And there was. There always is.

I ate 2 Egg McMuffins. I was hungry. I’d been up since 2am and it was already 4:30am!  Was it lunch time yet?

I got to the Birmingham International Airport with plenty of time to spare. So much time, in fact, that I was able to knit a third of a cowl with some new yarn I got.  The morning wasn’t a total bust.

So at the late hour of 7:30am I was on a plane to New York City. I can’t say those 3 words without thinking of that subway scene in Rent. So just know that whenever I type/say/think the words “New York City” I’m following it up (silently) with “times are shitty….”

Despite it’s formidable name, the Birmingham International Airport is not that big. In fact, I wouldn’t really call a 10-gate airport medium sized. Which means that their planes are that big either. The plane I was on had 2 rows of seats–a row of 2 seats on one side and a row of 1 on the other. I didn’t realize when I requested a window seat that 2/3 of the seats were, in fact, window seats.

The plane was so small that the flight attendant’s chair was attached to the bathroom door.

I just held it.

Once landed, I headed to the cab queue. I was directed to a cab, I hopped in, and he hopped out, saying “just a minute! I must clean up spill! I had yogurt!” Odd. So I waited while the cabbie blocked traffic with his car door as he wiped up his yogurt. Then the conversation went like this:

“Where to?”

“Radio City Apartments.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Well, that’s where I’m going.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“No. I don’t live here. You drive a cab here. You don’t know where it is?”

“No! You sure about the name? You got an address?”

“Nope. Just the name.”

He stopped the cab in the middle of the road, put it in park, and strolled over to another waiting cabbie. Apparently he had never heard of it either, because my cabbie kept walking down the line of cabs. Horns are honking at the cab blocking traffic. I feel conspicuous.

He finally comes back and says, “It is in Manhattan?”

Oh gosh.

“Ummmm…..yes. Probably near the Radio City Music Hall.”

“Ah! Yes! I know that! We go there! Though I still not know these apartments.”

So we go there. And he drives like a maniac. Now, I’ve ridden in all manner of transportation in various European countries, all over Kenya, and even across a Chinese province. But this was scary. We almost hit an ambulance.

Eventually I had to lend the cabbie my phone to he could use the GPS to find where I was going. This is not the New York City cab experience I had envisioned.

the library

By the time I arrived (somehow safely) at the apartments where we were staying, I could have licked the cabbie’s yogurt off the seat, I was so hungry. Two Egg McMuffins at 4am weren’t doing the trick at 1pm. So I walked about 30 feet down the sidewalk and stopped at the first restaurant that smelled good.

It was called “Bella Napoli” and was sort of ugly. But, I reasoned, aren’t some of the best restaurants ugly? Sure!

While I waited for Angel and Katie to show, I ordered fried eggplant stuffed with ricotta and mussels in a fresh tomato sauce. A basket of The Best Garlic Knots Ever arrived just as Angel and Katie did.

so garlicky

mussels

Angel put in an order for calamari. Katie exercised restraint and got a coke.

calamari

The calamari was rubbery and Alton Brown wouldn’t have been happy with the mussels. But the eggplant with ricotta was really delicious.

beautiful eggplant

After fortifying ourselves, we decided to walk to Bryant Park.

It was chilly. Really chilly. So chilly in fact that my ears felt like someone was wiping boiling water on them with a Q-tip. So we swung by Lord & Taylor and I almost got the winter version of a garden hat but opted for the more full coverage earmuffs instead.

Now snuggly warm, we walked. I’m amazed at all the trash on the street. I knew there would be. I watch TV. But this was a lot. And rank in places.

I also noticed that every female in New York has the same coat, and many have the same hairstyle. Angel and I have neither, by the way.

concrete jungle

Every block here is totally different yet pretty much the same. I have a terrible sense of direction and if I couldn’t count I’d still be somewhere on 43rd.

We walked until we saw a bakery, and since we hadn’t eaten in 2 hours we decided to stop in.

the bakery

There were some beautiful edibles in there, but most of all there wasn’t wind.

tarts

So we settled down with mini tarts, brownies, madelines, and liquids to wait for my brother Peter, who now lives in New York, to show up.

