Here’s a quick recap of the last 72 hours or so....
Thursday:
Survived my 4 hour lay over in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. Now that I think back on it though I have to admit I can’t come up with a single recollection of what it looked like. For some reason I keep picturing Phoenix Skyharbor moving sidewalks.
At the Edinburgh passport desk I discovered I was an illegal alien. According to the officer my visa (remember all those hoops we had to jump through?) had not been activated when I entered the country Sept 18th last year. I got a stern warning, an actual stamp in my passport this time and an admonition to get someone at school to give me a letter stating that I had been at school the entire time and not out roaming the country side with nefarious types.
Kathleen and her mom were right there to pick me up. We made it to St. Andrews, picked up Dolly Daewoo, my poor little car, and I headed out of town to Anstruther and Kristin’s house (my professor is out of town until the 28th so I’m house sitting with another student until then). Made it, unpacked, repacked what needed to be stored at the office, took a nap and… the rest of the day is fuzzy.
Friday:
Forced myself to get up and off to the office at 8:30am. Believe it or not the alarm didn’t scare the pants off me, but there was a moment or two of ‘where the heck am I??’
Friday was full of errands – had to go to the bank since I’d forgotten my pin number and couldn’t get into my account on line. I found the IT department to register my new computer so I could connect it to the school’s internet. I walked down to the student union and found the passport specialist to make myself legal. Here’s an interesting story: According to Wendy, the Student Passport Specialist, coming through Dublin last September was my mistake. Turns out that Ireland has a unique relationship with the United States – anyone with a US passport is considered a ‘domestic’ traveler so no visa activation or stamp in my passport. And then, if a flight comes into Edinburgh from Ireland, which is part of the UK, they don’t even have passport officers to check because it’s a domestic flight so…. Of course I could have just taken a lorrie or a ferry or dropped in from outer space! Wendy’s solution to my illegality problem – She’s going to call Shamus in the passport office. From the tone of her voice I got the feeling she was going to read him the riot act – but I should be legal soon. So much for my outlaw days.
Saturday
Was yesterday, right? Must have been. I don’t remember much more than a great meeting with Kathleen to plot and plan out our bounteous PostGrad committee activities this year. We had a great time, then went to lunch to continued plotting and planning. Hoping to get it all up and running in the next few days.
After lunch I got an e-mail from the Bishop asking me to teach Sunday School Sunday. I said yes and scrambled to get Acts 18-20 and all of Galatians under my belt in less than 24 hours. Oh, yeah, that’s how I spent the evening – reading.
Sunday
OK, so my body clock is reset – well…. overset. The alarm went off at the right time but racing through my preparations I was ready to go a whole hour early! At church I was alert enough to get through my lesson with a modicum of continuity. Then the Bishop asked to see me after church. Yup, you guessed it – I’m the new Adult Sunday School Teacher. YEAH!!! Except it’s the New Testament, oh well, can’t have it all. ;-) Oh, and the weather has been great. I must have gone native because, while it was only about 66 degrees today I was walking around with my shirt sleeves rolled up and wearing Mom’s old flip flops. (Hey, Mom, I held on to them but they aren’t long for this world. Thanx)
And now it’s Sunday night. I don’t have internet at Kristin’s house so I can’t skype with Mom & Dad but my new computer (with an on-board camera) should be up and running sometime tomorrow so I’ll try people then. Until then!
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