Left Left Left, a Scottish Yarn

Twenty years can feel like an eternity - like say, a twenty prison sentence, or serving twenty years in military, or the twenty year wait between seasons of Emily in Paris. What’s that? It was only a year in between? Well - it felt like twenty.

Twenty years can also absolutely fly by, like twenty years of friendship with this guy:

When there were only one set of foot prints...

Jamie consoling me, some twenty years ago, after I learned running and swimming have no place together in the same race.

Jamie and I first met in college, him in grad school and me in undergrad (obviously because I’m totally so much younger). Despite not living in the same city all this time, we have been good friends ever since. We didn’t get each other china to celebrate the two decades, but we did fly off to the land of rolling, sheep-dappled hills, and weather more fickle than a dog trying to decide if it wants to be inside or out.

Aside from celebrating friendship, fellowship, and generally being alive despite the quicksands of time trying to pull us under, one of the trip goals for me was to snap a few photos of puffins. These adorably derpy birds call some of the Scottish isles home during the summer months before migrating out to sea for much of the year. Tara and I landed in Edinburgh a few days before Jamie and his partner Shannon arrived, so we headed to Oban with the hope of spotting the nesting birds before they packed it in for the season.

Enjoy this amazing photo montage Tara took of me on Staffa island with all the puffins we saw:

So, turns out those little shits left to the sea four days before we got there. Rubbish, I say, rubbish. On the bright side, the boat ride and the island, including Fingal’s Cave, were quite fun… so there’s that.

The first few days of our visit were as wet and grey as an E.L James novel, but Jamie and Shannon’s arrival marked a turn for blue skies, and after meeting them back in Edinburgh we started the trip properly. August may be the tail end of puffin season, but it’s just the start of Fringe fest, a massively popular festival celebrating the arts with a focus on live comedy shows. Do you like crowds? How about experimental improv? Then you’ll love Scotland in August.

Even if you’re not into those things, Edinburgh is impossible to not find delightful. The history here is ineluctable, bathing the stone city and giving those with even just a passing interest in the past an abundance to see and experience. The architecture is timeless and stunning, the streets cobbled and the graveyards filled with more skeletons than the coat check at a GOP convention. Given all there was to do, and our limited time, we prioritized a bit of recent history and signed up for … a Harry Potter walking tour. Keep in mind, Jamie and Shannon agreed to this after a red eye flight with little to no sleep, but who can resist a little magic in a city that already feels like it was plucked from the pages of a fantasy book? Behold, Tara doing magic in a cemetery. Watch out, Harry!

Inspired by the tour, which for some reason didn’t even mention Gandalf, we had a few, ahem, spirits at the totally not officially licensed but fully on theme bar The Cauldron. Some of the cocktails were served with a bit of magic, but the real sorcery was making the drinks cost less than their counterparts back home. That’s proper sorcery!

After a night in the city at an adorable Airbnb that was roughly seventeen thousand steps up, we headed north through Falkirk to Fort Williams outside of Oban for some back country exploration. Here’s a photo of Tara admiring the plumbing on the ancient building across the courtyard.

But first, can we talk about coffee for a minute? Unbeknownst to me, finding good quality coffee beverages in Scotland is a challenge. I know the U.K. is tea territory, but it’s still (for the moment) a part of Europe, land of train station espresso counters with little tinkling cups and people saying ciao while buying flowers for their elderly neighbor. Lots of places served something coffee-ish, but they almost all use a cheap automated brew machine, the likes of which one would find at a podiatrist’s office, or the waiting room of a Ford dealership. You’re not going to entice me to buy an 80 thousand dollar truck, Todd, with a cappuccino so watery it could have squirted out of a cloaca.

My search for good coffee got so desperate that I had Tara examining cafes’ online photos to suss out if they had real, quality coffee making equipment (all while navigating for us as well). “Zoom in, is that a la Marzocco? No? The espresso machine is made of plastic? Pass, keep looking”

Yes, I can be a lot sometimes. I’m working on it.

Speaking of cafes, while the food is hearty and honest, I wouldn’t call Scotland a culinary destination. As someone from the American south though, Scotland has a lot for me to love. I’m happy with meat pies and most fried things, and my palate can be … flexible, but after almost two weeks I would be quite happy if I didn’t have either one for a long while. Tara’s search for a decent salad, or even ANY kind of salad, became almost comical, and the one time she did find one it was only served it between 12-4pm*. No dinner salad for you! Only fish pie! I can’t say we ever had a bad meal though, even when we ended up desperately hungry and the hour too late to eat at a reputable joint so we joined an eclectic mix of late night diners at a JD Wetherspoon. It may have the ambiance of an off-strip Vegas casino, and the vibe of a Dennys that once did a semester abroad, but it sure hit the spot.