Once he did, Katie said goodbyes and we decided we should go to dinner. We hadn’t eaten in 45 minutes, after all. So Peter took us to Georgio’s, his favorite restaurant.

The menu at Georgio’s was a combination of traditional Italian meets Kountry Kitchen meets diner. It was a weird mix.

crabcakes

olives as appetizer

We decided not to go for the fried chicken livers or the patty melt and opted for Penne a la Vodka with grilled shrimp, mini crabcakes, and grilled salmon with fresh veggies.

salmon with capers

Oh, and they had a juicer, so we got some juice, too.

We looked at the time as we finished up and realized that we didn’t have much time at all to get to Silence of the Lambs the Musical.  And we didn’t know where it was.

Long story short, there was running, stairs, 2 subway trains, powerwalking, and hurting people by the time we got to the play. Peter kept wanting to look in stores or gaze at lights as we hurtled down so many city blocks that it’s all a glaze and I kept yelling “GO! GO! GO!” and kept powerwalking past people. I even had the arm swing going for momentum.

We showed up right as the last people were getting there. I grabbed a beer from the concession table to rehydrate (just kidding), and settled in for the show. Which was wonderful. And possibly one of the crudest things I’ve ever seen. They even managed to make the ballet parts obscene.

The long journey home shouldn’t have been long, but it was. By the time we got back it was all I could do to fit the key in the lock. It was 11pm. I’d been up since 2am.

Bedtime, you never looked so good.

So today is not yet started, but there will be culture. Museums and the yeast from beer, at least.

At 5:40, on no sleep since I awoke at 8am, I hurry to catch the 6am Groome’s to Atlanta.  I make it just in time. I think to myself, maybe I will get a nice ride with someone else at the wheel, and I can catch a quick nap. All that might have been possible, too, if I hadn’t gotten the rudest, craziest driver they could find. He hit every bump on the road. It was the roughest hour and a half of driving I’ve ever experienced. I slept for 15 minutes off and on. That’s right, in the whole hour and a half, 15 minutes of sleep. It was such a relief to get off of that transport that I gave him a tip because he was no longer driving me.

I’d already printed my ticket, so I make my way to security. I had two bags: a backpack and a carpet bag. I have clothes and shoes for 5 days, a laptop, an iPad, an iPhone, a hard drive and a wireless keyboard. I take off my shoes, I put everything in the bins, nothing in my pockets, walk through the metal detectors and *beep*. Check my pockets, no jewelry, no belt, nothing up my sleeves. *Beep* The two finger call for a female to check me. The explanation for being searched is very in depth, but in the end, you get felt up. It’s that moment your mother has warned you about. Better have your nice undies on. Just kidding, they don’t check your undies, but apparently, underwire in a bra is the deal breaker when it comes to airport security. All of us large breasted women eventually will get searched. As if having large breasts wasn’t already a burden. After my pat down, I’m free to go. I can finally sit down.

The flight was uneventful, although we had heavy winds on the second leg of my journey. But I finally get to LaGuardia, I find the right bus, then transfer to the right train and in about an hour I’ve found my way to the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, New York.

Diner Coffee

Park Slope is a nice neighborhood, full of young families… or young people in general. There are a ton of small shops with really good food. I meet my friend KH at a diner where I’ve decided to have diner coffee for Gourmet Coffee Day. The eggs over medium are cooked to order, the sausage is tasty and my phone is charging. It is the perfect pit stop before the rest of my night. I go back to KH’s apartment, meet K2. I know I adore her  when she insists that I watch Ron Isley from The Isley Brothers being the big boss in an Robert Kelly music video. Yes, they call him Robert, which lacks the formality of calling him R. They know him like that.

J'adore ces femmes!

We establish a game plan, a chill night if you decided you were going to go out. Nothing too visitor/tourist crazy, just a stop at their favourite happy hour spot, maybe stop by a store or two that I should see, a place to eat and then the Lucky 13 Saloon, which was the only place that was a must see as far as they were concerned.

