Our weekend Getaway

Mid February had snuck up on us faster than we could blink. We had been here for almost two months by this time and have settled in nicely. As much as we enjoy St. Andrews, it is still a small town and we were both feeling a little claustrophobic, and ready for a change of scenery.

Similar to the States "Historic Hotels" program, the hotel here is a member of what it called, “Connoisseur Hotels”. If you are an employee at one of these hotels, you can receive a discounted rate at any other participating hotel (based on availability). As it turns out there are about fifteen participating hotels in Scotland. We are hoping to get to as many of them as possible during our time here. Since it was the weekend after Valentines Day we figured availability might be limited. We submitted requests to three different hotels, one way up north by Aberdeen, one in the south near Edinburgh, and one just an hour north of here. After being turned down by the first two we finally received confirmation that we could stay at the Castleton House Hotel (www.castletonglamis.co.uk)

This “hotel” is located about an hour north of St. Andrews near the small town of Glamis (pronounces Gloms). The hotel is actually more of a manor house. There are six guestrooms, two formal dining rooms and a couple of sitting areas. We arrived about 6:00, got settled into our room and relaxed until we headed down to dinner at 7:30. At dinner we soon realized that we were the only guests in the hotel for the evening. It was kind of nice to have the place to ourselves after a long week. But I have to admit that I felt bad that they had a full staff on for the night just to wait on us. Dinner was nice, but nothing particularly memorable. We decided to have our dessert next to the fireplace in one of the sitting rooms. The rest of the night was spent reading by the fire. No worries, Graig's reputation remains in tact. He read a magazine whilst Rebekah enjoyed a good mystery.

After enjoying our breakfast in the second dining room we headed out for the day. We started out by heading into Glamis. The main (only) attraction in Glamis is the Glamis Castle. This is considered to be the childhood home of the Queen Mother. Unfortunately for us the castle was closed for the season, and would not be opening until March. Since it is only an hour away, we look forward to going back to tour the castle later this summer when we have some visitors.

From Glamis we headed down the road to another small town called Kirriemuir. Kirriemuir is best know as the home of J M Barrie - author of the great book "Peter Pan.” It is also the birthplace of the drummer for the 80s rock band AC/DC. The town itself is built on the side of a large hill and consists of a few small shops and restaurants. After wandering through the shops we took a little hike to the top of the hill. It ended up being quite a workout as the top of the hill always seemed to be “just around the corner". Once we finally made it to the top we were rewarded with beautiful scenery in every direction.

Our final destination for the day was Dunkeld. This was another small town located along the River Tay. There were a number of antique and craft shops, cafes and restaurants. There was also a garden area where a number of locals each had their own plots to plant and maintain. Being the middle of the winter, there was not much to look at, but again we can’t wait to bring visitors there later this summer. The whole town had a feeling similar to Stillwater, MN on a smaller scale. Down the end of one of the streets was the cathedral building where a wedding was just concluding. The wedding party was climbing into an old fashion Rolls Royce limousine while the bride and groom were having a few last pictures taken by the river.

The cathedral it self was quite unique. At first glance it appears as if there had been a fire that burned the roof off of half of the church. The back end of the current church shares a common wall with the front wall of the ruins of the previous church.

After a full day we decided to head back to the hotel before heading out for dinner. Since dinner the night before was quite fancy we had decided that we wanted something informal like a burger and fries. We saw a nice looking restaurant in Kirriemuir that we thought would fit the bill. When we got there we were greeted and asked if we had a reservation. This seemed a bit odd to us considering it was about 6:00 and the restaurant was less than a quarter full. The hostess looked up and down her list a couple of times and told us that they were not going to be able to fit us in. We asked where else she would recommend for some “pub grub.” She said that she didn’t know of anywhere that would serve that kind of food at that time of night. We then proceed to the restaurant next door. The menu was a bit more upscale than we were looking for so we thought we would try a third place that we were told was “just up the road”. After walking for ten minutes we finally asked a local man that we passed on the sidewalk. He replied by saying that the only place he knew of was four blocks in the other direction, but he also didn’t think we would be able to get anything “at this time of night.” We got into the car and headed for another slightly larger town five miles down the road. To our amazement it was more of the same. We did find one place that served the kind of food that we were looking for….but they stopped serving at 7:00 and it was now ten minutes after. Again the response was “I don’t know where you will be able to get that kind of food at this time of the night”. Eventually we settled on some fish and chips at a restaurant on the second story of a hotel. There was one server for a restaurant full of people and we were seated at a table full of crumbs. The fish was huge and pretty good. We decided to head back the fireplace at the hotel to relax with some ice cream, and more reading.

