be appropriately complimentary, as they have likely spent a lot of time getting it to its current lovely state.

Pond in my friend Frances' garden

2. Language is different
If you read this blog regularly you will have already read a lot about language, butI'll  just give it a few more words here, because it really is one of the big differences you notice as a foreigner.

First, British English has different words for almost everything.  And there are certain words that can lead to serious embarassment when used incorrectly.  Foremost among these words are pants and pumping.  If you are American, you're probably thinking...Pants. Pumping. Those words aren't very embarassing. One is something you wear when it's chilly outside, to keep your legs warm, and the other has multiple meanings - you can pump gas, or pump your legs on the swing to keep swinging higher and higher, especially if you're seven. But in the U.K., pants are underpants, so if you slip and say "I bought some new pants" people will titter.  This was absolutely the first language change made by the 5-year-old. "Mom, don't say pants! Say trousers!" Pumping in the U.K. means farting. So pumping on the swing takes on a whole new meaning (thank you to my three Scottish readers who are laughing right now).
 
Second, Scotland has accents in abundence.  I have written about this before but it's inescapable on the the ground. Once you start hearing the differences, you can detect Edinburgh (the mildest of the Scottish accents, at least among the educated Edinburgh folk I know. Sounds nearly English, but shhh, don't tell them, they'll be offended). Aberdeen sounds a bit like Scrooge McDuck (again, this is not a compliment, sorry people from Aberdeen).  Glaswegian is distinct from Dundonian, and then there's the Highland accent which is slightly more intelligible than the outlying islands, where the accent and the vocabulary are fairly different from anything you hear "on the mainland."  Plus throw in people who still retain and English accent or an Irish one after living in Scotland for some time. Everyone may have some common "Scots" dialect like saying "wee" for anything small, and (on the east coast) "bairns" for kids (there's a different word for the West coast but since I don't live there, I don't know what it is!)  But back to where I began this post; I just asked Paul to describe the Glaswegian accent, and he said "I don't know - whe we first got here I could hear it, but now I don't anymore." It's just normal.

This poster, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, is probably one of the most common memes in Britain, When I Googled Scottish Accents to look for a good image, I got "Keep Calm and Love Scottish Accents" and "Keep Calm and Fake a Scottish Accent"

 

Farm to Festival on 7 June

It's now officially summer in Scotland.  I can tell because the temperature has not dropped below 50 degrees (except for during high winds, like the past two days) and it's usually sunny for at least half the week. But, weather-related comments aside, it's summer because there are suddenly tons of things to do at the weekend. This weekend was no exception.  On Saturday, there was an outdoor "try it out" session for camps sponsored by the local government (Dundee City Council), but since winds were gusting up to 50 mph, we decided to go inside instead to dig up a dinosaur at the science centre, which was quite fun.  A staff member was showing fossils to the kids at one point, and she said "you'll never guess what this is a fossil of" and Claire said  "poo!" because she likes to say "poo" and it actually turned out to be dinosaur coprolites. So who knew.

Today we went to a farm for Open Farm Sunday this morning, and then to the West Fest Big Sunday on Magdalen Green (just outside our house) this afternoon. About the farm: we went there entirely because since coming to Scotland, I have become somewhat obsessed with sheep.  You see them everywhere (well, at least as soon as you leave the city) but they're usually at a distance - up the hillside as you drive, flashing by as white blobs as the train speeds past. And they're very cute.  Especially in April and May, when it's prime lamb season (aparently most are born in late March/early April). I was more involved in lamb season this year because our friend Stephen, from a Scottish farm family and aware of my sheep obsession, sent me a link to the "lamb cam" for the last week in March, so I could see (live) little lambs wobbling around in the evening.  It was super cute but it made me sad because it was sponsored by a company called Quality Meats. Hmm.

So, Open Farm Sunday.  The nearest farm to us that was open turned out to be the James Hutton Insitute, which is a research farm that investigates soil and crops. But in addition to farm tours, farm machinery to climb on, and plant science experiments and crafts, they advertised "Meet a sheep." I was there.

First the girls got ready. Overalls, of course, because they were farmers.













The sheep for meeting - a ewe and two lambs. I even got to pet them - the sheep-minder pointed out that the ewe had very coarse wool and if they were raised for wool, they would be "for carpet," not for wearing. The lambs were softer!








We took a tour of the research farm which was quite large and also beautiful - nothing but farmland, quaint village, and the river Tay as far as you could see.  Even some stone walls and hedgerows.