On our walk from the subway, KH pointed out that Dale, from Top Chef Season 4 and the All-Star season, opened his restaurant the Sunday before and maybe we could stop in. Dale, I say? Dale Talde? The Dale that I disliked in his first season, but whom I came to like so much during the All Star season that I cried with him when he had to pack his knives? Yes, the very same Dale Talde. I insisted that we eat there for dinner.

We started the night at Eagle Provisions, which sounds like a camping store, but which actually has the largest and most extensive beer selection I’ve seen anywhere. Next we headed to Buttermilk for happy hour drinks. I was very excited about their $3 drafts which included Guinness. Their happy hour lasted until 9pm, although we only decided to hang around for about an hour. We stopped by the apartment where I met K2′s boyfriend M then we headed to Talde.

As we walked by, we noticed that Dale was actually in the kitchen. We learned there would be a wait and so we sat at the bar and tried the drinks before being seated. There was very little space to move around, so the seating was ample, though close. I asked our waitress if maybe Dale would let me ask him a few questions for my magazine and she said that if it slowed down, she thought he might. We ate some of the best food I’ve had (the bacon and fried oyster pad thai was amazing and I enjoyed the whole fish, though KH thought it had a really good taste but could have used a little more salt) and struck up a conversation with the people at the table next to us. We tasted each other’s food, got recommendations for other restaurants, and ended up laughing like old friends as we finished our meals and our tables were cleared. As the waitstaff finished taking the plates away, Dale Talde walks over, sits down, and proceeds to have a very down to earth conversation about his time on Top Chef, the inspiration for this new restaurant, why he chose Park Slope and a myriad of other things about the beautiful restaurant he now called home. It was a lovely time, a lovely, frightfully exciting time.

A blurry pic of the black swan...

We managed to convince our new friends to walk with us to the Lucky 13 Saloon. While KH and I are closet punk rock/metal fans (i.e. you couldn’t tell it to look at us that we loved both genres of music) the Lucky 13 is not a closet case. Band stickers covered the walls. Goth makeup on men and women abound. Leather jackets and spikes were much in evidence and a woman in a simple corset, underwear, and hose danced a ballet on the bar. Though she was more Black Swan than Swan Lake, it was highly entertaining and after our guests eyes took in their fill, we settled down with our PBRs and had a blast.

Tomorrow: What has 6 legs and is late for a play? or Anna Ruth & Angel do their best to walk the entire of NYC.

This will probably be my last posting until I get home. We’re still in York, but the prepaid internet runs out in about an hour, and I don’t know when I’ll have access to it again.

We toured York Minster, a beautiful church in York that contains amazing feats of architecture. After the tour we climbed to the top of the Tower. Bad decision. It was 275 steps–but the amount was not the problem. When we signed on, we didn’t realize that it was 275 weirdly steep  steps up an exceptionally tight spiral stair case. How steep and tight, you ask? Let’s just say that going up I saw way more of my dad’s ass than I ever wanted to, and there was no way around that view. And coming down, even though I was holding onto the railing with one hand and the wall with the other, I still got terribly dizzy on the descent. Not good at all. It was horrible. And the view from the top sucked like a baby.

The highlight of the day, I think, was going to Castle Howard. It’s a stately home/castle that is still currently a residence about 15 miles outside of York. If you’ve ever seen Brideshead Revisited  you would know it immediately. Brideshead Castle is actually Castle Howard,  and the fountain that they continuously walk around in the movie is in the lawn. I can’t imagine being the groundskeeper for that property. All the hedges are perfect and the grass is edged. I prefer more of a brambly look, but hey, I guess the Howards know what they like.

We ate lunch at a pub that is supposedly haunted by a group of ghosts. I thought it was fascinating, but guess what? Dad rejected that in the name of Jesus, too.  I wish could have gone there at night, just to see, you know, but we don’t go out after dark. All the voodoo.

It’s on to Edinburgh tomorrow morning! I’m glad. I like the city a great deal–wish that we could have spent more time there. But I’ll be back, I’m sure of it.

via meizi4you.com

I still love coffee, but it is tea that now runs through these veins o’ mine. I have coffee with my breakfast still (gotta stave off the headache) but sometimes all I drink in the day besides that is tea. Hot tea with a spot of milk. Yes, so English. I’m going shopping for a proper teapot when I get back. After using a teapot for  two weeks, drinking tea with the bag hanging out of the cup has no appeal anymore.

