Edinburgh

Scotland for my birthday–this is the life.  Go to Edinburgh if you get a chance.  It is a little more tightly wound than Amsterdam but I think that is the English influence.  They have their priorities in the right place-their largest monuments are to literary greats like such as Sir Walter Scott and not war heroes, they hasve a great pride in beer and the food is really, really good.  Probably best of all for us, all of the signs were in English so we had almost a week with no guess work–we knew where we were going and we knew what we were eating.

Ben and I spent 5 days and 4 nights at the end of October at a wonderful bed and breakfast (Straven Guesthouse) located in Portobello which is about 15 minutes by bus outside of the city center.  It sat right on the ocean which in the middle of July or August may have been more important but when the high is 38 degrees F it is less enticing.  We saw castles (Edinburgh and St. Andrew) and palaces (Holyrood) and hiked up Arthur’s seat (where there was ice).  We walked on the royal yacht Britannia and took a day trip to the “kingdom” of Fife and saw Robert the Bruce’s grave and the Ancient and Royal golf course at St. Andrew’s. 

The people were wonderful, we had sun (if not warmth) everyday and the public bus system was easy to maneuver.  We definitely want to go back when the weather is warmer.  Click on the pictures for more information.

This is one old castle but not quite as pretty as Burg Eltz

Holyrood Palace

Abbey at Holyrood Palace

The Sir Walter Scott monument at sunset

Fishing village of Fife

Arthur’s Seat

Us on the Scottish Coast–the Fife side of the Firth of Forth

Castle Ruins at St. Andrew

Ancient and Royal Golf Course at St. Andrew

“Stau” Etiquette

I left Bitburg to go to friend’s house and was ramping up to a 130 kph on the autobahn when Blammo! I was at the start of a stau.  What to do, what to do…well break!!! you idiot.  A ”stau” is the German version of a traffic jam.  There are “stau” reports on the radio around larger towns, they have electronic signs to announce them if they develop and , as I was about to learn, they have their own etiquette as well. 

I have to admit that in the time we have lived in Germany we have not been victimized by a stau and it was not covered in the driver’s ed pamphlet that we read before taking our licensing test.  Here in the “boondocks of the boondocks” there is not much traffic hence not many stau (I am not sure how to pluralize this word).

SO as I reached the bottom of my on-ramp I was a little surprised to see a green Polizei van perpendicular across the 2 lanes of the autobahn and 2 polizeifrau walking around outside of it.  There was no apparent reason for these ladies to have parked their police van in the middle of the road.  I imagine that parking crosswise on an autobahn takes cahones (not sure of the German word for gonads) because people fly down the autobahn in their BMWs/AUDIs/Mercs at 100 mph. 

You might imagine that these folks might get a little mad at having their speed freedom interrupted but in the 45 minutes that I sat 3 cars back from the front not one person honked their horn, no one flipped anyone off and nobody drove down the shoulder in an attempt to get past (Bostonians, pay attention).  In fact, people turned off their cars and stretched their legs, I saw a diaper change and several men took the opportunity to relieve themselves at the side of the road (blind, I am now blind).  One resourceful gentleman kept popping out of his sunroof to check the status of the stau.  Another hopped the fence with his camera to the other side of the autobahn to get a better shot at the sunset.  This behavior persisted even after the police officers got in their van and drove back down the autobahn in the opposite direction.  They must have had a word with the 2 cars in front.  They didn’t move.  We sat there for another 25 minutes as an ambulance and the German version of AAA drove by on the shoulder.  Another 10 minutes the road maintenence folks came by and pretty soon our police van came back and led us past the severe accident (that had been mostly cleaned up) like a pace car at a NASCAR race.  There was no “gawker backup” on the other side of the road and no one cut anyone off trying to get ahead.

So remember if you are in a stau–you can get out of your car, pee along the side of the road, pop out of your sunroof, take pictures of the sunset–but no swearing, yelling, gesturing or being rude.  It just doesn’t make sense…