This whole frustrating experience left us scratching our heads about a couple of questions.
1) If you can’t get food in a pub between 6:00 and 7:00, when can you?
2) What is the point of having twenty tables in a restaurant when you can't serve more than five at a time?

It takes a Village

Well, it takes a wonderful community like St. Andrews to make you feel like home. We have been blessed by meeting so many lovely people and diverse backgrounds. St. Andrews is truly a melting pot of cultures thanks to the University and St. Mary's Divinity College. Check out some of the many friendly faces...

Charlie's Angels they aren't, but they are a darn good HR team. and Pauline the Twinkle, Left to Right: Gail the Reindeer, Sandra the Snowflake

Friends:

CC & Angus Wesley, Meigan & Jeff, Liam & Kathrine

Graig's making all sorts of new friends, including women he doesn't even know! This woman tapped him on the shoulder and gestured for him to start dancing with her while we were enjoying music at a Pub. The smile says it all....

Bagpiper at the Pub where we were enjoying some music and a little dancing as noted above. He's the 16-year old son of one of my coworkers, Ron.

A journey of a 1000 miles begins with the first step...

More information to come... Tower Bridge

The Tower Bridge

Shots of London

Big Ben & the Houses of Parliament

Buckingham Palace

Words for Thought

Although English is the primary language in Scotland, it has been said that Scotland and the US are similar countries separated by a common language. We will continually be updating this section with some of interesting grammatical differences.

Nappy - you do not want to use a nappy to wipe your mouth after dinner.....especially a dirty
one. Nappy = Diaper

Pavement - It is illegal to ride your push bike on the pavement. This being the case you would
think that they must have some great bike trails in town. Not the case. Pavement=Sidewalk

Pants - Unless you want to get hit, you should not compliment a lady on her pants. Pants = underwear

Toilet - At least they say it as it is rather than trying to glorify it by calling it a restroom. Toilet = Bathroom

Digestive - In the US you would expect to find a Digestive in the pharmacy. Over here they are one aisle over from the produce. Digestives = Cookies

Trolley = On a golf course, it's a golf cart. At the grocery store, it's a cart....with 4 wheels.

Buggy = Golf Cart or a stroller

Creche = Nursery

Dodgy = Questionable or Shady

Rubbish = poor quality, bogus...as in, "That's Rubbish"

Hiya = Hello

You alright? = How are you? At first I kept thinking that I didn't look well....

Chocolate = Hot cocoa

Crisps = (Potato) Chips

Chips = French Fries

Puddings or Puds = desserts

Biscuits = cookies

Knackered = completed whiped out, overly tired

Heating Optional

Heating optional-

The first night we moved in the house, it felt a little on the cool side. After inspecting the timer (instead of a thermostat), boiler and radiators we chalked the coolness up to the fact that the heaters had not been on for the past two months. We figured that we would throw an extra blanket onto the bed; it would be warm by morning.

The next morning Rebekah could hardly bear to get out from under the covers and get ready for work. Needless to say, there was still not much heat. One of the three radiators on the upper level and neither of the radiators on the lower level seemed to be working. Luckily there was a gas fireplace on the lower level that allowed us to at least heat the living/dining room. Rebekah was able to get a hold of our leasing agent to send out a repairman. This was actually quite an accomplishment considering most businesses were closed for the holidays.

After waiting around most of the day with no television, radio, or Internet connection, the repairman finally showed up at about 3:30. He poked and prodded around for about ten minutes before he concluded that there was definitely a problem with the valves on the radiators. He then proceeded to load up his tools and informed me that he would be back about 10:00 the next morning to fix them. Apparently there was another house with even less heat than ours.

