1 Year on...

5 minutes from now, Alyson and I will have been married for one year! It's a nutty thought, and yet quite a lot has happened in the past year. We decided that to celebrate we would go somewhere new for dinner, and the "Petit Paris" in the Grassmarket part of Edinburgh got the pick. It was great food for a very reasonable price, and nice to have some French cuisine again. Everyone in the restaurant, that I could tell, was in fact French. We have quite a number of French students come through Edinburgh each year, so presumably that fuels their workforce. It is definitely a restaurant we would consider taking guests to visit.

As we discussed highlights of our 1st year Paris was definitely near the top of the list. We thoroughly enjoyed that trip, and hope to take

more like it this year (circumstances willing). Barcelona has been one possibility, and I'm definitely keen on doing something substantial for my graduation. We have also been lucky to take 2 trips back to the States, as well as a couple of other brief trips elsewhere in Scotland. I think over this next year it will be a priority to see more of Scotland, and add to our own personal guidebook for our visitors.

This particular location will certainly feature (and just happened to be on our walk back to the car). How many of you can say you have a castle at the centre of your city? (No the Salt Lake Temple doesn't count).

This "Oreo cookie bash" was our dessert from Peckhams. I'm not too sure what an American equivalent to Peckhams would be, but they have some great pies and cakes, as well as other random items.

Border Raid!

We had a nice visit to Preston/Leyland/Chorley this weekend. It was actually Alyson's first time 1. Across the border, and 2. in England at all. I hadn't realised that she had never even flown through to Heathrow or Gatwick etc.. It was also her first time to the Preston temple (our local temple, inasmuch as Preston can be defined as local).

It was great to get to do a session, but even just to be back at the temple. Going to Preston is, as you can imagine, a much bigger deal than popping down the I-15 to Bountiful. From Edinburgh it's roughly 4 hours by car, so not exactly something you'd like to do just on a day-trip. From Aberdeen it's almost 7 hours. For me, it brings back many fond memories and positive emotions from my time in youth. We would go down for 5 days during the summer as a youth group. They have a hostel style accommodation centre there for members to stay in. The rooms are relatively nice, and fine enough when all you really use them for is sleeping and changing. We actually stayed with David (who lives 10 minutes away in Leyland). The temple is called the Preston Temple, but it's actually in Chorley - which is south of Preston.

There are several medium to large sized cities near Preston, including Manchester. One of the luxuries of our visit, as you can see, was a trip to Krispy Kremes on the outskirts of Manchester. This is one of the very few "hot light" stores (where they make the doughnuts on site) in the UK. The rumour is that in the next year or 2 they are going to build one in Edinburgh. Unfortunately they had slightly fewer flavours and didn't have the cinnamon ones I like so much, but regular glazed is always good. David was a good sport over the weekend and had set aside most of his time to hang out with us. It was nice to catch up. Deb was unfortunately at a conference over the weekend so we didn't get to see her.

As you cross the border there are several interestingly named villages and towns on the Scottish side such as Ecclefechan (the 'ch' is a hard 'K' sound) and Gretna. Gretna has become quite famous because of its situation just on the border. It is almost right on the border, you could probably walk there from the England.

Time for a short history lesson... Scotland has always had, and still maintains a separate legal system to our English neighbours. We are proud of it north of the border, and strive to maintain the distinction. One of our many differing laws in times gone past was the age of consent for marriage. In Scotland it was, and still is, 16 years old. In England it was at least 18. Many couples would come to the nearest town on the Scottish side of the border to elope to avoid this issue. Gretna was one of the main beneficiaries. It's quite fun to visit and see how they have done it up for the tourists.

Thankfully the weather was fantastic for the whole weekend. The temperature rises gradually the further south you go in the UK. We had some pleasant scenery to enjoy on the drive down.

We also made a quick trip to the "LDS Bookstore" (an English equivalent to Deseret Book, where almost everything is imported in, presumably from Deseret Book). They have exuberant prices, somewhat fueled by import costs, and otherwise fueled by people with fewer options except online shopping here to get mormon culture items. The one thing they normally have that I like to get is A&W Rootbeer, which they also import (no mormon culture reference, but it's one of the only places to buy it!). Unfortunately they were all out when we visited.

David and Deb are currently planning on emigrating back to the US after summer, so we hope to go down again before they leave. It really was nice to take a short trip, and to be back at the temple.

