Dry ice prevents pets in cargo AND getting cell phones and grocery shopping in Aberdeen

It's been a while since I could write because, of course, houses don't come equipped with internet. When we first arrived we dropped off our bags and headed out for a place to eat lunch. Guess what! There is a coffee shop just a block from our house. We can sit and stare at our house while drinking coffee if we want. It's that close. It's called the Tree House. I had a cheese and chutney sandwich with chicken and wild rice soup. Steve had a prawn sandwich. All was very good. The cheese sandwich was made with shredded, not sliced cheese. Interesting. I took home a mocha that I shared with Steve so that we could make it through the day.

After lunch we were going to shower but then I looked at Steve and said, "So, what are you going to shower with?" Steve said, "Oh yeah. We don't have any soap! I knew we should have taken that soap at the hotel!" haha.

We walked the mile or so to the Bon Accord shopping center after cleaning up. We went into Vodafone to see what our options are for a cell phone. Until we get a debit card, all we can do is get a pre-paid phone. We bought 2 phones for 15 pounds each. Awesome.

 We found out that our Samsung Galaxy III's cannot be unlocked to use here, so now we have to buy new phones again. We just bought those this summer.

From there we went to a Sky kiosk. We got satellite with over 400 channels including all the science channels, high speed internet, and telephone with unlimited calls to the UK and US as long as it's under 59 minutes... all for a really good price. Our TV stuff will be installed on Wednesday. We had to get a TV permit. It costs about £150! You aren't even supposed to watch DVD's on your TV without one! You can apply for it on-line. After getting Sky set up, we went to Sainsbury's for some groceries. We bought what we could carry, which was 2 pizzas, milk, grapes, berries, bath soap, and shaving razors.

The walk back was nice. It was almost 5 PM and already dark. We popped a pizza in the oven for dinner. It was our first meal to cook in the house!

We connected to the internet long enough to check some e-mails. I wrote to the pet relocation place to give them my cell number and within 5 minutes she called. The dogs' flight had already been pushed back a day because our vet office took over 2 hours to get the health certificates done, which caused us to miss the FedEx pick-up, which got it to USDA later, who then decided to take 48 hrs instead of the normal 24 hrs, which pushed the flight from Thursday to Friday. Well, apparently the airline needed to transport a body or something and thus, they had to keep it on dry ice. No pets in cargo with dry ice! No other airline will take snub-nosed dogs so they had to push the flight to Tuesday, which means their health certificates will be expired! So the pet relocation company (at no fault of their own) told me I would have to pay the $300 to get new certificates and pay to keep them in boarding. I told them I could not afford that. I asked them to take the dogs back to my friend's house. They suggested I call the vet to see if I could get the fees waived for their certificates. I told her that I would call, but I didn't think my pre-paid phone would allow me to call the US, and if it did, it would cost me a fortune. She said she could take care of it. Amber is amazing. She talked to them, and they said they would do it at no charge! I love you PetRelocation.com! My friend Randi got them new appointments, took them to the vet, and was waiting at the FedEx office with the papers when they opened. I have a terrific friend!

We slept 14 hours that night! We were exhausted. We had lunch at the Tree House and tried to use their internet. Hardly anything would work. I got enough of a signal to see that Falene left me her address and said we could come over to use her internet if needed! Turns out that she lives just a block away so we walked there! We got what we needed to done, and I got to talk to my mom and sisters on Skype. Falene let us borrow some movies too since we don't have cable. From her house, we walked to the nearest grocery store and bought wine and stuff for spaghetti. I like to make my own sauce, and when we got home I realized that what I thought was tomato sauce, was actually canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. Ew. I drained out the sauce, cut up the canned tomatoes, and cooked the "Scotch beef" with my limited amount of spices. It actually turned out okay!

Trying to get the internet to work

Thought it would be interesting to show you all

First time cooking in the kitchen!

Steve figured out how to stream the Aggie game so we got to watch them kick some "Bama butt while eating dinner!

Now for today. Falene drove us to a larger Sainsbury's today so that we could do some real grocery shopping and get some things for the house such as a "rubbish" bin. It's hard shopping when the brands are different and even the types of food offered are different. Bacon is more like Canadian bacon. Eggs are not kept cold; they are on a shelf out in the open. Everywhere seems to sell coffee and no filters. There is American mustard and English mustard, which Falene tells me is very spicy. The Tikka Masala sauce comes with a "HOT" warning label and 3 jalapenos pictured on the jar! haha. They have some different types of fish. There are lots of pre-packaged things. The vegetarian pizza comes with corn on it. Those are just a few of the things I remember that are not so common back in the US.  Oh.. and this... in a box.

We went to Argos next for a few things for our bathroom. You flip through a catalog, write down the number of the item and quantity on a strip of paper, and then turn it in to the cashier as you pay. They go to the back to get your items and will call your number when it's ready for you to pick up. What a great idea!

That's about it for now!  Thanks so much to Falene for all your help! You are very appreciated. Cheers.