"Doing it Wrong!"

A saying has come to be used in my family to mockingly offer help when someone is having a bit of trouble with a particular task. These tasks are usually mundane, daily tasks that everyone does in his or her own fashion. Coming from a larger family (seven kids, now extended through marriage and the addition of the next generation) trouble with mundane tasks usually comes to light when everyone is gathered for a birthday party or holiday.


For example, when I was trying to cut The Turkey one year with an electric knife, which I had no business doing as I had never wielded the electric knife before, my sister simply, and loudly, let me know I was mucking it up badly by blurting out, "You're doing it Wrooonng!" and everyone around the counter laughed. She then took over and showed me the proper technique to use when working a turkey over with an electric knife. Struggling while trying to cut that cheese for the snack tray? "You're doing it Wrooonng!"
Try to mix your colors and whites in the washing machine with this crew, and you had better believe I'll here it!


Just wait until I get them out in the driveway shoveling snow and chopping ice. They'll be grunting, not using their knees to lift - no sweeping motion with the shovel to use its momentum - wrong angle on the ice chopper, thereby not getting down to the tarmac as our Mother prefers!


"You're doing it Wroooonng!"


As will happen in families, this saying sort of caught on, and has since led to the phrase's use for larger, more significant situations. Perhaps putting money into a car that should be put out of its misery, or trying to grill-out on a freezing New Year's day vs. simply staying inside and watching football like people are supposed to do. "No, you're doing it wrong."


My wife, Denise, and I have found ourselves using the phrase at home while "helping" each other through the day's chores over the years - usually, it's still funny. So, in our family, it has become an accepted way to suggest another approach to the world.


Now, during our time here, we have found ourselves saying - in a culturally sensitive manor (under our breath - "they're doing it wrong...") while making our way through the country and cities and pointing to some activity or other, then discussing the pro's and con's of whatever new way of approaching the world we happen to have seen. Often times we will decide that, in fact, the Scots are, "Doing it Right!"


I will lend some examples here as a means of conveying some of the different approaches that have caught our attention. 


First, the obvious, electrical outlets - American appliances do not fit into these plugs, but there are adaptors that will make our plugs work.  Every electrical system here is set up as a 230volt 50hz. system, and most appliances are fused within the plug.

Note the "on/off" switches in the middle - these are on every outlet

It looks like a 115, but it is this type of plug on everything 

As Dalkeith House is like a hotel, they have to have guys come in and check every electronic device that is in the place. This plug-in for an iron passed the test - the guys were here for three days and the testing must be done every three years.

Another home issue comes into play when retro-fitting older stone buildings with modern facilities is that there are no spaces between the studs to run electrical and plumbing.  One of the most eye-catching differences is what they have to do to vent a particular area in one of these older buildings.  They add the vent to a window!  This seems tough on the window and inefficient for heating, but it doesn't get as cold here as it does in Wisconsin, and really, what else could one do?

A cool window - except for the giant exhaust fan stuck into it.

The lack of interstitial space in the walls here also means that phone and electrical wiring is crawling all over the outsides of buildings before going into variously drilled holes in the walls.
  

All of these stone buildings also need maintenance over the centuries that they stand.  Because of all the work that needs to be done, one cannot walk more than a couple of blocks without walking past the major scaffolding that must be put up to do this work.

It takes a long time to finish these projects

Along the the lines of masonry, there is a great example of Doing it Right and Wrong at the same time.  Below is a picture of a good example of the walls that surround most properties and parks in the city and farm fields and pastures in the country.  The shear miliage of these walls is increadible; however, with the advent of using salt on the roads in the winter to help the buses and cars, damage is occuring quickly at the bottom of the walls.

With bike for perspective.
Yes, maintenance is needed soon, or this wall is going down!

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Now that we're on the road, a second obvious difference is that they drive on the left side of the road in Great Britain. Or as they like to say, "the correct side."

