A few unorganized recollections of Scotland.
Being so far north, especially in Turriff, the sun didn't set until well after 10:30 pm. This was novel and exciting the first night, but was less appealing just a few hours later when I was up with the sun at 4:00 am. In this photo, it's 4:16 am. (The last time I experienced so much daylight was in Antarctica and there we had heavy duty blinds!)
We had great fun using Scottish expressions and phrases we found in the Scottish-English dictionary my cousin bought, including the word “coo” for “cow.” In 1913, a farmer from outside Turriff refused to pay Lloyd George's National Insurance Stamp and the subsequent fine, so the local sheriff impounded one of his cows to be publicly auctioned. On the day of the auction, the town was crowded with spectators and, in the melee, the cow escaped and the farmer was charged with breaching the peace (which was later dropped)! The cow was later recovered and sold in Aberdeen before locals bought it and returned the cow back to its home farm. The cow, with the words, “Free!! Divn't ye wish ye were me,” was then paraded around town before 4,000 people. Today this statue adorns the center of Turriff as a reminder of the famous “Turra Coo.” Leave it to the Scots to get so worked up over a cow.
The Turra Coo is a tough act to follow, so it's lucky that the Market Monument is five hundred years old as of 2012. Twice a year farm owners used to gather here to hire farm hands for a term of six months. The monument is slated to be restored this year as it also commemorates when Turriff became an official town.
We toured a Whisky distillery in Turriff. The fumes from the mash alone were overpowering. I can now cross Whisky distiller off my list of possible jobs. At the end of the tour, the guide offered to pour everyone a sample. I asked for the tiniest sample possible just to smell. It nearly knocked my socks off! How my grandparents drank this stuff at their daily happy hour I'll never understand!
Here my cousin explains how to dress appropriately for walking in rural Scotland.
I was really impressed by the Georgian architecture of Edinburgh. The buildings were mostly somber grays and tired browns but there was a surprising amount of variety in the windows, the facades, the brickwork, and other details to make up for the limited color palette.
I've already mentioned that we got soaked seeing my grandma's house on Edinburgh. Unfortunately, Scotland is not known for its fabulous weather and while we were in town, the city got a full month's worth of rain in just two days!
Since I'm used to staying in budget hostels when I travel, I love to explore proper hotels from to to bottom. Lucky for me, The Scotsman had plenty of floors, unlocked conference rooms, hallways and marble staircases for my cousin and I to check out. We stumbled upon this creepy coffee table in a dimly lit deserted lounge one night and it absolutely weirded us out. You sure don't find furniture like this in hostels.
If you haven't seen it yet, there's a hilarious fake iPhone ad featuring a Scotsman talking to Siri on his iPhone 4. Siri can't understand his Scottish accent and Scotish-isms as he asks for a chip patty, a jammy dodger, and a pint. He grows more frustrated and angry by the second, yelling at Siri who rattles off useless responses. Of course, this meant my cousin, who can do a perfect Scottish accent, recited the commercial multiple times a day, sending us into an inevitable fit of hysterics. At the grocery store, she found a packet of Jammie Dodgers and bought it for me as a surprise.
This leads me to all of the other foods we tried in Scotland. Other than shortbread, which I absolutely love, everything else was god awful!
And finally, here's the trailer for my family's trip to Scotland, affectionately nicknamed The Ah Jings Tour.
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