Growing Up

River has now turned one.  She has graduated from the infant phase into the toddler phase.  Part of me mourns each day that she gains a new skill and grows a little older.  She is my caboose.  My little baby--and she is growing so quickly.  I wish that I can keep her a baby and not let her grow.

At the same time, it is so fun to watch as she discovers new things.  To see her excitement as she starts to master skills such as walking, to hear her babble and yearn to know what goes on in that little mind of hers.

She loves to keep us on our toes.  She has discovered the stairs and will spend hours going up and down them.  She has only made the mistake of planting her bum in midair once.  She is quite adept at the stairs and can get up and down them pretty quickly.

Little River has quite the temper on her, especially if you take something away from her.  She will throw herself down on the ground and cry as if her world was ending.  It is quite the phenomenon to watch.

Overall, she is pretty easy going and quick to smile.  She still does not sleep through the night, though.  She went for about five nights where she slept through the night several months ago, then she started teething, and then she got sick.  I think she is so used to waking up now that it has just become habit.  She will cry until I go in and give her a bottle.  If I don't give her a bottle and just soothe her, she will cry when I leave until she gets her bottle.  Such a stinker.  She definitely has a mind of her own.

She has also begun taking her first steps.  Crawling is still her preferred method, but she is starting to walk more and more.  I could easily see her walking completely within the next couple of weeks.  She is still pretty unsteady, but once she figures out the balance part, she will be unstoppable.

Arrival in Scotland

Our flight to Scotland was pretty uneventful, other than they didn't offer any complimentary snacks or beverages on the flight, which was really lame because they wouldn't allow anything carried on to the plane with the security screening at the gate.  By the time we reached Scotland, it was mid-afternoon. 

We flew into the Inverness airport, which is a tiny airport.  Our plane was the only one arriving at that time, and it took forever to get through customs.  They only had one customs agent, and she was very strict.  There was a lady several people ahead of us and she didn't know the name and address of the hotel she was going to be staying at while in Scotland.  The customs lady wouldn't let her go through, even though her husband had just cleared moments before.  The lady became quite rude and belligerent, while someone else in security went to get the husband.

Emily had all our info on her phone, however, she had been counting on wi-fi access to obtain the information.  She had to deactivate her cellular plan upon her departure from Japan, so we were relying upon being able to have wi-fi when we reached the airport.  However, the wi-fi didn't extend to the customs area and we started to get really nervous about being able to make it through customs. 

Luckily, Emily knew the address of the people with whom she would be staying in England, so we were able to put that down.  The customs lady was actually fairly nice to us, even though we didn't know the exact name of the cottage we would be staying at in Scotland.  She accepted the address in England and let us go on our way.  Whew!  I think the difference was our attitude--we weren't pulling one, and we were really respectful.  From now on, whenever I travel out of the country, I will make sure to have a hard copy of our hotel accommodations so that experience never happens again.  

We wandered the small Inverness Airport for a short time while waiting for Nikki to pick us up.  Both of us felt like we narrowly escaped something really bad, so we ended up waiting outside. 

The Aldourie Castle--we affectionately dubbed it our castle

For our stay in Scotland, we were meeting up with Emily's friend, Nikki, who also was an ALT in Japan.  Along with Nikki was a former roommate of hers, Jamie, and her sister, Alex.  The five of us were in a cottage on the grounds of the Aldourie Castle which sat along the shore of Loch Ness. 

How cool is that?!

Our cottage for the week

The keys to the cottage--the door locked on both sides only with the keys--you had to have them to get in and out

 

The cottage grounds:

 

 

 

Our room

 

A claw bathtub!

 A brief glimpse of the city of Inverness:

A Ford!

They still have old VW vans!

Sheep in Scotland are everywhere

The Inverness Castle

Amsterdam Part 4

Our breakfast.  I chose the special--the breakfast Tisfris.  It was really good.   I like how they stuck the fork in the knife.  Fun presentation.

We spotted a Japanese restaurant along our wandering.

We also saw more traditional Dutch food. 

We also stopped in at a cheese museum and we were able to sample tons of cheese.  The best cheese, I tell you. 

Alas, it was time for us to return to the airport.  After hauling our luggage all over with us, we were mostly ready to go.  It would have been fun to be able to explore more, but we were definitely worn out.  On the train back to the airport, I noticed that it offered free WiFi, so I went to connect.  I had a good chuckle at the name of the network:

At the airport.  I thought the globe was pretty neat.

Take a look at the teacups!  They are actually seats.  I took another picture with people in them for perspective.

The interesting thing about the airport is that they don't have security screening until you actually get to the gate.  Once through, you sit in the tiny glass room until ready to board the plane.  Consequently, you can't get anything to eat, drink, or wander about.  I didn't like the set up at all.  We had gotten thirsty and figured we could just get some water on the plane (since we couldn't go back out to go to the fountain--or buy one).  However, they did not offer complementary beverages, and Emily ended up buying a very expensive but small bottle of water on the plane. 

On our way to Scotland!

Amsterdam Part 3

As you can imagine, we started getting pretty hungry by about 8:30 (we hadn't eaten anything yet for the day).  We found a nice Dutch cafe and wanted to eat there, however, it didn't open until 9:30, so we wandered about a bit more, than sat on a bench overlooking the canal as we waited for it to open.

We passed by a wax museum and we saw Gweneth Paltrow

This was an interesting building.  In the windows are life sized drawings of people.

The Amsterdam Dungeon.  If we had had the time, it would have been really fun to go see some of the shows

Some interesting sights:

It hadn't opened for the day yet, but it would have been fun to see what books they had

 

The Dutch like their bikes, and I rarely saw one with a lock on it.  The bikes always seemed to be piled in heaps with nary a care

Some traditional Dutch figurines:

....and we also saw quite a bit of the other aspect of Amsterdam. 

They even have a map of their "red light" district. 

More of the City: