TheLionRampant.net

We flew to Edinburgh on a red-eye on the 23rd of September. Thankfully we got an extra seat and so could put Ezra in his car seat in his own seat and that with the aid of a tiny bit of children’s benadryl meant that at least he got some sleep en route. I, of course, can’t sleep on planes, even a 10-hour flight.

Our time was spent catching up with old friends mostly: the Watsons, Urminskys, Courts, Stubbs, Johnson/Craigies, friends from University and church. We ate lots of meals with friends, had a few good curries (wish we’d had more actually), enjoyed proper fish and chips and Scottish ale (well, Bryce did anyway) and drank lots of tea. The weather was warm for the first half of the week and not too bad the rest of the week. Ezra did well sleeping when he could in the Ergo carrier as we carted him around the city.

I met with my supervisor twice and went to a postgrad seminar that I had gone to previously when we lived there. It was like being back again. I thought that going back to Edinburgh after 2 years would make it all feel eerily familiar but surreal — like it had felt when we came back to CA for a visit a year and a half after we’d lived in Scotland — but actually, it felt incredibly normal to be seeing friends even with the 2-year interim and walking around the city still felt like ‘home’.

We took about 10 pictures and they’re mostly of Ezra playing with Maxwell. (We’ll get them up soon). We took one of Ezra in front of the Thomas Chalmers statue (Chalmers is Ezra’s middle name). Other than that, it was too much effort to tote around a child and camera paraphernalia, but you can trust us that we all had a wonderful trip that felt entirely too short. Ezra got a bit of a cold but is doing well and adjusting to the time change as can be expected.

Highlights include:
1. Spending time with old friends
2. Talking about possibilities for the Church in Scotland with the Courts
3. Caledonian 80-/ and whisky for Bryce
4. Curry at Kabob Mahal
5. Walking around one the most beautiful cities in the world

Bryce, Ezra and I will be hopping the pond for a vacation/research-for-Ashley trip at the end of September. Here’s to good ale (for Bryce), good curry, chips with salt and sauce and getting to see good friends that we haven’t seen in 2 years since we moved back to California.

If you’re in the UK and interested in meeting up with us when we’re there the last week of September, please let us know and we’ll be happy to pencil you in. (Haha, as if we’re that popular).

…at 31 weeks pregnant when we go out of town today to The Standard in downtown LA. Apparently it’s where people go to be seen; I’m all into posh hotels for celebrating but when I’m not so svelt, it’s a bit different. I am excited, though, that there is a rooftop pool and bar (virgin drinks!), so that will be very nice.

Speaking of “posh”, Becks and Posh bought a loft in downtown LA, so that is very cool. I’m sure they’ll buy some beachfront property somewhere, too, but at least they seem to want to live in the city.

So, the reason for our venture is that today is our 5-year anniversary and in just a few short months, a week or so after our baby is born, we’ll have dated for 10 years. Wow, a decade. That’s nuts. Toodles!

Here’s my 30-week belly shot, in the pool in Palm Desert:

Here’s Bryce’s flotation device he made out of noodles:

Here’s the fam:

And just for fun, here’s our cute dog:

Saturday Bryce and I hopped on the Gold Line and went to LA”s Union Station. We then took the Red Line downtown to be a part of Loftapalooza, a realtor-led walking tour of downtown LA’s loft scene — both for rent and for purchase. It was exciting!

As many of you know I tend to be pretty good at visualizing things and being creative when I can actually *see* things; for instance, I saw this funky peacock feather wreath at Z Gallerie and thought how great that would be in a funky chunky square frame (no glass) on a brick wall. But I had to see the peacock feathers to be able to come up with the idea. It’s the same with LA — not having a whole lot of experience being downtown, I was sort of scared of the big city that is sort of taking off and yet plagued by poverty and a clash of races. However, when we were walking around, I was elated. I loved crossing city street blocks. I loved walking generally. I loved that my feet were tired from walking. I loved that I could take public transport. I loved that there were people who self-consciously want to make LA a great city again. I love that community seems to be happening there.

