Och Aye Land

(The title is a reference from the Georgia Nicolson series which you should read if you haven't because they're hilarious)

The fact that we went to Scotland is a bit of an odd thing because it was a “Plan B” (or even C probably) when our trip to Morocco didn’t work out, but it ended up being such an amazing trip and so many things fell into place without any doing on our part, that we think it was a little bit of destiny ;) The only flights that we could find for this weekend from Lyon (the largest city close to Grenoble) to Edinburgh left Thursday and returned on Tuesday, which meant we were missing 4 days of school; normally, I wouldn’t condone missing school, but considering my near-perfect attendance at USC, the fact that I’m not really receiving credit for these French courses, the fact that you don’t get to live in Europe and go to Scotland every day, and the fact that I’ve spent upwards of 10 hours in the language lab trying to compensate for missing said days, I figured it would be worth it. The first thing that fell into place for us was lodging; we looked around at hostels but were struggling to pick one because we were trying to be conscious of both money and safety (it’s hard to find a room for just 3 people without it costing way more than the 8 or 10-person dorms). Luckily, Shana has “relatives” (really close family friends of her grandma lol) in Edinburgh who very generously offered to let us stay with them and even fed us 2 out of 3 meals per day. You honestly can’t get a much better situation to be staying in a city, especially when the people having you are as amazing as Alan and Sheena are. The second lucky thing was the weather; normally, Scotland is rainy and cold (especially this winter when they’ve had 6 weeks of snow as opposed to the normal 2), but we had sunshine every single day we were there and only encountered a sprinkling of rain once or twice. The third lucky thing happened our first night in Scotland; we made it to Edinburgh around 4 pm (despite some punctual incompetence on my part that made me almost not get to Lyon in time for our flight) and met Sheena at the airport. On the way home, she mentioned that she would be gone for part of the night because she takes a Scottish Highland dance class which was meeting that night; of course that piqued our interest, and we asked if we could come along. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly from the second we walked in the door, something that’s a little different from French people who, in my experience, take a little more time to warm up. It was thoroughly enjoyable watching the dancing, which is a little like Irish step-dancing but more relaxed, and even though it looked easy, when they had us join for a couple of dances, it was not at all haha though I’d love to learn…the next morning Sheena drove us into town and took us to Edinburgh Castle; the views of and from the castle were beautiful, and the history of a building that old was really hard to grasp for me, especially since everything in America is so “young.” We toured the castle, saw the crowned jewels, toured the prison, and ate lunch in a café in the castle. We then spent a ton of time in gift shops laughing at all of the crazy souvenirs (coffee mugs shaped like kilts?) and looking for the “perfect” tartan pattern for our scarves; Shana and Cecilia both got one of the tartans for Shana’s clan (MacLean) while I got a blue/green/white pattern that apparently goes well with my eyes/hair/whatever and just happened to be the Gordon clan. We walked around the Royal Mile and were all in a state of infatuation with Edinburgh. When we got back to the house, Sheena and Alan’s grandsons, Callum and Ewan, were there, and we thoroughly enjoyed playing with them :) one thing that we noticed is how much more proper even children’s English is when it’s “British English” versus “American English,” even though both of the boys have especially impressive vocabularies for 7 and 4 year olds. The next morning began our 2-day Highland Tour, and throughout the first day we saw the William Wallace monument, which offered some nice views; Hamish the Highland Cow (“Hairy Coo”), my new favorite animal; drove by various historical markers and places, including the castle where Monty Python was filmed, the place where the Clan MacDonald was murdered; and saw the Highlands, which are absolutely beautiful. We were staying in the little town of Fort William, which basically consisted of a million bed and breakfasts/hotels, some restaurants, and a bar or two. Not somewhere that I’d like to stay extensively, but it was on a lake (loch?) and was perfect for one night The bed and breakfast was only 22 euros a night for each of us to have single rooms and breakfast, and the B&B itself was really