My dad amazes me at times. Well, when I say “amaze,” it might not be taken in the usual context. Flabbergast. Stupefy. Dumbfound.  In lieu of a Father’s Day poem, how about a quick tribute?

As you know, we’ve been Bed and Breakfasting through Britain. Since you are technically staying with someone in their house, common courtesy dictates that when you first arrive you don’t just barge in and hunt down the owner. My dad hasn’t learned that yet. He’ll try the door and it will usually be locked. But after it won’t open, he tries harder. Rattles the door, shakes the knob, as if it is the door’s fault that it won’t open and if he jostles it just right, well, maybe it’ll open and he can bulldoze into the house. After fruitlessly attempting to open the locked door (and being quite loud, he’d never make a good cat-burglar), he’ll suddenly stop and run down the steps past me, either to go peek in the window or just stand back. Either way, when the door is opened by a suspicious homeowner, it looks like I was the one who tried to burgle the house. It’s getting old.

Last night we spent the night in the Yorkshire Dales where James Herriot had a vet practice and wrote extensively about his experiences there. Beautiful country, and the villages are tiny. We stayed in Hawes overnight–apparently the home off Wallace and Gromit?–at a rather dubious B & B. I never saw the owner, but Dad did–once. I laughingly told him this morning that if this were a B-rated movie we should have been killed last night by the invisible landlady. Or  that Dad (the only one to have seen anyone) should have been the bad guy who lied about the lodging and lured me there to kill me. He looked at me very solemnly and said, “I reject that in the name of Jesus,” and just kept walking.

His driving has improved a wee bit. I no longer have heart attacks/panic attacks/anxiety attacks at every corner. Just some. We’ve hit fewer things, as well. Lately he’s only hit an embankment, a rock wall, and driven through someone’s garden. Pretty good.

Last night in Hawes we ate at what I consider to be the English version of a Kountry Kitchen. You know exactly what I’m talking about–wooden boothes, tacky memorabilia, and greasy food. And it was good. It was called The Chippie (how can you not eat at a place called “The Chippie”?), and ironically the chips were the worst things we ate. I had the best fish and chips yet, which is saying something. And it’s odd, too, because Hawes is right in the middle of the country and we stayed at several coastal towns. The mushy peas served with the fish and chips were the best yet, also. Dad had poached cod in a Dijon mustard sauce (amazing) as well as a side of onion rings. And what do you know? Those onion rings were the best we’d ever had. Kudos to The Chippie on an excellent meal all the way around (and about half the price, too).

So let’s have a brief recap of all the best stuff (mostly food) so far (this is for you, Angel):

Best Fish and Chips: The Chippie, Hawes

Best Pie: Chicken, Ham, and Leek Pie, The Kenilworth Pub, Edinburgh

Best Beer: some hotel bar, Inverness

Best Tartare Sauce: same hotel, Inverness

Best Sandwich: toss up between the mango, brie and bacon at a cafe somewhere between Fort Augustus and Fort William or the bacon, brie and onion chutney one at Bailey’s in York.

Best Coffee: a hole-in-the wall pub in some town.

Best Breakfast: Mrs. Anne Duncan’s Farmhouse B & B just outside St. Andrews

Best Tea: Willow Tea Room, Glasgow

Best Scone: cranberry and apple, the same place between Fort Augustus and Fort Wiliam

Best Fish Pie: The Clachan, Mallaig (MAL-ag)

Best Chips: nowhere. I’m disappointed.

Best B & B: in Aberfoyle–great hostess, beautiful area, great hiking, wonderful sitting room (well-stocked with tea) and someone had good taste in wallpaper. That’s rare.

Best View: anywhere in the Highlands. Spectacular.

Best River: River Ness–it flows north, did you know? Out of Loch Ness and into the Moray Firth

Best Bridge–Brig O’ Doon–yup, the very one that Tam O’Shanter crossed to stop the witches from following.