I did rent a car one day to drive my Mother-in-law and her friend up to St.Andrews, which is a couple of hours away.  The staying to the left wasn't too bad, but shifting with one's left hand took a little getting used to.  Luckily the shifting pattern is the same. 

What the...?

Key advice from rental car lady - "Stay to the left."

Traffic moving down the left side of the street - taking a left is easy! - taking a right is weird!

The traffic signs all mean something, and if one keeps track of what the next town is and what number road you want to be on, it does work, but vigilance is key each time a round about is approached.  I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say I went through about 150 different round abouts on our 2 hour drive from Edinburgh to St. Andrews.  Nearly every intersection is set up in a round about.

Lots of Information

I can deal with all that, but when they start parking along road sides facing whatever way they happen to be traveling, "they're doing it wrong...:" I start to get confused.

One must be very watchful when riding a bike - cars can be pulling out or opening doors from any old direction. 

Another item that comes with driving is that there is a lot of paint on the road to interpret - bike and bus lanes, turning lanes, speed limits, and other useful information is painted onto the road itself.  Sometime it's confusing - especially when there is construction, which, like any country, there always is.








They also appear to error on the side of too many barriers than too few - not necessarily wrong - but definitely a time consuming aspect of all the construction projects I have seen.The two pictures above with the red and white barriers have to do with the "Tram Project," which involves getting light rail into the downtown area. This could be a posting in itself, as the track shown is actually coming out vs. going in. Many locals are calling it "The Tram Fiasco" - but so it goes in the world of transportation.

On the topic of transportation, there have been many cases we have found where Scotland is "Doing it Right."

Mass transit using buses and trains has been a very positive part of our stay here. It is affordable, enjoyable, and is more sustainable in the long run.



The buses run regularly and on time, are clean and comfortable, and there is plenty of information for riders to know when the next bus is coming and where it is going.  We mostly ride the #3 and the #49. We're starting to have a few 'buddies" who ride the same bus that we do every day. 

People from all walks of life ride the bus here - not just the people who can't afford a car. Similarly, the SoctRail system is a great train system. We have used it for most of our week-end getaways and have found it to be very enjoyable, as again, they are reliable, comfortable, and clean. In addition, as is the case with most rail lines, they take a little different "track" through a country.

Waiting for the 9:50 to Glasgow on Friday - round trip, 11.60 -  ($16.00).  We took the 18:40 on the way back that  Sunday. Military time vs. "am" and "pm" are used.



Train tracks often run alongside the long "lochs" left by the glaciers, as this is where one will find a little flat terrain.

 The scenery and perspective one gains out the window of the trains is fantastic, and a person can buy snacks and drinks on the train, while it is stable enough to write post cards, and it is affordable enough to go most anywhere in Scotland for under $100 bucks U.S. Closer, short trips are usually under $20 bucks. 


If the bus or the train won't do the trick, most cars are tiny little things that get great gas mileage, or you can take one of the diesel engined taxi-cabs. Not many big pickups cruising around over here. The taxi, is built to be a taxi.  Taking a cab is more expensive than the bus, but if one is traveling with a group of people, it can be the way to go.  The drivers have all been very friendly and informative.


Two taxi's and a little Ford "A to B runner."

Next, my favorite form of transportation, the bike, is also well used here. Both the city and the country side have developed their transportation systems to include the bicycle.

Cyclists often were the florescent yellow to be seen in traffic - they are to share the bus lane or sometimes will have their own 3' to 4' foot wide lane depending on the particular road.

There are many places to lock one's bike up throughout the city.

There is an extensive bike trail system that runs throughout the outlying areas of the city that uses what must be old rail-beds that take a very direct path from town to town, usually with very few road crossings.  This trail system keeps the biker off the main roads - usually going under busy roads vs. over them.  It's beautiful riding!

A typical stretch of the trail system in the "suburbs."

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To get back to the city now, I may as well get another couple of items out of the way: "cheez-o-rama" and "litterbugs."