clean and really nice (plus the most adorable old lady ran it); another good life decision by Cecilia, Stephanie, and Shana! We went to dinner at a hotel restaurant, and one thing that is definitely preferable in France is the relationship with food; although everything I ate was pretty good, I didn’t have any meals in Scotland that were particularly impressive after living in France for 2 months (with the exception of shortbread, of which I ate ridiculous quantities in 6 days). We went to the bar our tour guide recommended, but England and France were playing for the Six Nations Cup in rugby, so it was all guys and none of them were paying us any attention haha Shana and I got Irn Bru (which is Scotland’s national drink, after whisky of course) with vodka, which wasn’t anything spectacular, but was good nonetheless. We were all surprisingly tired from sitting on a bus all day and had an early morning, so we just watched BBC TV and hung out until we went to bed. Day two of the Highland Tour included the Castle of Eilean Donan (which is supposedly the most famous in Scotland), Loch Ness, and more beautiful Highlands and historical goodness; my only complaint was that we spent more time at Eilean Donan than I would have liked and not enough at Loch Ness, but at least we saw them at all. Overall, the tour was good; I think I was more impressed with what we saw than either the guide (especially his motion sickness-inducing driving and Negative Nancy stories) or the company itself, but I could still recommend using Timberbush Tours to someone else just because we did enjoy the tour itself so much. We were all pretty wiped out by the time we got back into Edinburgh, despite sleeping sporadically on the bus, so we took the bus and Alan picked us up from the stop. Although we never did make it into town for a pub crawl, we did have fun spending the evenings learning about Scottish and British culture talking with Alan and Sheena and watching “Coupling,” the British version of Friends (which is raunchier because they can get away with a lot more on British television). The next day was our last in Edinburgh, and since we had only seen the Castle, we had a lot that we wanted to do, starting with a driving tour by Sheena, who was really well-informed because her father used to do a lot with tourism of the city. We then went to Holyrood Palace, which was really beautiful and interesting and actually preferable to Versailles, which I find too ornate. One of the security workers in the palace overhead us speaking “Frenglish,” to avoid losing it after so much English for 6 days, and started talking to us about where we were from, studying in France, being in Scotland, etc.; it turns out that of the places we’re from (Shana from Seattle, Cecilia from Connecticut/New York, and me from South Carolina), he had only been to South Carolina (Hilton Head for golf), which definitely surprised me but made me a little prouder of my home state. After the palace, we ate lunch in their café, and then toured the Queen’s Gallery, which included pictures from Antarctica expeditions; it was interesting, but we didn’t have a lot of time, so I mostly looked at the nature photographs, which I prefer over the ones of the crew. We walked along the Royal Mile again in the beautiful, warm sunshine and decided that our next stop would be the Scottish Whisky Experience; now, I wasn’t a big fan of whisk(e)y and still am not, but when in Scotland, you do as the Scottish :) the tour was interesting since I know nothing about whisky, and it was fun tasting the different kinds (fun, but not necessarily tasty). Since it was about time to head home, we did some last-minute souvenir shopping, and again took the bus home (p.s Edinburgh buses are much preferable to Grenoble’s because they’re 1) plaid and 2) double decker). Our flight left early the next morning, so that was all that we got to do in Edinburgh, but I think we all plan to return both there and other places in Scotland someday because it was a pretty big hit with all 3 of us. It was really nice because it was a good mix between American culture and European culture; for example, whereas peanut butter is really expensive in France and Nutella is expensive in the States, you can get both reasonably priced in Scotland! Haha It was also really nice to learn some of the differences between Scottish culture and British culture; it’s easy to lump everything into “British,” but Scotland has so much identity and pride, especially with things like the Highland Dancing and the representation of their clans. I didn’t really know what to expect of Scotland and Edinburgh, which is perhaps why I wasn’t at all disappointed by either of them, but I definitely would like to live in Scotland at some point, at least for a little while.