For
my final travel, I had one week and decided to spend it in the UK. I met an
Australian in Italy a few years ago who is now living in London and a co-worker
of mine told me to call up one of his friends if I made it to Scotland. So that's what I
did.
London
was first and my first stop was the Hardwood Arms. This is a Gastro pub I had
read about in a flight magazine and I decided to go there while I waited for my friend to get off of work.
Basically,
it has a Michelin and is famous for their deer, which the chef often hunts
himself. So I decided to celebrate finishing school with some delicious wine
and deer.
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| Crispy duck egg |
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| Roe deer with butternut squash |
So
of course I knew people drive on the wrong side of the road in the uk. That was
no surprise and I didn't think it was going to affect me anyways. I saw the
amazing race episode where they made the contestants drive left side manual
cars through London, there's no way in hell I was going to be near operating a
motor vehicle.
However,
I really didn't consider how difficult this was going to make things. Yes I
don't drive a car, but I could even cross the street without almost dying.
Below you can see a photo of London trying to keep this from happening, but
still.
Not
only is it hard to cross the street but it's really difficult to walk around. Someone
once mentioned a peet peeve of theirs being when people walk on the
"wrong" side of the sidewalk. Well now I can relate. Since cars go
left, so does everything else. That means escalators go up on the left and down
on the right, and it's the south bound trains on the right side of the tracks.
I was constantly on the wrong train platform or in everyone's way because the
bulk of people walk on the left side of the sidewalk. When I get it someone's
way, my American instinct is to go right. Well they go left. I was like a
salmon swimming upriver. But not like an adorable delicious salmon, more like
an obnoxious foreign salmon about to be eaten by bears.
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| See, left side goes up and right side comes down |
When I wasn't being an obnoxious wrongsided tourist, I spent most of my time in
London sightseeing and being pretty typical. I ate fish and chips.
And
went to all the normal sights like Big Ben and Westminster Abby. I also went to
the Tower of London to see where Anne Boleyn’s head was chopped off.
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| View coming out of the metro station |
Next
it was off to Scotland for the most amazing train ride of my life. I'm not
gonna say it puts the northwest to shame, but there are more sheep and the
Lochness Monster. Just saying. These pictures don't even come close to doing it
justice.
Hence
the beginning of my super authentic Scottish experience. My friend Rich had
sent to me to see Griogair, his Scottish friend who is a Gaelic singer and
farmer. He lives way up in the Scottish highlands where I hung out with him and
his friends. Literally they sit around playing bagpipes and backgammon. He's
also working on his phd in social linguistics, looking at how colonization of
the highlands affected Gaelic language, music and it's performance. I got to
hear some really awesome songs including one of the first ever recorded Gaelic
working songs. It was awesome. As for authentic, this is also what he actually
eats to breakfast.
I also got to see his farm and meet his "cows" which were enormous, but also somehow made me want to snuggle with them.
I have to tell you. Wildlings from game of thrones?
They're just Scottish highlanders. Seriously. I met Ygritte in real life.
