7/9/07
What an amazingly beautiful country Scotland is... Dad and I left Glasgow (which is a great city that I would love to spend some more time in...) this morning on our way to St. Andrews (Dad wanted to play a round in the bith place of golf) and then eventually ending up in Pitlochry for the night. The drive North-East up to the base of the Highlands was SO beautiful. Both sides of the highway were flanked with acres and acres of patchwork land, but the minute you leave the main road for one of the smaller routes (it is amazing what passes for a highway here, some of them were one lane roads with "passing places" where you would pull over to let someone coming the other direction by) it was like travelling back in time. I loved it, and I can't wait to see more. The majority of the trip was like driving on a small path through the middle of a forest, and every once in a while the trees open up and in the clearing is a little stone cottage or village, or pasture full of (very cute) sheep. It was about a two hour drive from Glasgow to st. Andrews and the coast. I was exhausted when we we arrived because I had been up all night trying to fix my website/blog so that y'all would have something to read, so I opted to take a nap in the car and then go explore the town (which is located on Scotland's East coast and has a cute little beach.) while dad played his round of golf. But about 20 minutes into my nap, Dad came back saying he couldn't get a tee time (and, he said, the course looked boring and was over-run with "Fat North American non-golfers"), so I didn't get to see much of the city, which is ok, because it seeme quite touristy... So we got back in the car and continued North (and slightly West) to Pitlochry (via Dunkeld to scope out where we'll be staying for a week as of tomorrow). We found a Gaelic radio station which was playing some really pretty traditional folk music, and which suited the idyllic scenery perfectly. You know, it's strange, you hear foreign languages every day... On the street, in restaurants... and you are so accustomed to it that hardly even register it anymore. But it is a completely different thing all together when it's a language you've never heard before. Gaelic is amazing. It's survived for a thousand years despite the very few people who actually use it, and it's incredibly high level of difficulty to learn (Trust me, I've tried... More than once...). It's not what you'd call a pretty language... It's just about impossible to explain, but my roughest approximation would be that it sounds like a mixture of Russian and Swedish spoken with a Scottish accent. Regardless of how it sounds when spoken, when sung, (Especially if it's a dreamy ballad being sung by a woman) it is absolutely beautiful. So I was thrilled when we came across the Gaelic station. We arrived in Dunkeld to pick up the key for tomorrow night in time for lunch. Dunkeld is everything you would hope for in a small Scottish town. Moderately busy main street with quiet residential offshoots. It has a beautiful main square surrounded by older buildings, and a pub situated across from a shallow, fast moving river that looks absolutely made for fly fishing. The pub has live, traditional music every night and a beautiful sitting area next to the river where we sat and ate our lunch. I am really looking forward to spending a week there and being able to explore the area. We left Dunkeld after lunch heading for Pitlochry where we are spending tonight in a very pretty small hotel on a hill overlooking the town. Pitlochry is great, bigger than Dunkeld, but still very walkable and a lot of beautiful old stone buildings and cobbled streets. I can't begin to tell you how much I am loving it over here. Tomorrow are the Pitlochry Highland games, the last games of the season and I am quite excited to go and experience that.
PS. There is an old church about three blocks away from out hotel that rings it's bell on the hour.... I'm laying in bed listening to it now and I can't think of a better way to drift off to sleep.
8/9/07
We went to the Highland Games today, it was a lot of fun, and definitely a great experience. There were tons of activities, everything from the traditional heavy events we usually associate with the Highland Games to pipe band competitions, dancing competitions, a track meet and bike races. It was fantastic to see the pride the competitors had in their culture and events. One of the things that I am really enjoying is the level of interest the kids/young people here have in their culture. Back home I bet you couldn't PAY a kid to play the bagpipes but at this one event there were *15* pipe bands worth of people who loved the instrument. I love the effort I've seen here to promote/sustain the Scottish culture. We left the games to move into the apartment in Dunkeld, I have to admit, as much fun as it is eating out, it will be nice to eat some home cooked meals for a change.