We took a few pictures (hopefully they’ll be up soon) and were able to find out what areas of the city in which we’d prefer to live. Monday we might even get to take a hard-hat tour of a new loft building, Rowan Lofts.

I just wanted to tell you a bit of our dreams and a bit of what we’ve been doing lately; Bryce will undoubtedly have more to share about LA. We plan to spend much more time downtown to get to know the city. We’re excited what may be in store.

Last night I think I had my first cathartic moment regarding Scotland. I really do miss Edinburgh. What tipped me off, funnily enough, was driving home by the Miller brewery (which I even cringe to use that word associated with Miller) and how awful the hops smelled. I called Bryce will driving 80 mph down the freeway and asked if he remembered what Edinburgh smelled like exactly. Unfortunately he couldn’t talk as he was in the middle of making dinner and so I was forced to think about it by myself. For those of you who don’t know, Edinburgh often smells a lot like the hops brewing from the Caledonian brewery on the east side of the city; when the wind is blowing (which, as you can imagine, is very frequent) you can often smell it: it’s sometimes described as akin to a burnt peanut taste. (Edinburgers, feel free to put in your 2 pence on that one).

It made me sad. I can describe what the city smells like, but I can’t recall the smell any longer. This lead me down the path of remembering lots of things I miss about Edinburgh and it’s mainly the people: David and Neyir, friends from Uni, the Stubbs, the Courts, Melissa and Allan, parties in our flat (particularly memorable for many reasons was our Thanksgiving party for 17), my little office on the 4th floor, hearing British accents everywhere and carrying groceries home. I miss walking. I feel like I’m gaining weight just sitting here typing. Sadly most people are more than the 10 pounds overweight that I am, so they think I’m just fine. But it’s true, nobody walks in L.A.

Now this is sounding all romanticized. When I met with Susan, my supervisor, at Berkeley I told her I felt like I needed to have some breakdown since I’d rather easily slid back into my California self; she remarked that being comfortable everywhere is the sign of the cosmopolitan. So either I am now a cosmopolite or am hopelessly bifurcated between locational selves. Either way, I guess what is miss is the familiarity of Edinburgh. I knew how my days would go; I knew where things were. I knew what to expect. I know all of those things here, too, to an extent anyway.

I don’t have any amazing conclusions from any of this; I guess it’s just part of the grieving process involved with any major life move. It’ll be interesting to go back in March when I’ll feel the city to be a bit of a stranger to me then as it’s progressed past my memories.

We drove out to Providence Christian College yesterday to pick up some books for my classes before driving to Pasadena for a 10 am appointment to see an apartment. It was only $1000/month for a 1 bedroom place, which is less than we paid when we lived in Pasadena 3 years ago. It was a fine place, but had green carpet and no dishwasher and the bedroom might have been too small for our bed. So that one was pretty much out.

We then made some calls about a place perfectly located, near to Wild Oats grocery store and next to the shopping centers on Lake Avenue. However we didn’t even venture in — the screen door was falling apart and the paint outside was chipping. Sadly the picture on the advertisement was of the front house rather than the chipping-paint house behind it that was actually for rent. We then drove up and down nearly every street in Pasadena, or at least it felt that way.

The “I’d-never-ever-live-here” prize goes to one place that hadn’t been cleaned, was covered with ‘Happy Easter’ stickers and had black spots on the cream carpet. Not to mention the unexposed wires… However, there was a very cute apartment on California Street but the bedroom was only about 9 feet across and the closet about 3 feet across. It was sadly, just too small.

Here are our top choices so far:
Tied for a top position:
2 bedroom at Sierra Bonita

I don’t know if it’s overly optimistic, or a bad sign, that one of our top considerations thus far we haven’t even seen inside of yet! However the price seems good and there’s a washer/dryer in the flat which makes me happy. There’s an open house on Saturday. The street is also lovely with lots of trees.

