Sunny Saturdays and Storage Solutions

First of all, let me start this post by wishing a very happy birthday to my beautiful, kind, humorous, faithful, patient, brilliant and athletic big sister, Jamie. I hope your boys make this special day your best birthday yet.

Now, anyway, back to me….The forecast for this past Saturday was for solid rain, so on Friday evening Jon and I planned for a lazy morning followed by a trip to the gym. However, when I opened my eyes at 6 AM, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Sunny days are not to be wasted on sleep so I immediately altered my gym plans and marched out the door with Bailey for a long jog full of Vitamin D.

When I got home, it was Sam’s turn and instead of taking him on our usual forest walk, we headed to a sun filled park.

Come 9 o’clock I decided to let Jon in on the sunny surprise, so I woke him up and we headed to the city center for some shopping. Since our guest bathroom doesn’t have any cabinets, we were on a mission to find a storage solution, and we found some good options at Annie Mo’s. What we eventually decided was to purchase a nice wooden chest to keep our guest towels in, and it fits nicely on the window sill.

We also decided to go ahead and purchase a smaller version of the box for the kitchen window, and it’s been a good place to keep cook books and oven mitts.

Another storage solution we’ve discovered is using shower storage racks on the outside of the shower to aid with lack of cabinet and counter-top space.  

When we came out of Annie Mo’s, we could hear the sound of bagpipes in the distance and noticed that people were lined up and down the street waving their Scottish flags.

We decided to stick around to see what the crowds were for and were treated to a parade celebrating the Armed forces of Scotland.

Even though I’m technically not Scottish, I was filled with pride while watching these veterans march down Union Street to the cheers of Aberdonians. It was really sweet that some of the older veterans were driven down the street by their Nursing Home buses. And check out this antique double decker tour bus.

I sort of want one now, though I’d be terrified of driving it in Scotland...or anywhere for that matter. It sure would come in handy if I were ever asked to be in a parade though.

After the parade we decided to get some lunch and on our way we stumbled onto the Aberdeen Farmer’s Market. It was just a morning full of pleasant surprises! After perusing the stalls, we made our way to Pizza Express to try out some pizza recommended by a friend. Any time we move to a new city we go on a frenzied mission to find the best sushi, burgers, and pizza in town. We already have the first two covered, so now Pizza is our main focus.

We each ordered our own pizza pie, but were overwhelmed at the amount of food the waitress brought out. We assumed that we’d surely have enough left over to have pizza for breakfast the next morning. Wrong. The crust was super thin and we were both really hungry, so I ate ¾ of mine, and Jonathan finished his entire pizza as well as the two slices left from mine.

Our waitress looked very judgmental when she retrieved our empty plates. Needless to say, we found some good pizza in Aberdeen.

We spent the rest of our afternoon hanging some pictures around the house. We expected that at any moment, the clouds would roll in, so when it was still sunny at 3 pm we decided to make use of the patio furniture we brought. It was funny that I had just blogged the day before about how I didn’t think we’d ever use it, and here we were snoozing away in the sunshine.

Like I said, out of nowhere, Scotland will surprise you with absolutely perfect weather. And then just as quickly, the sun will be gone.

It started raining around 5pm so we went indoors to get ready for a night on the town. One of the guys here had his fiancé visiting Aberdeen, so we decided to all go out to dinner and drinks to welcome her to Scotland.

We started out with dinner at Sabai, a Thai restaurant in the city center. Scotland is not necessarily known for its cuisine, and perhaps it’s because we had really low expectations going into this, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the food here. Especially the Asian food. I’ve never seen so many Thai and Indian restaurants in one place, and so far they are all delicious.  It helps me to take my mind off of the fact that there are no Mexican eateries to speak of.

After dinner, we headed to Revolution, a vodka bar downtown. Of course, after an unfortunate incident in college, I don’t drink vodka so it was a Rum bar for meJ.It was our first time “out” in Scotland, and it was definitely a new experience, much different than going out in the States.

For instance, while at a bar in Louisiana, I would have to beg Jonathan to dance with me, while in Aberdeen, most of the guys were dancing, many of them with each other. I also saw many girls wearing prom-like dresses which made me feel very under-dressed in my jeans, t-shirt, and cowboy boots. I might as well wear a sign declaring “I’m an American, specifically from the Southern region of the United States”.

Also, I thought people in Louisiana drank a lot, but they have nothing on the Scots. After all, I went to one of the most notorious party schools in the US and frequented New Orleans for Mardi Gras and LSU national championship games, but I have never in my life seen someone passed out on the side of the road at 9:30 pm. Or at a pub table at 10 pm. By the time 1 AM rolled around, I knew it was time to call it a night. After enjoying some late night street food, we hitched a ride home with friends.

Luckily, the next morning was back to being overcast and dreary, so sleeping past 6 AM didn’t make me feel the least bit guilty. Neither did sleeping past noon. Oops. Someone is not in college anymore.