Tomorrow we are going back into York (we’re just outside the city now) and finishing that up. I just love those double-decker tour buses. I haven’t fallen asleep on them, either, unlike in Rome. It’s amazing what going to bed before 3am can do for you. I don’t know if I like them because they’re informative or because it’s the next best alternative to being in a pub. Which I haven’t done nearly enough of. Next time, next time.

We motored through Sedbergh, England’s Book Town, and of course we had to stop (Mike–pay close attention to that sentence). I really don’t know how I’m going to get all of this stuff home. Because yesterday I discovered charity shops. They’re like the American thrift store–but better. And I’ve scored some good stuff. Stuff I was actually looking for, not junk. I guess this’ll test my packing skills, which are definitely honed, but this may be a challenge. You guys had better like your gifts. And yes, that was a threat.

We’ll spend one more night in York and then drive up to Edinburgh on Tuesday to fly out early Wednesday. We need to have the car back to the rental place by 6am. I haven’t seen 6am in a while. From there we fly to Paris, layover for lunch, then fly all day back to Atlanta. The flight will slip past, I’m sure, since I picked up a Doctor Who Encyclopedia at a charity shop.

via hameister.posterous.com

We went into Glasgow today and had tea at The Willow Tea room, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1903. It was really a great thing to see. I did a project on Mackintosh a few years ago, so it was rather surreal to see things in person that I labored over drawing.

For tea I had a fruit scone and Scottish Breakfast tea, because how can you go to Scotland and not have Scottish Breakfast Tea? There’s English Breakfast, but everybody and their cousin has had that. I’d never even heard of Scottish Breakfast. Quite tasty. Dad had peppermint tea (and he put milk in it–just a tip: don’t do that.), and Noel and Moya had Earl Grey.

Well, it’s dinner time, and I think I may have put the silver in the wrong place last night. Whoops.

via foodieeh.wordpress.com

I’ve got a new prized possession, and no matter how much you make fun of me for it, I will still love it. It’s a sweater. Not just any sweater. It’s a handmade sweater that makes me look like a granny and  smell like a sheep farm. I asked someone about the….fragrance.  She said that it was the oils in the wool, but hey, it sheds water and keeps me warm. Plus I’m sort of getting used to the smell. It’s comforting, like hot tea in rain or hot pies in rain or hot fish and chips in rain. All of which I’ve consumed during rain in this sweater.

Fish and chips. Those words alone can make me ravenous. I think that I could live off of fish and chips. It’s terrible. I’ve never eaten some much fried anything before–and I’m from the South! We deep-fry Oreos! (well, not me personally, but it’s been done) But back to fish and chips. The thought of a hot, deep-fried, crispy piece of haddock as big as my head dunked in tartare sauce and served with finger-licking, lip-smacking chips–I am almost tempted to leave my warm bed and sneak out to a 24 hour Chip Shop. Almost. It’s cold out there, and I’m tired.

We took the ferry from Mallaig to Skye Island today. Now I think I know what Johann David Wyss and Robert Louis Stevenson must have pictured in their minds as they crafted the islands in their books–a murky beast rising out of the choppy sea, a mist hovering over the top…

Ok, enough of the lame description. But seriously, Skye Island was a murky beast rising.

It was spectacular. I’ve never seen such astounding landscape–anywhere. It’s all so wild and untamed. The wind is fierce–if I hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning I would have been blown away. No, really, I had to brace myself. The beaches here are incredible–craggy and untamed. I just want to sit and watch the surf break on the rocks, but then I realize that my feet are blocks of ice, it’s raining, and the ferry is leaving. So I can’t linger.  But let’s just say it’s a good thing that I had my new smelly sweater, or I would have been severely cold.

The weather in Scotland changes so quickly. The locals say that if you don’t like the weather, wait 20 minutes and it will change. And as crazy as it sounds, it’s true. Today on Skye it changed 5 times in an hour. Blazing sun to dark rain to blazing sun to dark rain to mildly sunny. Fine when you’re indoors watching it, but it’s a whole ‘nother game when you’re on top of a ferry.

I think I’ve eaten my weight in pies. Steak pies. Mince pies. Fish pies. I would probably eat anything in pie form, at this point. But my pants still fit, which is a minor miracle, the way I’ve been eating. I’m not sure if I would know how to cope without a breakfast of toast, porridge, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, coffee, and juice. I look at a box of cereal now and think, “Ok, now what comes next?”

