We're here!

At approximately 1:20 p.m. yesterday (Saturday, March 3), Brian and I touched down on Scottish soil. We arrived to a gloriously sunny day which lasted well into the early evening. In fact, as we approached the Forth Road Bridge, which connects Edinburgh to Fife (the county where Fi grew up) we were treated to a rainbow which vibrant in its hues, stretched up alongside the bridge which itself was bathed in early afternoon sunlight. What a lovely way to start out - with a reminder of God's promises to us spanning Edinburgh and Fife! In addition, we enjoyed viewing the Lunar Eclipse last night which we cold see perfectly from Fi's mum's living room window. Brilliant!

Our trip home went smoothly much to Fi's relief - she had made the massive mistake of reading online reviews of Aer Lingus the night before we flew and no few of these reviews were bad. However, our experience was perfectly fine. During check-in at Boston's Logan Airport, we discovered that the proposed strike in Ireland's airports (which was the catalyst for our flight being moved forward) had been called off. To be honest, it ended up working out well. It gave us some time to relax in Boston, and offered Brian the chance to give working remotely a dry run.

However, one thing that is causing us some angst is the situation of our shipment of belongings. We had been told that it would take 4-6 weeks from the day it was packed up and moved out of our flat, to the day it would arrive in Scotland. If this was the case, tomorrow (Monday) would be the beginning of the 6th week. This is exactly why we planned our flight home when we did (even with the changed flight hiccup) - we knew that we could do without our stuff for two weeks. On Monday,Fi talked to our representative at our moving company who partners with North American Movers to get the container to the port at which point North American takes over. During this phone call, Fi was informed that our container was still sitting at the port in the USA, and that it probably wouldn't arrive in Scotland until the end of March. After a few phone calls back and forth, Fi eventually talked to the general manager of this moving company who explained that this was all due to an error with North American International and that they would be contacting us on Monday. He then went on to say that his guess at arrival time for our container in Scotland would be the end of March at the earliest and probably more like the first week of April. Now, we did the maths and that is 4-5 weeks later than expected. We are deeply frustrated at a few levels. First, that our moving company who are meant to walk us through the move knew nothing about this until we finally contacted them to ask how we might track the container at which point they looked into it. If we hadn't called, how long might our container have sat by the see in Maryland, or wherever it is? Second, this all wouldn't be so bad, but we are VERY ready to start settling in our new home - this only prolongs the waiting. We've definitely been learning the importance of living without our 'stuff' (living simply, an all that) but at some point, during a move like this, the 'stuff' becomes important again because it represents familiarity. Again, we're very aware that compared to two thirds of the world, we live like kings and queens even without our container of belongings, so we're trying to remember that!

Another interesting point of note is that upon our entry into Scotland, nobody checked Brian's visa. We traveled from Boston to Ireland and when we entered Ireland, went through passport control. Ireland is a European Union member but is not a part of the UK (Northern Ireland IS). We then flew from Ireland into Scotland. Since we were flying within the EU, there was no immigration to pass through in Scotland - and therefore, nobody checked Brian's visa. Don't get us wrong - we don't really care... it's just that it was a tad anti-climactic!

And so we enter our first full day back in
Scotland, eager to start settling into our new life here, and whatever
it is that God has in store for us.

Cheerio for now.