10:00 came and went, so did 11:00……and 12:00. Finally at 12:30 he had made it to the house. At this point I didn’t care that he was late, as long as he was going to be able to fix the heat. He and his helper worked for a couple of hours, and he began to pack up the tools. He said that the valves had all been replaced, and we should begin to feel heat in a little while. By 8:00 that night the upstairs radiators we cranking out the heat, but the ones on the lower level were still ice cold. This was Friday night. Due to the weekend, and Hogmanay (New Years) holidays the repairman was not available to come back again until the following Wednesday.

To my pleasant surprise he arrived bright and early Wednesday morning. For the third time he poked and prodded. The final conclusion….an addition was added to the house a few years ago. When they did, they extended the heating lines, but did not increase the size of the pipes. The pipes were too small for the application, and the radiators had probably not worked for years. The solution? Re-plumb the entire heating system on the lower level.

That was over three weeks ago now. I just called the leasing agent back this past week to see what was going on. They told me that they were still waiting to receive a quote, and would let us know when more information was available. In the mean time we continue to keep all of the doors to the living room closed and the gas fireplace burning.

One of the real ironies about this whole situation is the UK's constant efforts to be energy efficient. A day does not go by when we do not see something on the tel-e about being "green" and conserving energy. At the same time we sit in a house that has no insulation in the walls. Every door has an old fashion key hole that goes directly out side. And the best one of all is the vent in the dining room wall; essentially it's a 12x12 inch plastic grill on each side of the wall.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion……if there ever is one!

Our House is a Very Very Fine House...Almost

Welcome home!

One of Rebekah’s major objectives when she was in St. Andrews in November was to identify a place for us to live. Working with a leasing agency(known as "estate agents" here) she was able to get a look at many places that according to the description sounded like they would be good for us. As she quickly realized, St. Andrews is a college town….with lots of college rental properties. She finally was able to narrow the search down to two places that were decent possibilities. The first choice was a smaller more contemporary two-bedroom house on the east side of town. The second choice was a three-bedroom house on the west side of town, halfway between town and the Dukes Golf course where I would soon begin work. Although the decor of the first place was more our style we decided to go with the ideal location, extra bedroom, and dishwasher that came with property number two.

When Rebekah described the place to me on the phone she had said that the decor was kind of “Old Lady”. The house had previously been owned by a ninety year old lady that was recently placed into a nursing home. On the day that we moved in I thought that I had underestimated what Rebekah had meant when she said Old lady. As you will see by the pictures of the drapes, carpet and plumbing, it is just in need of a little updating. It didn’t take long for Rebekah to put some of her home interior decorating skills to work. By the end of the night we were able to stand back and really start to feel like we were home. In all reality the house is actually quite nice. Rebekah and I see tons of potential as we sit here and discuss what we would do if it were our house.

Welcome in the front door.

The picture does not do the carpet justice. Think fire engine red.

Lets Go Up stairs

Not quite as big as our bathrooms at home.

Kohler sure could teach the UK a thing or two about plumbing

Guest Bedroom #1

She did have bead spreads that match the drapes, but we thought it was a bit much

(especially with the carpet)

Guest Bedroom # 2

This is also where Rebekah Gets ready in the morning since

There are no electrical outlets in the bathroom

Master Bedroom

Lets Head back down stairs

The living room with a variety of Reds

Dining Room

The Kitchen

We have been told that this is quite a generous sized Refrigerator & Freezer

Notice the big selling point...The Dishwasher

(especially valuable since you can not buy more than 6 paper plates in a Package)

The Cloths washer is also in the Kitchen. The Dryer is in the Garage They are each large enough to wash about eight tee shirts at a time


Atrium

We also refer to this as our walk in Refridgerator

(See the Heating is Optional Posting)

St. Andrews Baptist Church

When Rebekah was trying to find a place for us to live she ended up walking past the Baptist Church in town. The front door happened to be open, and two ladies were inside serving tea and biscuits to who ever happened to stop by. This was just what Rebekah needed after standing outside for an hour waiting for the estate agent that never showed up. This was the first example of the hospitality that the Congregation has continually shown to us over the past month and a half.

