Scotland vacation: Attack of the Pink Wellies....

For those of you who haven't heard, after months of anticipation I finally escaped to Scotland for 5 days during Easter break with Ade, Gabi and Chema. We flew into Edinburgh, spent a night there and then in our puke-green, diesel-fuelled Renault Picasso rental car we traversed the beautiful Scottish countryside stopping in tiny towns until reaching the island of Mull in the West Highlands.

For years I have been obsessed with the way Scottish people speak, every time I have been lucky enough to casually overhear someone speaking in a thick Scottish accent I would barely be able to contain my excitement. So you can only imagine the level of giddiness my trusty travel companions had to deal with as we disembarked the plane and I stepped into my lifelong dream: a land where I was fully surrounded by millions of Scottish people speaking in varying degrees of unintelligible English all day long. Although the time had finally come for me to step foot in Scotland and immerse myself in the accent I had for so long tried unsuccessfully to mimic, I was disappointed with my inability to understand everything that was said to me. Luckily, Ade was able to act at times as our makeshift British interpreter; otherwise the rest of us would probably still be at the airport car rental desk staring blankly at the nice woman who works there not knowing what on earth she was trying to say. Although the fact that he is English came in quite handy when trying to decipher things that had been somehow lost in translation, it did preoccupy us a bit as we didn’t know if he would encounter any blatant anti-English hostility as we drove further into the countryside (for those of you that don’t know: a large percentage of Scots believe Scotland should be an independent nation and not part of the United Kingdom) but luckily for us, everyone we met seemed to be pretty much over the whole “oh you invaded our country for centuries on end and took away our independence” thing and we ended up having a great, violence-free time.

Edinburgh, for those of you like me that didn't know this, is actually pronounced ed-in-BUR-uh. I actually was the subject of relentless teasing prior to our trip when I mistakenly said edin-BERG, much like the time I pronounced Trafalgar Square in London- TRAFF-elger square instead of Traf-FAHL-ger: I thought the cab driver was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard. So, by taking the time to including the correct pronunciation I am merely trying to spare you the embarassment I have already suffered at the hands of the phonetically informed elite.

Aside from being annoyed by its incredibly illogical pronunciation, I couldn't help falling for the magnificent landscape; the city is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and sits on the banks of the Firth of Forth which flows out into the choppy waters of the North Sea. Aesthetically speaking, it is probably one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, in fact I would even venture to say that I would gladly entertain the thought of moving to Edinburgh despite the inclement weather and the potentially disastrous effects it could have on my hair... now that’s love!

One of my favourite things to see in Edinburgh was the enormous castle that sits high on a rocky crag overlooking the city. Passing through all the tiny streets that lead up to the castle, you can’t help but imagine how amazing it must have been to live there centuries ago- well I guess, aside from that time when the plague almost completely ravaged the city...

From Edinburgh, our road trip took us to a tiny town on the banks of Loch Lomond: Balfron Station. We spent the night at a bed and breakfast farm belonging to this really sweet couple that have dedicated their lives to the breeding of alpacas. I don’t know if any of you have ever seen an alpaca before, but they are WEIRD looking, I think I remember Ade describing them as looking like tiny giraffes with furry crash helmets on. They have very soft fluffy wool and knobby little hyper-extended knees; the couple were even nice enough to let us feed them so we were able to get pretty close. Looking a bit like highly evolved sheep (mainly just taller and a bit more intelligent, but with a look in their eye that makes you feel as if they could pull out a pipe and newspaper and sit in the living room with you at any given moment) they don’t have any upper teeth so they basically nibble the food out of your hand by using a combination of their big lips and lower teeth. A bit slimy, but at least they have miraculously managed to survive as a species all these years with no upper teeth, right? The worst was that after feeding time we went to eat our huge fried breakfast and it wasn’t until after eating that I realized I hadn’t remembered to wash my filthy alpaca hands! I couldn’t stop laughing as I showed everyone my dirty little paw, thank God I was using utensils and didn’t have to eat anything with my hands at breakfast!! In any case, I’ll admit it was pretty gross. I guess it just further demonstrates the fact that I am not accustomed to life on a farm, although I could definitely get used to wearing my pink wellie boots on a regular basis- it is seriously so much fun to stomp around in the mud and not worry about ruining your shoes, I feel like everyone in Scotland is happy and generally in a good mood just because they get to do that on a regular basis!
Well, after making sure my hands were free of any remaining alpaca slime we said goodbye to our hosts. I think I may have even scared the poor woman a bit, I was so happy and overcome with love for her and her alpacas that my goodbye handshake suddenly turned into a crushing goodbye bear hug, I'm sure she will think twice from now on about taking on guests coming from overly-demonstrative Southern Europe!

Back in our green Picasso, we took one last look back at the farm that had been our Scottish foster home for a night and resumed our journey through the Scottish countryside onward to the town of Oban where the ferry would be waiting to take us at last to the island of Mull and sadly to the last leg of our Scottish adventure...