In Ayr right now, staying with some old family friends, Noel and Moya. They’re Irish, but have lived here for 30 years, preaching at the village church. Let’s just say that the prayer before dinner gave ample time for the steak pie to cool off a bit.

Well, it’s getting late and I need to get some rest before we attack Glasgow tomorrow. Home of Charles Rennie Mackintosh–look him up, you’ll like him.

via thebotanicalbaker.wordpress.com

On the Irish Sea in a town called Mallaig right now. This time, as I type, I’m eating (fresh) blackberry crumble with hot custard. For dinner we had a veggie burger and fish pie. The veggie burger was outstanding, but the fish pie was even better. Never thought I would eat a fish pie–and like it.

Well, gotta go–we will ferry to the Isle of Skye tomorrow!

via mikejs.com

Remember how Dad keeps hurtling us down tiny roads at unsafe speeds? I couldn’t decide if I should keep my eyes fixated on the road or just not look at all.  And then it finally happened: he ran off the road (pretty badly) and blew a tire (pretty badly).  So there we are, standing in front of a disabled car in the middle of nothing across from Loch Ness (ironic?) and all I can think about was how I should have been driving this stretch of road.

Here’s a brief recap of driving records so far: Dad has run off the road 5 times, slammed (and I do mean slammed going 40, not bumped at 5) into various curbs 3 times and now burst a tire. I have done none of that. Almost ran off the road once. Almost.

So I’m not sure if that really is laughter building up inside or not. Maybe it’s vexation. After all, we are stranded. By Loch Ness. But it was my dad that crashed the car, not me.

And that’s the end of that story. I just had to share, although I’m not positive that all I wanted to do was gloat. But for the record, I do feel a little badly for him–a little.

Tonight marked an epoch in my life, and conceivably in my father’s as well. Tonight I drank my first beer in his presence. Now, to be fair, I did warn him briefly about it yesterday over steak pies.  But tonight it happened.

We were at dinner with a friend of one of my friends–small world, eh? And I ordered a beer. Simple act, but if you know me dad, you know that this was potentially devastating. We’ll see how it goes. But just between us, I’m at the hotel bar as I type, slurping away at a tasty stout.

The country here is breathtaking. Of course the pictures don’t do it justice. But I’m trying. And for the record, I haven’t found Nessie–yet. Give me a few more beers and I just might.

You may have picked up on it, but traveling with Dad is a bit different than I’m used to–in life or in travel. For instance, we don’t go out after dark (all the voodoo), or into pool halls (those  ruffians), or park on the inside of the parking garage, just the top (we’ll get mugged). Not kidding, even about the voodoo.  So this trip, to me, is like a scouting trip–what to do next time I come, what to avoid if I need to save money, what sandwiches are good (bacon, brie and mango is topping the list right now) and, of utmost importance, where the best pubs are.

Tomorrow we’re leaving Inverness to go to a small fishing village near the Isle of Skye. Then toward Ayr to visit some old friends for a few days (never thought I’d want to kiss a preacher) and then down to England  through Glasgow (hello Charles Rennie Mackintosh!) to see the Lakes District (hiking!) then back to Edinburgh to fly home. Which has never been a welcome thought during a trip before, but it’s getting nicer and nicer. I never knew that 12 days could feel so slow. And I work in the library.

via japanesefoodbytomo.blogspot.com

No, it’s not a horrid skin disease, although the name “Cullen Skink” definitely could fit the bill. Actually, it’s a fish soup—cream based with potatoes and smoked fish. It was quite toothsome.

I’ve eaten so well this trip. Our first dinner was at a pub, but the food was not any kind of pub-fare I’d ever had. It was possibly one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Red pepper risotto topped with goat cheese, cullen skink, and a chicken/ham/leek pie. There are no words.

I feasted yesterday morning in the hotel room on the brown bread and homemade blue cheese from the farmer’s market as well as some figs and granola. And instant coffee (but we’re not talking about that). Perfect. Then lunch was my first fish and chips in Scotland—pretty delicious (even without the beer I was drooling for). Served with a mushy paste of green peas and mint. Sounds weird—it was. It was interesting, but don’t look for it at my next party.