*When I got back home from this trip I was chatting with a coworker about Scotland and she said “I was in Scotland almost twenty years ago and it was beautiful …. But we couldn’t find a salad anywhere”

We spent a few days driving to through Oban and Skye, taking in the beautiful scenery on long winding roads. Driving on the left side of these roads, in a manual car, in the drizzling rain, takes a great deal more focus than I thought it would, and I got into the mantra of saying “left left left” before every turn or roundabout to remind myself which side of the road to stay on. Everyone in the car did too, after a while, either because it was an obvious good idea or something about the nature of my driving encouraged them. Either way, it seemed to help as I’m happy to report a grand total of zero accidents or scary events occurred. Speeding tickets though, I’m not so sure - if all those roadside speed cameras we saw actually worked I may be in for a couple of charges. The speed zones often dropped from 60 to 30 remarkably fast.

We drove through seaside island towns filled with predatory seagulls and equally hungry midges. We saw roadside castles and hills cut with distant streams cloaked in lazy wet clouds. Roadside attractions in Scotland were limited and seemed to fall into two categories: shark themed toilet cafes (very rare) and highland cows (not rare). These shaggy-haired beauts were the stars of the show at many roadside scenic viewing spots

The white knuckled drive through the rain and serpentine roads was worth it, as for the most part we had plenty of sun by which to admire the rolling hills covered in purple heather and dwarf fireweed. And when the skies were feuding and couldn’t decide what color of bruise to be, the countryside was never less than a verdant, uniform green that your eyes would almost get used to until a flock of grazing paper-white sheep reminded you how green everything really was.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention scotch, and peat, and how there’s supposed to be a magical alchemy that happens when you combine whisky, yellow moss, ancient bogs, and sweaty kilts (probably) . If the desired result is a butterscotch colored alcohol that has notes of nail salon and undercurrents of unlicensed mortuary, then they NAILED it.

I will say I did enjoy the “glen” whiskys a great bit more though, so maybe I’m just not a peat person. Side note, our stay at Fort Williams used a well for the household water supply and the check-in literature had several calming lines about how the water, while yellow, was perfectly drinkable and, like, totally normal. Just the influence of all the peat the rain and mountain water filtered through. It tasted leagues better than Florida sulfur water, so no complaints here.

Our trip brought us to the beautiful Cairngorm Forest, where we stayed at a hotel that could have been ten years old, or a rest stop for William of Orange - who can tell with stone buildings? The tartan decor, a theme that continued across most of our stays, was always a delight, and being checked in by a clerk who formerlly was a roadie for the band Simple Minds was just icing on the cake. I may not be Scottish, but I do love plaid and short skirts… so maybe I am, just a little?

After scenic train lunches, reindeer feeding (complete with a nightmare swarm of midges, the Scottish equivalent of mosquitos), pub trivia we did surprisingly well at, a little light falconing, and a lovely day trip trip Inverness to hang with the Loch Ness monster (who proved as elusive as a puffin) , we headed back to finish up the trip in Edinburgh.

Tara was ready for the midges, I was not

Alaska, the eagle, famous movie star from the move Clash of Titans with Liam Neeson.

Dogs are *everywhere* in Scotland, parks, restaurants, bathrooms, operating rooms (probably). It's just the best.

Fringe was still in full swing and we popped into a stand up comedy show where a blind comedian talked about how sight limited people decide what’s beautiful to them. I was a disappointed to find out blind people don’t really want to feel your face when you first meet. You’re telling me all these Hollywood movies have lied to me? What else isn’t true! Is Tom Cruise not really a Navy fighter pilot?

We wrapped up the trip watching Naked Attraction and marveling at the variety of ways humans can … be. We polished off the whisky (and boutique gin lol) we had picked up along the way, random chocolate treats, humbugs, and reminisced a bit. We had a pint at a local pub, catching every third word or so from the Scots drinking around us. Time may have flown by for this trip, and for these past few years. If I’m lucky, I’ll have many more with these fine people. Next time though, we are going somewhere with a salad.

Hi.

Aug 27 Left Left Left, a Scottish Yarn

You Should Have Packed Less.

Hi.

Aug 27 Left Left Left, a Scottish Yarn

Jan 15 Dune, but not the Movie.

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