FIVE: discoveries

Daniel and I had a long day. 

It started out with a long morning... on the wrong bus.  We decided to go to the campaign office on the other side of town and wanted to give the bus system a whirl.  Well, we got on the right bus at 10:00am BUT it was headed the wrong direction. About two hours later we got off that bus and entered the SNP offices.


Just so you can visualize

We spent the next couple of hours folding and stuffing newspapers and putting stamps on envelopes.  We then got a short lunch break and since Daniel and I still haven't stocked our house with foods we can pack for lunch, we shared a baked potato.  After that, Daniel went out leaf letting on the "battle bus" and I stayed behind and continued folding... and folding... and folding.  My hands were black and my back ached by the time we left about FOUR hours later.  Yes.  I folded newspapers for four hours.  It wasn't too bad when other people were with me (granted I couldn't understand much of their conversations-- politics + accent), but it did get a little boring when everybody left. 

Daniel putting stamps on envelopes and yes, that is Sean Connery on the newspaper.
He strongly endorses the SNP. haha

Me with the baked potato.  We ate outside since it was so beautiful out.

Daniel in the "battle bus"  Tom Buchanan is in the drivers seat.

During the folding newspapers section of my day, we did have some fun conversations.   I learned that the native Scots get just as much of a kick out of us as we do out of them.  For example: they laughed really hard when I referred to the "fanny pack" a man was wearing yesterday.  Apparently they call them "bum bags" and a fanny is a female reproductive organ. Yupp.  They laughed and explained and I turned bright red.  (And FYI "bum bags" were never cool in Scotland either. haha I don't know why they still exist.)

They also gave us recommendations for what and where to eat and more lessons on language.  I can't even remember all the words we learned.  BUT one of the office workers, a volunteer named Pam came back from her lunch break with a "Scots School Dictionary" and some store bought black pudding for us.  Daniel and I will let you know how that goes.  We are planning on making it for breakfast tomorrow (ew). For those who don't know what black pudding is read below:

Black pudding or blood pudding is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.

Congealed Blood. I don't know about this. But when in Scotland........ (minus all the Whisky)

Pam also told us to try Scottish Butter.  I don't know how it's supposed to be different.
 But the blood pudding is next to it.  I'm so nervous for that.

Daniel has a new text book!

We didn't start heading home until after 7:30pm and we were both so tired that we didn't do any touring things today. We grabbed dinner at a very classy restaurant that always reminds me of home and then stopped at the Tesco Express for some quick/cheap breakfast and lunch items for tomorrow.

And that was our day! :-)

Tomorrow we are trying to set up a tour of the Parliament Building and get tickets for the fire festival that is this weekend.  It should be good.

OH and speaking of good...


GOOD NEWS MOMENT:
1.  Daniel and I found a laundry unit in our building complex last night!  It has dryers and it's right down the stairs from our apartment.  We didn't know how to get in at first, but we figured out that our flat keys have a magnetic wand thing that opens the laundry room door... that would have been nice for our landlord to tell us.  At least it didnt take us three months to figure out.

2.  We found a bigger blanket! There was a closet in the living room that had full sized blankets.  Now Daniel and I don't have to fight over the covers every night :-)