Next we got to climb on the farm machinery!

These were some big tractors	The wheel was as tall as me!
Fun in the tractor cab	Taken by Audrey of us in the Combine cab
Claire in the small Combine	Us in the big Combine
One of the glass houses	Someone taking after her mother with sheep obsession....

After the farm, and a brief break, we went on to the WestFest Big Sunday.  When we arrived, the traffic wardens were ticketing people who parked illegally.  But the good thing about this festival is that it took place 20 yards down the hill from our house, so no need for us to move the car.

This is what it looked like from the top of the hill. River Tay in the background. 

The beer garden. Note people looking suspiciously at me in the foreground for photographing the beer garden.

We made our way over to the msuic area, so this was the scene listening to a group we could best describe as "Scottish Bluegrass" - they had a fiddle, a banjo, a guitar, and a bass and were singing something about Kentucky with a distinct lilting cadence...

Finally, we stood in line for the main event - the grass sledging. Or, sliding down the hill on a little wheeled cart. You got to go three times for 1 pound - a good value except you had to spend almost 30 minutes waiting in line to get your 3 minutes of zooming down the hill.  The girls said it was worth it, though.

Happy Scottish Summer Kick-Off!

A Collection of Memos from my Phone

I started to write this blog on why Scotland is totally underrated as a tourist destination by Americans.  But half an hour in, it was starting to look more like a thesis than a blog post. So, moving on.

Sometimes when I am walking home from work, I think of something I want to blog about. So I stop and whip out my super-wimpy smartphone (it doesn't even merit a capital S) and click on the Memos icon.  I am still a fairly rudimentary texter, so my Memos are often mis-spelled, but my hope is that when I look at them later I'll be able to figure out, as the Brits say, "what I was on about." So here goes.

Memo 1: Blog on best toys.

Tad and that $3 cape I bought at Savers. Seriously, Tad, of Leapfrog fame, has got to be our most long-lasting toy.  My aunt gave him to us when Audrey was 18 months old. We started using him as her "going to sleep" music (he plays 10 minutes of night-time music if you sqeeze his hand twice) then, and he's still going. With only about 3 battery changes...we play him every night. He even goes on vacation with us. Audrey is now nearly 7. And the $3 cape. I bought it on a whim at Savers, the thrift department store in Rhode Island, when Audrey was about 4.  It's shiny green on one side and black on the reverse. It has been a princess cape, a fairy cape, and is currently serving as Hermione's cape from Harry Potter, complete with the Hogwarts "coat of arms" badge that I bought in London sewn on.   

Memo 2: Flying thru Amsterdam

My attempt to capture our flying trip through Amsterdam.  It was supposed to be an afternoon, maybe getting to see the Van Gogh museum. But thanks to airline delays, we got into the city in time to check into the hotel and seek out dinner. It was a cool city. We saw a stand with about 8 varieties of what Rhode Islanders would call "fried dough"  - mostly apple-based. There was a skating rink, but it was quite melted in places. Even in the north, the weather was too mild for an outdoor rink.  We also saw a big sculpture/place to take selfies written "I Am sterdam" - the letters were probably 8 feet tall but people were climbing all over them for pictures.  We ended up in a hotel on the 3rd (well, they call it the 3rd but counting the flights of stairs you would call it the 4th) floor having to open out windows to the December air because the heating was on full blast and we couldn't adjust it. 

Skating Rink/Swimming Pool

Selfies galore

Apple/Dough stand at the airport

Memo 3: Could you possibly...

A note to myself about the possibility of a blog about polite British ultimatums.  Stemming from my boss telling me that when she says, "Could you possibly..." to her teenage children, they jump up and do whatever she's asked, because that phrase is eqivalent to her saying, in American terms, "F-ing do it, or else!"

Memo 4: What the...

Notes about a possible blog (or blogs) about how the UK did not recognize us as having a life or history beyond its borders, and the parallels with a workshop I took on creating a fake identity (in the name of research, of course!).  In reality, all the steps the workshop runner explained for creating a fake identity were things I had done in the previous 6 months to establish myself as a legitimate person in Scotland.  The only difference was I had a letter from the University stating I was employed by them, which made me "legit" instead of "fake."

This memo was also about being culturally lost in the grocery store, and being intially unable in Dundee to find a store that sold tissues (hint, not the pharmacy) or basic office supplies (hint, the post office). But that while I was on my tissue hunt I ran into both my choir director and my boss. Typical small-town Dundee. 