2 bedroom at S Madison Avenue


This is the same street we lived on when we lived in Pasadena before. Granted the place isn’t much to look at from outside or even from the brown painted fence. However, it’s very nice inside, has very clean carpets and new stone tile in the kitchen and bathroom as well as front and back enclosed patios and lots of storage space.

We submitted an application for this place but don’t know if we’ll be given first or second consideration. I called about it and a woman told me that the property manager was on his way to pick up another application; she recommended we try to fax it to their office before he returned so we could have first dibs. We tried our best to rush to Kinkos and pay the ridiculous $5 fee to fax 5 pages locally, but we’ll just have to see what happens.

Then we have a:
2 bedroom 2.5 bath at Marion Avenue

Again we haven’t seen inside of this and it’s more space than we need, although from the outside it looks very nice (it’s the blue and white townhomes behind the front house). I hope we can see it on Saturday.

2 bedroom 1.5 bath at S Sunnyslope

Our friends, Ken and Gillian, went to the open house for us last weekend and took some pictures of the property because it’s on their street. That sounded too good to be true — walking to a friends’ house and back! It’s like we weren’t living in southern California! But there are only 2 a/c units and the kitchen is sort of blase and the bathroom not so nice. I also am not a fan of the rock wall fireplace. But it is still an option especially as it has new carpets and a dishwasher.

We’re going back up to Pasadena on Saturday for the open house at the Sierra Bonita property and hope to find a place by then. We figure more people will be around to show the properties on a weekend as well.

GOOD NEWS on the car front. We saw an older Jetta we liked on Wednesday and we’re going to see another on Saturday; both are priced well. So Lord willing we should at least have a car by this weekend!

Bryce’s Edit: We’ve been informed that we have first priority on the Madison Ave. apartment. They said we are “just the kind of people they want to rent to”, and they’re just waiting for our credit check to give us the place. So that’s good news. I think I want to take a look at the Sierra Bonita place on Saturday before we commit, though. So we may have to stall for a few hours. At any rate, it’s good to know we have options.

Regardless of which place we get, it’s starting to look like we will be dishwasher-less, much to my dismay. We’re planning to hire a maid, and will be accepting applications shortly.

We left Sunday morning for the bus station and hopped aboard CityLink with the Urminskys to get to Glasgow International Airport for our flight to Prague. The girls sat together and brainstormed while the guys gave mean looks to the man who’d been quite rude when he saw Ashley’s American passport. After disembarking, we found the Airport Transport bus pretty easily and walked the long way to where we were staying, missing the lady who had come to meet us in the city centre. We got settled into our respective flats and walked towards Wencelas Square. We ate dinner at Jizerka (we’ll have a few posts of the plate of meat the guys had) and thoroughly enjoyed the potato dumplings, wine/beer, and good company. We then walked by the National Theatre and along the Vltava River and saw the Charles Bridge and Castle area all lit up at night. Gorgeous.

Monday, we had breakfast at the fun but pricy Obecni Dum, an Art Noveau building designed by Alphons Mucha. We walked over Charles Bridge to the Castle area and went up to the Strahov Monastery (but it was closed) and so we opted for lunch at the monastery brewery. We then proceeded to see the St Vitus Cathedral and Tower, the Old Palace and Golden Lane (where Kafka lived). We stopped for drinks and a snack by the Castle and then walked through the gardens. We then walked back towards where we were staying, in Old Town, and through the Jewish Quarter and finally settled on dinner in an upscale pizzeria with huge black lampshades and blue lighting. We continued on our Scrabble streak and played and laughed till 2 am.

