Saturday, July 3, 2004 (Last Day in Edinburgh and the Fly Back Home)

After breakfast I packed my suitcase and tidied up “my” room. I wrote my diary in the living room in and talked with Wendy and her assistant, but they were busy since the next student was to arrive soon. Then I said good bye to everybody and my taxi arrived to bring me to the airport. After a short talk with the taxi driver I arrived early there – Wendy warned me about the crowds of people from Edinburgh who like to go on holiday.

I had enough time to drink an Irn-Bru and eat some sweets, I talked to people who were also waiting for an airplane and wrote in my notebook. My flight to Amsterdam was delayed a little bit, because a heavy thunderstorm was over the airport and so the start was delayed. Finally in Zurich we didn't have any delay and I was pleased to see my husband.

If you want it bigger, click on it

For me, the stay in Edinburgh was an adventure with a lot of interesting contact with people from various countries. I appreciated the good discussions, the different cultures and the huge amount of information about the country and their inhabitants. But these three weeks can just give a glimpse of a town with quite a few facets.

The scale at home told me a lot about the excellent cooking of my host mother Wendy. I think the next time I will give her tip and buy some haggis and bring it back to Switzerland. She reads a lot and so is a perfect “information centre”. She knows where to shop and what to see – and always helped us to make our stay as pleasant as possible. Bill was the rock in the breakers – he is calm and very pleasant, also with his computer. His technical know-how helped me with my problems with the electrical adapter. But he didn’t believe me, that pepper makes the flavour of a strawberry more intense.
Both gave me a very close look in their lives and how they live - it’s not obvious. JoeJoe their dog is a small whirlwind, playful, cute and the centre of the family. Does he understand Swiss German?
I hope that they can realize their dream of running a B&B close to the sea – don't forget to tell me your new address. ;-)

Now I have a lot of new ideas for learning English, on what to see on our holidays in Scotland in August, on what good books to read, I have different recipes for cooking at home and a lot of impressions and photos to remember my stay.

Many thanks to the people who made this wonderful stay possible.