I don’t speak Scottish…yet

We have an absolutely horrendous boiler. It breaks all the time. We have to relight it every other time we use it. The hot water only works on occasion and it is so old there are actually no parts for it when it breaks. Sometimes we will be mid-shower and the hot water will go cold and we can’t get it warm again 😦  So today we had Scottish gas men come over for the 4th time to tell us that it is ancient and breaking so that we can in turn tell our land lady she REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to get a new one. When they came through the door they were bickering about something or another; I had no idea what they were saying. I soon figured out that they were indeed speaking english (scottish) but I am not yet skilled in that language to keep up with their quick conversation. So…then they started talking to me…it was ok when I was just telling them about what was actually wrong with the boiler but then they started asking me questions that required a response. Such as “where is your gas meter?” OR “is the boiler the only thing that runs off of gas?” OR “is there a carbon monoxide alarm in here?” All of which I had to ask a minimum of three times for them to repeat what they were saying then guess and hope that I had guessed the right answer. It was slightly embarrassing, slightly frustrating but mostly absolutely hilarious simply because the Scottish and English language are more or less distant cousins on the Language scale 😀 Anyways, from here on out I have decided to attempt avoiding communicating with the gas man so I have resorted to watching the OC with my cup of hot chocolate in the living room hoping he doesn’t ask me any more important questions….. :S

London and back!

This last weekend Andy and I got to go down to London for a Fireseeds Conference put on by Agape. Agape runs the society Student Life that I am involved with at Glasgow and Strathclyde Uni. So we got to Buchannan Bus Station at noon we and began our treck down to London. After a train, bus, plane, train, underground, and a wee walk we finally got to the church that we were renting for the weekend. We had some food, met a few of Andys friends from his Middle East trip last year and saw some people that I had met two years ago at the last Fireseeds. So good times with old and new friends! 

The next day and a half was filled with speakers, food, pubs, and lots of walking. The main speaker talked about Paul and how spent most of his time persecuting Christians, met God through a pretty incredible experience (Acts chapter 9 in the Bible for anybody who wants to read it for yourself), then realized what God was all about . How God is not a rule making/enforcing God and He is not a God who expects us to be perfect at all but He is a God of love who sent His son to die on the cross then rise again as a gift to us so we can spend eternity with Him and spend our life working and living for God. Trying to live a life being available to God for Him to guide your actions. If you have questions about any of this you can email me at hsak49@gmail.com. So it was a good series of talks. I learned a lot.

Then we went around London on Sunday! We went to St. Pauls Cathedral and saw the Occupy London setup which just looked like a heap of rubbish. Walked along the river enjoying the roasted peanuts, carousels, and people dressed up in ridiculous costumes. After that we went to the parliament building and saw Big Ben. Last time I was in London I was quite surprised at how small it was but going back I think it has grown a bit 😛 Walked along a park and went over to Buckingham Palace. We then had to call it a day and went over to Victoria station to get the express out to Gatwick Airport. It was an uneventful trip back home thankfully enough. I heard tell that Andy’s cousin had gone to London the week before but due to snow couldn’t get the train out and had to take a taxi which cost a whopping 95 pounds!!! Terrible if you ask me.
So monday was definitely  spent recovering from the trip.  Quite exhausted from the trip and my knees and feet didn’t hold up too well from the walking. It’s thursday night now and my feet/knees are still pretty sore but it was really great being able to see the city. I’m looking forward to next year!

Budapest anybody? With a wee side-trip to Amsterdam?

Because of the lack of border control in Edinburg when I came across last month Andy and I have been “forced” to schedule a mandatory trip outside the UK within 3 months of my landing UK-side.

So we started throwing around destinations trying to decide where in Europe we wanted to go. We narrowed down our options down to Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin or Budapest. Being the students we are with um…zero income we picked the cheapest flight+hotel package on easyjet. So come April we’ll be heading off to Budapest!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has claimed to be one of the best tourist destinations in Eastern Europe particularly because of their fantastic spas 🙂 We are looking forward to a much needed relaxing time spa-ing it up! I am also pretty sure that the Hotel Flamenco will be much better than Dunkas garage where we stayed in Malta 😛

When we looked at our flight schedule we realized that we would have en entire days layover in Amsterdam! What a nice surprise!!! So we get to go to one of our desired locations for no extra cost! Not much time to do anything other than walk around, get a few meals, and see the sights of Amsterdam 😀 A wonderful wee holiday and yet another adventure for the Hayes family!!!