The Congregation (or Fellowship as they call it over here) reminds me a lot of the Alliance Church that we attended while we were at college in Menomonie, WI. Since St. Andrews is a popular retirement destination, there is a good number of retired couples who have a wealth of knowledge to share. The other large demographic of St. Andrews is the University Students. This provides a large foundation of students from all over the world. The high cost of living in St. Andrews does not does not make it an attractive place to raise a family, so there are not too many young couples. That being said there are a good number of young families here, because the husbands are obtaining their PHDs in Theology at St. Mary’s University. We've been mistaken for students on more than one occassion.

Attendance typically runs about 300 during the school year. During the summer months, attendance drops to about 125. When school is in session the Congregation is too large for the building, so Sunday morning worship services are held in a nearby school. In addition to the morning service, there is also an evening service that is held at the Church, which is located in the centre of St. Andrews. It is a small old building with a sanctuary that seats about 100 and has no windows. Oh, and did I mention that it was located on the second floor? This struck me as quite odd, but is apparently very common. It was explained to me that it was done in order to prevent outsiders from looking in on the business being conducted at the Church. Apparently this was a bigger issue in the past when Church and government were so closely connected.

As we mentioned in the Holiday posting, the Associate Pastor is a young man named Liam Garvie. He is just finishing up his schooling, but is wise beyond his age. He has a great love for God, and sharing His Word. As a result God has given him an incredible ability to preach. He is not afraid to address the difficult issues, and yet does it in such a thoughtful and loving way. Every week he says something that makes me sit back in my chair and think about how I can apply what he has said to my life. In addition to Liam, the Church has been in the process of trying to find a new Senior Pastor. This search has been quite a struggle, but the members of the Congragation know that God is preparing the right person as I'm writing this.

We have recently completed a prayer series called, "The 12 Days of Prayer". Every evening we would gather to pray about different aspects of the Church and Community. It was a great way for Rebekah and I to meet many people in a smaller, more intimate setting, as well as learn about the different ministries of the Church. We are very grateful to have found such a wonderful Bible-believing Church to be apart of while we are away from our friends and family.

Check out our Church at http://www.standrewsbaptist.org.uk/_ . Liam had a great sermon on Repetentance on 14 January. You can listen to it online.

The Holidays in St. Andrews

Christmas Eve Day -
We began our day by attending Church at the St. Andrews Baptist Church which is located in down town St. Andrews. We will tell you more about the Church in a separate posting of our blog. The rest of the day was pretty low key. We spent most of the day in our room nursing our colds. There were carols in the hotel lobby during the evening.

Christmas Day-
Christmas day also began with a worship service at the Church. After Church we headed back to the hotel for a wonderful four course Christmas dinner. The dinner took place in the Road Hole Grill, which is located on the top floor of the hotel overlooking the Old Course and the North Sea. It was a truly special place to be able to spend Christmas. Rebekah had venison while I had the traditional turkey, dressing and potatoes. After lunch we returned to our room to open the gifts that our families had sent with us, as well as the gifts that we found in town a couple of days earlier. We concluded our Christmas celebration by watching “White Christmas” and calling our families back home.

Boxing Day-
The chaps over here in Britain are smart enough to know that you always need a day to recover from the holidays, so they have one. The day after Christmas is Boxing day. As I understand it, this was originally a day to thank the servants for their work during the year. More recently it has turned into a day of relaxation and after Christmas sales (although none of the shops were open in St. Andrews).

The hotel was having a formal gala, and Rebekah was asked to fill a table of eight in order to add to the atmosphere. Rebekah invited a couple that she had met at the American Women in Scotland Club when she was there for Thanksgiving. Their names were CC and Angus. CC was from Georgia (in the US) and Angus was from Sterling, Scotland. They had met on the Internet and had only actually been together for four days before they were married. Rebekah had also invited the Pastor from the Baptist Church, Liam and his wife Kathryn. They are a very nice young couple who will soon be moving not too far from our house. Since we do not know too many other people over here we asked Liam and Kath if they knew anyone else that would be interested in attending. They introduced us to Jeff and Meigan. They are an American couple who have been over here for the past five years. He is finishing up his PHD in theology and she is teaching in the nearby town of Dundee.