Tuesday we slept in and started with lunch at Cafe Slavia, across the street from the National Theatre. The weather was a bit cold and rainy but we opted for a walk anyway to a modern art gallery, Veletrzni Palac; the building was rather institutional, but we enjoyed our rather quick ramble through the spacious floors. I think both David and Bryce liked a painting called “Reader of Dostoyevsky” while I liked the artist’s cubist rendition of “Salome”. At this point, Ashley was tired of walking, so Neyir and Ashley walked back to Wencelas Square for a pick-me-up at a fancy teahouse where we got to sit on Asian-style pillows and sip our specialty teas with baba gounosh and hummus; the guys opted for a pub instead. We had another bout of Scrabble and dinner at an Italian restaurant off of Old Town Square with Pavel, the pastor who is brothers with Mirek, our friend from our church in Edinburgh. Pavel left to go get some sleep as his wife has just had a baby, and we went to Ungelt Jazz Club. Fabulous music and we even attempted to try absinthe.

Wednesday we walked around until settling on Ebel coffee house for breakfast; the place was colourful and ecclectic and the portions perfect for a substantial morning meal. We then spent the morning/afternoon in the Jewish Quarter. We bought a ticket for 6 sites: a few of which were synagogues in various styles which told the story of Prague’s Jews and one (Pinkas Synagogue), which had all the names painted on the walls of the Czech Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. We moved on to the Old Jewish Cemetery, a cemetery where all the graves are piled on top of one another and the headstones from the 10th century falling over. We had lunch at the Franz Kafka cafe which was slightly disappointing and proceeded to the Hevelska Market where we bought a small print to take home. We spent the afternoon at the Mucha Museum and all came home with some prints to hang. This intimate museum was fabulous and a highlight for all of us, I think. En route to home, we took some funny pictures and decided on eating closer to home for David and Neyir’s last night. We found a small Czech restaurant and had our usual big and wonderful meals complete with alcohol for under 1000 Kc (about $40) for the 4 of us. We then walked around the city at night and had drinks in Old Town Square (with some exceptionally annoying young Americans next to us, unfortunately).

Thursday morning David and Neyir left to go back to Edinburgh and we slept in. We ate at Metamorphis in Ungelt and did a walking tour of Old Town Square and did a bit of shopping. We walked to both sides of the Charles Bridge for some pictures and walked back up to the monastery, which was open and saw the Strahov Library with some exceptionally old volumes, a painted ceiling and an extinct dodo bird. We had snacks at the monastery brewery and walked to Petrin Hill — a gorgeous bit of natural seclusion amidst the city. We climbed to the top of Petrin Tower (which is modelled off of the Eiffel Tower, although at 1/5 of the size) and had some lovely views of the city. We then walked quite far in order to see the Dancing House, a building by Frank Gehry. We opted for ice cream at a place our tourbook said was the best Italian ice cream in town; it was packed and quite good. We had dinner at a pub in the New Town and then went back to Ungelt Jazz and Blues Club for another few hours of some good music.

It was a fabulous trip; we saw a lot, enjoyed walking around the city and being with good friends. Pictures to follow in another post!

Dear loyal blog readers,

Because our internet has been cut off, I’m currently sitting in Starbucks and having paid my ridiculous fee of 5 GBP to connect online, I’m now virtually connected — for an hour anyway. All this to say, I’m not sure we’ll be on much, if at all, between now and Sunday morning when we leave. We’re off with the Urminskys to Prague until Friday!

David and Bryce are exceptionally excited about the meaty Czech food and the many kinds of beer they’ll be able to have. I think the fact that it’s cheap is also making them salivate. Neyir and I will go off and shop and do other girly things I imagine while the guys stop in another pub to try to meet the locals and try all the brews.

We’ll have stories and pictures when we return!
Love,
Ashley

…strikes again. Here, I thought that since we got a great full night’s sleep our first night back, we’d be set to go on Day 2. But no. Not at all. I fell asleep at 1 am and awoke at 3; meanwhile Bryce hadn’t fallen asleep at all. After some wandering around the flat and warm milk (for me), we both went to bed around 5.30 when the birds started chirping. Now it’s nearly noon and I’m finally out of bed and Bryce is on his way out too. Guess it’s sleeping pills for tonight!