First, Cheese-o-Rama. Right or wrong, there are many gift shops, all with lots of flags, kilts, postcards and t-shirts.  They all have bagpipe music blaring out of the doors.  This takes away from some of the charm of the old city, but hey, a guys gotta make a buck, right?

One of the big tourist sellers is Scotch Wiskey - how wrong could that ever be?



On the other hand, the city does have a lot of pretty classy stuff going on too. For example, statues of Historical figures and museums.  There are many statues of philosophers from the "Scottish Enlightenment" period.  Below are a few examples of what one will come across while walking the streets.

David Hume - Empiricist and Skeptic

Just down the block is Hume's buddy, Adam Smith, author of the first book of modern economics:
 The Wealth of Nations

Gladstone Monument, an interesting note on this one was that it got moved across town for further development of its previous area in 1953.

Free museums, parks, botanical gardens, and other attractions are great.

Another nice thing about a city that has a long history is that they seem to have been able to nicely incorporate green space along side functional city amenities  Below is one example:

Here we seen the main train terminal pulling into the center of the Edinburgh's main park (Princess Street Park). The close juxtaposition of these two areas make for a great feeling of function and form.

Along with the great green spaces and philosophers who spent so much time trying to figure out the meaning of it all, there are some more mundane challenges for humanity to figure out still.  One of those is litter.  I think that every big city has to work to combat this aesthetic and ecological blight, but I think that because it is always so windy here that is it more apparent than it might otherwise be.  sometimes there is paper blowing around like crazy - until it rains again, then it gets all plastered to the ground.

Litter bugs waiting for the bus.

These are everywhere they should be - they just need to be used more.

There are city and national campaigns and slogans from all sorts of groups trying to help the city look better for its residents and for tourism. I have noticed that some of the blowing wrappers come form the tourists themselves.  Not unusual, but it seems so "fixable" if everyone would just not be a jerk and use the litter bins.

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Okay, there may need to be a "Doing it Wrong - Part II" as there is more I would like to share, but you probably have something you really should be getting to.  I must, however, add just a couple more quick shots.

The awesome hand dryer that really works - no wiping hands on pants after.  It's a Dyson design, like the sweet vacuums. These are found in the "paid entry" public toilets.  Yes, for 20 or 30 pence (a quarter) you can enter a clean, warm, not stinky rest room area. There is even an attendant around mopping and making sure there is soap and paper - Doing it Right! - I'll pay the money.

I would also like to mention that the pubs are doing it right too.  As they have been centers of community gatherings for a long time, they are not simply a place to drink. They are also a place to eat, talk, listen to music, and relax.  The older ones are pretty classy too.

Sweet Haymarket Pub

Once inside, the type of beer you choose to drink on-tap, comes in the glass that is meant for that particular beer.  Good marketing, and it helps the bartender remember what you are drinking.

Look tasty?  It is.

Did I mention that all of the sidewalks are done in paver stones vs. poured concrete? Many of the sidewalks downtown are really wide too.  It must be very expensive, but do it right the first time and hopefully we don't have go back and do it again for a long time.  Right/Wrong...?

I'll have to hold it here, but I haven't even gotten to the grocery store yet, which is, of course, where culture really happens. I don't have pictures (yet), but two items I will work on for you are: the check-out people sit in chairs vs. standing, and the carts have full 360 capability - backwards, forwards, sideways - no problem!  Excellent carts. I'll try to get some video of that and get it posted to the WITC - Cultural Exchange site.


Oh yes, there are a number of video clips (some related to blog items, some not) on the WITC Cultural Exchange Progam Facebook page that you can look at by going to:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=171229482961756#!/video/?id=182653991769844

So there you have some of it.  There are many more of course that could be included, but you get the idea.  I suppose that one could include political and social philosophies, eating habits, child care, health care, and education here too, but those may come within future posts.

If you went through this blog and only looked at the pictures (Ryan!) -

 "You're doing it Wrooonng!" : )