(left to right: Angus, CC, Liam, Kathryn, Rebekah, Graig, Meigan, Jeff)

The Gala was a black tie event. Here in Scotland that means either a tuxedo or a full dress kilt. The split was generally about 50/50. At our table three of the men wore kilts with the fourth in a tux. As you can guess, I was one of the three. I figured when else would I ever get the chance. The dinner was again very good. There was a live jazz band providing the dinner music. After dinner the Jazz band was replaced with more of a “rock” band and the dance floor was open for business. Every one at our table got into the action and we danced until midnight. When the band left we stayed up a wee bit longer and had some enjoyable conversation before deciding to head to bed.

The next morning we all gathered together for breakfast. Although most of us had only met the night before, the conversation flowed as if we had known each other for ages. After breakfast Rebekah took us on a tour of the hotel. We saw each of the different types of rooms, from the basic rooms that we were all staying in all the way up to the rooms that were bigger than most of our houses. We all agreed that This Boxing day experience was not something that we would soon forget. This entire event made for an incredible way to begin our time here in Scotland.

The journey begins

Lets get on with it already! On November 11 Rebekah left Wisconsin for the HR conference in Paris ,France, followed by Labor Law training in London, England, and finally on to St. Andrews, Scotland. We were expecting that I would be able to join her once the work permit was approved in about another two weeks. Those two weeks quickly became six, and included a one week return trip to the U.S. for Rebekah. Once again God was showing us that he was in control, and that we needed to rely on him. With Rebekah gone and things winding down at work I had a very difficult time accepting this.

On December 21 Rebekah and I together boarded a plane bound for Edinburgh, Scotland. While there were a few delays at the Milwaukee airport, and another short delay in Newark, we arrived in Edinburgh only 45 minutes late. Considering all of the excitement that Rebekah had experienced on her initial journey, we did not have anything to complain about. When Rebekah was over here for her initial trip she was able to identify a house for us to rent. The house would not be available for us to move into until the 27th so we were “forced” to spend a week at The Old Course Hotel.

Rebekah and I were both able to confirm the hypothesis that airplanes are as good as a petrie dish when it comes to spreading germs. Rebekah was still getting over a cold that she had picked up on her way back to the states the week earlier. I had pick up a cold, and the jetlag had really allowed it to settle in. The first couple of days we just laid low, managing to venture out just enough to do a little Christmas shopping for each other.

You want us to do what?

Back ground (you want us to do what?)

We have finally reached the largest milestone on a journey that began almost six months ago. This journey first began last July when Rebekah’s boss, Kathy, asked us if we would consider moving to St. Andrews Scotland for 12-18 months. The HR Manager of the hotel that Kohler had purchased two years ago (The Old Course Hotel http://oldcoursehotel.kohler.com/index.html ) was leaving. Kathy thought that this would be a great opportunity to have Rebekah go over and help to implement some of the Kohler HR process, and gain some management experience.

In the weeks following, we heard five consecutive sermons at three different Churches that spoke directly to us. They were about making decisions, listening to Gods call on your life, the many blessings of being obedient to God, and being willing to act when He calls you. We felt that this was God was calling us to Scotland. After much prayer, many discussions (polite way of saying arguments) and a whole lot of faith, we made a decision. If the assignment was offered, we would rely on the Lord to work out all of the details necessary for us to be able to accept it. As it turns out, making this decision was not nearly as difficult as following through on it.

As we learned over the next four months, when you are working with a multi-billion dollar corporation (Kohler) and two international governments….nothing happens quickly. Due to internal politics, Kohler Co. was not able make the official offer until late October. Once we accepted the offer, the process of obtaining the necessary government visas and related documentation began. We often had to remind ourselves of our decision to let God work out the details. There were many, many, many times when we tried to make plans on our own, or thought we knew how things were going to work out, only to later be thrown yet another curveball.