Memo 5: More Amsterdam.

This memo was about how impressed I was in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to find that someone had designed a seating area with a built-in slide. Adults rest, kids climb the stairs and slide down over and over and over...brilliant!  Also in the same airport, I spotted a store called "Philosophy" - they really sell everything in airports nowadays. I almost bought slippers in the shape of wooden shoes. But I resisted. And for some reason I also remembered in this memo that it was snowing lightly when we visited L'Academia in Florence.  

Hope you have enjoyed this trip down Memo-y lane.

We Have Acclimatized. I Mean, Acclimatised.

For my last Scottish language post, I said that we had given in, and started speaking more like Scots.  But really, it's not giving in at all.  It's acclimatizing.  Or as they say in the U.K., acclimatising.

I used to teach this in Introduction to Biological Anthropology - what is acclimatization? Acclimatization is adjusting to your environment.  I remember that Rhonda, my mentor, used to use the example of sweating in Arizona.  When you first arrive in Arizona from another part of the U.S. that features more reasonable temperatures, you sweat equally all over your body.  After a a few weeks, your body adjusts and you begin to sweat more efficiently, preferentially cooling your trunk, because, of course, that's where the important stuff for staying alive is located.  You have acclimatized. 

In Scotland, we have acclimatized in several ways.

First, we have changed our language, as previously discussed.  Even Paul, who doesn't really have much of an ear for languages, tending to remain pretty much American-English only, complains that half the time he calls our daughter's sweater a "jumper," in proper English fashion.  And as I read a book about food the other day with the three-year old, she identified the red fruit as a "to-mah-to." No, I said. "To-may-to."

We have also acclimatized to the cold, or more properly the absence of heat.  The cold is still nasty.  Especially the windy, rainly cold, like the entire month of November. Not kidding, the entire month. But, when we were in Edinburgh last July to get our passports renewed, it was HOT. And by HOT I mean 75 degrees.  This weather is described by Scots as "roastin'" and indeed we were roasting. It was clear and sunny ALL DAY, unheard of around here...here is a picture of that day. Look! Short sleeves! And I have my fleece around my waist, it's so hot. Truly, roastin'.

Roasting in Edinburgh, August 2014.

Another acclimatization is to driving - and riding - on the wrong side of the road.  Paul now has a full UK driving license, but in the early days he gave a couple of car dealers near-heart-attacks as he drive down the road, trying to stay to the side instead of (counterintuitively) hugging the center (I mean centre) line of the road.  Riding in the passenger seat, which would be the driver's seat in the US, took some getting used to, too.  For the first month or more, I habitually tried to get into the wrong side of the car.  Once I was in the correct seat, it still felt strange to be in the driver's seat yet have no control over the car.  And going around all the roundabouts made me feel slighly sick every time we took the car anywhere.  But eventually, I acclimatized.

The last acclimatization was to food availability.  When we first arrived, our families and others from the U.S. would ask us if we missed anything from the U.S., food-wise. And at first, we did. Decent bagels. Normal marshmallow. S'mores. But as we were here a little longer, we adjusted to what you could (and could not) get and became concerned with the bigger issues, that were mostly beyond our control.  Like, there are only two kinds of takeout food in Dundee that are any good.  They are: fish and chips, and Indian/Pakistani food. That's it. I feel lucky because I get to travel for work every couple of months, so every time I go to a bigger city, I seek out decent takeout food - Thai! Mediterranean! Sushi! Even (dare I hope for it?) Mexican! Okay, not really. You have to go all the way to London for that! Also, while the grocery store carries a number of products that we want to buy, they seem to mkae a game of organizing them in the most obscure possible way, so we can't find them. And, although we have also aclimatized to this, the Scottish idea of "customer service" bears only a faint resemblence to what you would see in the U.S. The idea of low profile shop assistants does have some benefit - you will never find a salesperson hovering next to you, glibly inquiring, "May I help you?" But, on the other hand, if you truly need help, sometimes it's like a prairie dog colony - you see salespeople all over the place, and then as soon as you open your mouth to ask a question, they're gone. Whoosh.