Calton Hill

So last week we had a couple of visitors from Utah - sisters of one of Alyson's roommates in D.C. They had been touring/were about to start touring Europe and had decided to make a trip to Edinburgh. They spent 3 nights with us, and were mostly independent to go about during the day. On the last night they were here we decided to go for a short walk up Calton Hill. This is an image of what it would look like during the day...the rest are our actual pictures. Enjoy!

We will take more of these when we get more immediate family visitors!!!

When can we come back...?

Here she is in front of one of her "must visit" sites when returning to Utah. I'll admit it's not my favourite chocolate in the world, but as far as American chocolate goes, it really is good.

I have several "must visit"(s) in the US, none are particularly exclusive to Utah though I guess. I always like to take a trip to Old Navy. Not overly classy, but they do nice casual and comfortable clothes at a very reasonable price.

That fits all of my requirements. I also have a love affair with Chicken Alfredo at Olive Garden. Carl's Jr, and Krispy Kremes also make the list. The one exclusive to Utah would be Park City. That is one of my favourite places to visit any time we go to Utah. There is just something very satisfying about the scenery and the general ambiance there.

Alyson tells me this is Brody's standard photo pose. I'm quite amused by this, and he's not our only niece/nephew to have adopted a standard pose. If you have access to Martin & Sarah's blog (http://babyblack1.blogspot.com/), you will see that Emma likes to go for an especially toothy grin for all her close-ups.

Here we are at the Alpine Slide ready to let rip. They make a pretty good go at having suitable things to do during the summer up in Park City (in case the scenery wasn't enough already). I still quite fancy going up in the gondola at the Deer Valley resort though and looking around some of the other resorts. I am hoping that at some point in the coming years I will also be able to go skiing for the first time up in PC. I was discussing this a few days ago with Alyson that it's a bit unusual for me to think of Winter actually having decent outdoor activities, and being able to make the most of the cold as well as the heat of summer. We do have ski slopes in Scotland, but no resorts of the size of Park City, or like those in the Alps. There certainly isn't the same kind of all-round leisure experience there that accompanies places like Park City either. I'm excited to give it a bash.

I think another important thing for me on my next trip will also be to have a bit more priority on trying to see old friends in Utah. I haven't really seen anyone outside of Alyson's family the last 2 trips that we've taken, and I feel bad about that since it's not like I'm in their neck of the woods year round. Equally, we would really like some visitors (I won't try to be coy about it!).

This is where we hope and expect to see at least some of you in 2012. I think this picture is taken from the castle (hence why it's not in the picture as you might have been wondering). It really is a great place to visit, and we hope to be showing at least some of you around over the next 12-14 months. It is worth both your time and your money and we're just going to get more insistent the longer you leave it to visit us! I have already suggested to Alyson that we should just threaten to go on a cruise instead of visiting if no-one comes out (the cruise would actually cost less). In all seriousness though, we really hope that we can start planning Scotland 2012 in the very near future with you. (If of course you'd like to come sooner, we won't complain).

P.s. if any of the Bean/Hall family would like more photos, we have quite a few of Brody, and some of Dave at the RSL game. It just takes longer than I'd like to post them up.

The Election & New Job

So safe to say the election went pretty well from the pictures you can see here. To the left we have several of the newly (re-)elected SNP MSPs for the North East of Scotland including the First Minister for Scotland and my Dad. The country is divided into several regions, and then into even smaller representative areas called constituencies. In the North-East region, the SNP took every single constituency. There is a possibility that within 5 years Scotland could no longer be part of the United Kingdom, at least not in the way it is now.

This is my Dad making his acceptance speech after being re-elected with over 50% of the vote.
Here we have Neil and Alyson at the election count.

This is the number of ballots for Dad compared to his closest opponent.

Here we have Alyson and I in our election-best. We even managed to get on national TV! Thanks to the election win there are now over 30 new SNP MSPs. Given Alyson's experience, she was a strong candidate to fill the new vacancies for staff. Sure enough, less than 2 weeks after the election she has now found a new job full-time. As it happens, her former employer also got re-elected which is fantastic.