We’re at a Bed & Breakfast in St. Andrews currently. I had my first Scottish breakfast. More on that later.

When we left for this trip, I had a feeling that it would go pretty much the way it began.

Brief synopsis:

Dad: Where would you like to go for a graduation trip?

Me: Hmmm…that tough, but how about Greece and Turkey?

Dad: Great idea. Scotland and England it is.

So even though Dad said that I would make all the decisions, I knew better. Not that I want to be the Dictator of the Trip, but some input would be nice. Enough said. Now that we’re trapped in a tiny car, hurtling down the wrong side of the road (we hit a curb so hard I thought that there was structure damage) the differences between my father and me have all become so real. While I want to yell SHIIIIITTTT when we taunt death in the face (as he drives), he just murmurs “thank you Lord Jesus.” And then I thank the Lord Jesus that I didn’t yell shit or we might have really run off the road, then. It’s funny—now that I can’t say anything remotely off-color all I want to do is blurt out the most random, horrible things. I’ve had to restrict my conversation to topics of food, foliage, and frequency (or lack of) fueling stations. Not kidding. I’m afraid that something monstrous will just tumble out of it’s own accord. I’ll keep you updated.

via janesguidetoscotland.com

20F cheated off of me during the inflight-trivia. I don’t know why I think that is so funny, but I do. And we dominated that trivia game. Well, I did. He tagged along on my glory of useless knowledge. LAC & Anna, seats 20E and 20F. We never spoke on the flight. Not a word. But we won trivia.

Ever noticed that your accent as an American (or rather your lack of a really interesting accent) instantly makes you inferior inside your own head? When you ask a question and someone replies in a Scottish accent, or Greek accent, or whatever–all of a sudden you feel a little inferior to speak. After all, there is NO WAY that you sound THAT GOOD when you speak. So why speak? Just nod. Mumble. Shrug and use gestures. Come on. You know exactly what I am talking about.

The first thing we stumbled on was the Edinburgh Farmer’s Market. Angel–it leaves Macon’s Saturday morning shindig in the dust. I’m sorry. But I got your yarn.

Anyway, the flight arrived an hour early (when does that happen?) so we set foot on Scottish soil around 7am. The whole day stretched out before like an glorious gift–and I needed coffee. (brief update–it’s 4:30pm now, still haven’t had any) However, the Farmer’s Market beckoned and I answered that call, Dad in tow. He had a good time looking at the castle that was perched on volcanic rock hovering over the rows of tents. I had a good time looking at everything else.

And it’s decided.

I’m moving here.

I don’t know what pushed me over the brink of “wow, this is great” to “dear heavens, I’ve found home.” Maybe the rotund man selling pork pies in the market (after all, who but a rotund person could sell meat pies?). Or the handmade soaps, including one called “Bog Myrtle”? Or the mounds and mounds of fresh baked bread and bread-treats under the one tent? Nope. I’ve decided that The Moment was when I looked up and saw the huge movable red contraption of coffee delight that proclaimed “Police Box Coffee Bars.” The side-notes read “Torchwood Industries. Time traveling alien technology. Go on–feed your soul.”

Any country that can combine coffee and Doctor Who–I’m there.

We semi-desperately tried to find a B & B. Dad was more desperate than I, as I know what true desperation is. We weren’t there yet. It was 2pm, not 2am. There’s time. We found a couple of hotels, they were full, and he was getting desperater as we went. When we finally found one–and only had to navigate across the city with those crazy-ass left-side drivers–I think he may have had a taste for what Barcelona was like. A taste. I didn’t bring it up though, although I did recognize the irony.

We’re about to head down the Royal Mile. Speaking of Royal–saw the Royal Jewels. And that’s about all I have to say about that.

It’s almost time to seek out a pub, too. I ate fresh bread and homemade blue cheese (maybe THAT was when It was Decided…) and topped it off with fresh hazelnut brioche. But that only satiates for so long.

I think we’re walking. Dad can’t handle anymore of that crazy-ass left-hand driving today. Never seen his knuckles so white.