Two years of acclimatization. And soon we'll be back, and I'll be writing this blog in reverse.  Talking about how no one in America speaks properly or can cope with the cold.  Having the same unease about driving on the wrong side of the car, and actually driving again after two years of not driving. And of course, realizing that although Americans have proper bagels, marshmallows, S'mores, and of course fabulous takeout food (I'm looking at you, Tucson), the grocery stores will seem strange after two years away, and the salespeople uncomfortably clingy, over-helpful, and just plain American.

Time to acclimatize again.   

Blogs for an Alternate Universe

I've been thinking about writing a blog post about our three-and-a-half-year-old. She is totally into dandelions. She cannot pass a groups of them - or indeed, a single dandelion, without wanting to pick it and take it home, usually for me or my husband.

Dandelions on our street

 It's really cute, even if it does mean I end up with dandelion bits in all of my pockets. There are worse things (like pieces of crunchy granola bar in your pocket. Seriously. Note to granola bar manufacturers; re-sealable packages). But I digress. I wanted to write this post because I remember when our almost-seven-year old was into dandelions, too.  It's a particular cute kid phase, where for a while they're into picking you flowers, and then, they stop. They move on. Suddenly your counters are no longer filled with flowers with impossibly tiny stems, picked by your preschooler.

As I thought about writing this post, I wavered back and forth. Should I write it? I don't tend to blog about the kids (although they are definitely part of the blog.)  I write about travel, about language, about Scotland and living overseas. At one time I was a mommy blogger; if you look far enough back on this blog (and I mean far back, like pre-2010) I wrote about becoming a parent and my now-almost-seven-year-old's achievements when she was a baby. It was what I did when I wasn't writing my dissertation.  But I'm not a mommy blogger anymore.

Which led me to think: in an alternate universe where I wrote blog posts and actually got paid for it in some form, what would I write about? Here are my ideas.  Feel free to state your favorite in the comments here, or on Facebook or Twitter, if that's how you access my blog. If there's support for one idea over the others, I'll start up a Wordpress blog and, as they say here in the UK, I'll give it a go.

Blog Possibility #1: #Myhusbandsrants
This would be a co-created blog because as the name implies, it would be made up of my writing down, and commenting on, my husband's rants.  He rants on a variety of topics, and they are almost always humorous. The content for this blog would be similar to my post The Beard.

Blog Possibility #2: Spiritual Evolution
This would be a blog about links between religion and life written by me as a liberal, non-evangelical, open-minded Christian. The title is inspired by the first question I often get when I tell people that as an undergrad, I majored in biological anthropology (centrally about human evolution and human adaptation) and minored in religion. That question is, "How do you reconcile evolution and religion?"  I have written a few blog posts that talk about Christianity or church but as far as I can tell from my blog statistics, they are not very well-read.

Blog Possibility #3: Productive Me
Hopefully if I actually write this blog I wil come up with a better title for it. It would be about how sleep, daily rhythms and vacation can help you work harder and smarter. This would draw on some of my academic work on sleep and also coverage of these topics in the press.

Blog Possibility #4: #FuturecastingFriday
This would be closest to what I now do on Twitter.  I think I would have to publish each Friday, given the name. But basically I would be interested in writing and sharing information about three areas - the technological future (which I tweet about currently for work as @digitallifespan), the health future (which I tweet about currently for fun as @kayorzech) and also possibly tools for helping groups (especially policymakers and businesses) consider the future (futures toolkits), which I've been researching recently for work and find interesting.

Thanks for reading and I'm interested to hear what you think of these ideas!

Speaking the language

I've given in...

1) You stop using z's (realise, organise) and start adding u's (colour, favour)

2) You start thinking (about your visiting American guests),  "I wonder if they'd fancy a boat trip on the Firth of Forth?"when previously you had thought it sounded hilarious when new Scottish friends asked if you "fancied" something.

3) You can understand that when someone says "I ken twa wee bairns," they mean they know two small children. 

4) You call it America instead of the United States because that's what everyone (including your 3 year old) calls it here [as in "Mummy, when we go back to America, can Audrey and I get bunk beds?"]

5) You visit London, and you miss the way Dundonians greet you in the shops with a cheerful "Hiya."

6) You realise you can now almost sing a verse or two of Muggie Sha' (see the women's singing group I am part of singing it here).

7) You get your kids to sing "Wind the Bobbin Up" when you're brushing their hair.(although all the Youtube versions of this seem to be sung by Americans, I had never heard it until Library Rhyme Time here)

8) You start putting two syllables in girls (gah-uhrls) and world (wah-ruhld).