Elections, Ticket and Job hunting

Poor Alyson didn't stand much of a chance of forming her own opinion on Scottish politics after her internship and the family she married into. Having said that, it has done her well so far with a job, and hopefully will continue to do so in the future. Next month marks the next election for the Scottish Parliament. My dad is standing once again, and at the moment looks fairly likely of being re-elected. It is early days to say how the rest of the election will turn out, but safe to say which side we want to win. At the last election I was just coming to the end of my mission, and I remember my branch president in France telling me that "les independentistes ont gagne en Ecosse!" - How's that for a mouthful? It took me almost 10 minutes to try and translate 'independentistes' in my head. (It's a lot more obvious when it's written out, and not said in a thick French accent I might add! Let's not be too quick to pull out the dunce cap for me please...)

Alyson has taken up a volunteer position with the party (SNP - Scottish National Party) in the hope of becoming better known with candidates and the central office in the hope of securing a permanent paid position after the election in May. Fingers crossed that it pays off, it is certainly taking up a lot of her time and energy. Essentially she organises which candidates attend which hustings (public debates held by specific groups usually on specific issues) - and there are A LOT of them. I, in the meantime, continue to work for my dad and am in the middle of exams. My last exam will be Wednesday, after which point I will head to Aberdeen to work more full-time on the campaign trail. Vive l'Ecosse, Vive l'independence!

I have been less than thrilled with some of my classes this last semester, but am very excited to be heading into my final year of the degree. It gives me great satisfaction to think that by this time next year I can start writing LLB (Hons) after my name and thinking about getting back to a full-time salary! If there is anything that has been tough about working, and then going back to school after my mission - it was giving up the salary that came with full-time. The hope, of course, is that my future potential salary will be considerably greater. Let's hope it works out that way!

(For a brief explanation of the elections - to be taken with a pinch of salt - here is the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_election,_2011)

We are still in search of when will be the best time to visit the states in the summer. Ticket prices seem to have soared this year, and with Alyson still looking for a permanent position after May - it makes timing an issue. As soon as we know, we'll let you know.

PARIS

Last month we were lucky enough to have found a really really good deal on flights to Paris. [Internal European flights on low-cost airlines make travel so much easier, though you do sacrifice a little on comfort.] Given that I have a fair amount of inside knowledge on Paris, and how to get around,

we were able to find a hotel out

in the suburbs for much cheaper than downtown, but still close to transport links. It was actually quite fun for me to be back on the RER and the metros. I think it's a novelty for Alyson too, reminding her of her days interning in DC. (Though you would have to say that Paris public transport really wipes the floor with almost any other city in the world).

We were really going for Alyson's birthday, although I'll take any excuse to get back to France. Still - it's not every year that you get taken to one of the most famous cities in the world for your birthday right?!

We arrived on the Saturday night, went straight to the hotel and then went to find a beloved Kebab! We have them in Scotland, but there's just something about the French sauces and bread that they use that just make it much better.

On Sunday we attended one of the units of the church where I had served on my mission. I was really pleased that people still remembered me. Funnily enough there were still a handful that addressed me as Elder. We spent much of the rest of the day on nice walks around the sites. I took Alyson to another area where I served called La Defense, which the French like to think of as little Manhatten. We also got a nice picture by the Arc de Triomphe.

On Monday we went to DISNEYLAND! It was really fun, and surprisingly hot. Whilst the weather has been improving in Scotland, we were surprised to see that in Paris it was already in the high 60's to low 70's. (18-20C). We had a great time, got some pictures with the characters for nieces nephews, and went on many rides. I'll admit that Space Mountain 2 was one rollercoaster too many for me (mainly due to the smell of something quite horrid in the ride itself...).

Late Monday night we were invited for dinner by a family from the ward we attended on Sunday. They were nice enough to take us on a night drive by tour of the sites to see them all lit up. You can see our picture by the Eiffel Tower - it was really magnificent.

On Tuesday we had a fairly leisurely day before catching our flight later that night. We started with a trip to my favourite Tie store (Yves Dorsey), and then went on a boat tour of Paris on the Seine. That was really nice, and again the weather was fantastic. By the time we got done with that it was time to get our things, and head back to Charles De Gaulle for our flight.

Overall we had a fantastic time, got to take some great pictures, and really just de-stress a bit. This essentially was our belated honeymoon with things having gotten so chaotic after the wedding with visa issues etc... It was also our first holiday alone together, and one I'm sure we'll remember for years to come. Now to plan the next adventure...!