9) You pronounce Menzieshill "Mean-es-hill," Kirkcaldy "Kir-coddy," and Glamis "Glams."

10) You respond to good ideas with, "Brilliant!"

11) You start thinking "You Canna Shove Your Granny Off The Bus" is sort of catchy (although not very good for your dad's mom, because you find out later in the song that you Can shove her off the bus!) 

12) You say "cheers" back when people say it to you.

So, cheers to you all, seek out the bonny (beautiful) , and avoid the mingen (gross).  Oh,  and when you're singing that song about Loch Lomond, make sure you "tak" the high road or the low road, don't "take" it.

A Bonny Day in Edinburgh

It has already been established that we are American.  This distinguishes us in many ways from Scots, not least of which is the way we handle vacation (or holiday, as they say here).  One of the ways in which Americans are unique (some may say "crazy") is that they tend to cram a lot of vacation activities into a small stretch of time.  You can see this tendency in our previously documented trip to Oban/Mull/Iona/Staffa.

But oops, we did it again. Fortunately our visiting friends are also American so they don't find our "cram everything into a day" behavior odd. We didn't really do everything in Edinburgh, but we did visit two high points (literally) in the Scottish capital in one day, and came home exhausted.  But it was a lovely day.

First we went to Arthur's Seat.  For those of you not familiar with Edinburgh, this is the top of an extinct volcano.  Sources online had tipped me off to the fact that you can drive about halfway up this mountain and then take a 15-to-30-minute (depending upon the source) walk up to the summit. Uphill, sure. But not that far. Allegedly.

Later, in the taxi. The taxi driver regales us with a story of two Canadians who flew to Edinburgh, got a train to Waverly Station, got in his cab and asked to be taken to Arthur's Seat. They had an urn with them and it turned out the ashes belonged to one of their fathers, an Edinburgh native, who wanted to be scattered at the top of Arthur's Seat.  Because the adult child and his/her partner were quite overweight, they took one look at the hill and decided they were not going to make it, so they asked the taxi driver to make the climb.  He obliged, saying it wasn't really the kind of thing you could say "no" to.  But he quoted 45 minutes up the hill and 30 minutes back down as the time for the trip.  And I'm thinking, 45 minutes? For one man and an urn? Without two seven-year-olds and a three-year old who is probably going to need to be carried? We may be in trouble here.

But it turned out OK. Six out of seven made it all the way to the top of Arthur's Seat. And #7 was an adult, so it was okay. 

Kathleen climbing up from Dunsapie Loch where the taxi let us off.

Patrick waiting for me maybe 1/3 of the way up the mountain (Arthur's Seat peak behind him)

Paul, Claire and Patrick, nearly there (Claire rode on Paul's back most of the way)

Success! Paul and the kids at the peak.

More success: John and Patrick

And me! I'm there too! John bemused by girls channeling their inner divas.

But we weren't done yet. As the old saying goes, what goes up must come down.  And so we did, down the other side of the mountain to St. Margaret's Loch, where we had a picnic, and were filmed for a training video.  Not sure what they were training on - the proper art of picnicing? Staying a safe distance from swans? It remains a great mystery.

St. Margaret's Loch, with tone of the 2-person film crew.

Post-hike picnic.

Then, on to the iconic Edinburgh attraction - the Castle. Located, of course, on a big hill at the other end of the Royal Mile. So we called a taxi.  After a brief snafu (Paul: We're at St. Margaret's Loch, at the car park. Dispatcher: We can't send a taxi to you unless you're at an address. Paul:(phoning back after walking 100 feet) Okay we're at #1 Royal Mews. Now send a taxi!))

Orzechs by the Castle Gate

MacCubbins by the Castle Gate

 Once inside, we spit up, though everyone did see the Scottish Crown Jewels (except Paul, who had already seen them twice and has a better memory than some of us who went again because we had forgotten some of the experience...)

After the jewels, there was time for photo ops near the Scottish War Memorial, near the forewall battery (a collection of cannon), and of course our historic meeting with Queen Margaret (later St. Margaret) in the Great Hall, fit in around the all-important afternoon tea.

Claire posing outside the War Memorial.

Kay and Audrey selfie near the forewall battery.

Girls with Queen Margaret in the Great Hall, Edinburgh Castle. 

Finally it was time to head back on the train, in time for a beautiful sunset over the River Tay.

Patrick entertaining the kids with Uno in the train station.

Tay sunset from train window.