travel journal: scotland and wales

september 1998

The day after our wedding, after opening a stack of presents (including a 3-foot hookah that was unwrapped to the silent horror of assembled relatives), we hopped on a plane headed to London. Our sleep-deprived enthusiasm barely dampened by sitting on the Toronto runway while a raucous thunderstorm shook the plane for over an hour (as we tried to figure out the physics of lightning, and whether it was or was not a good idea to be sitting in a giant metal tube in an open field during such an event), we were finally aloft. In the course of the flight we were able to sample the exciting cuisine that lay ahead as we pried open our esophagi for two meals of fossilized chicken breast, served by a flight attendant who confessed to extensive amphetamine use after we remarked politely on the length of international flights.

From London we flew to Glasgow, then drove the 3 hours to Aviemore, which is just 20 minutes south of Inverness. This was our first taste of the spectacular Scottish scenery. At first we were terribly excited by the omnipresence of sheep, but then grew bored and began referring to them as "hill mites". Aviemore is a ski resort town in the winter, and as winter resort towns often are, is godawfully tacky in the summer. Just down from the place we were staying was a Santa Claus Land Village, which I think says it all. We were also amused to discover that our accommodation had apparently been designed entirely by twelve-year-old boys, since every room had either twin or bunk beds. We had a good giggle at the shock manifested by our fiftyish American neighbour as he arrived with his barely-eighteen trophy wife for a dirty weekend and discovered that the two of them would enjoy all the comforts of summer camp in their bunk beds.

While stocking up on groceries, we became further acquainted with the delights of UK food. We unearthed such treats as canned haggis, canned "American Hot Dogs", some snack food called "The Big O", HobNobs ("One nibble and you're nobbled!!"), Pork Scratchings, and a prodigious assortment of chocolate cereals (imagine every major North American cereal, frosted with chocolate... everything from ChocoFlakes to ChocoOs to ChocoWeet was in evidence). However, we were pleased that one good thing had come out of British colonialism: Indian and Chinese food, readily available everywhere. Even in fast-food restaurants or those horrible places euphemistically referred to as "self-serve restaurants" chicken tikka or chicken balti is a staple of the children's menu. Cans of korma paste are stocked next to the Kraft Dinner. And no matter how tiny the towns you pass through, no matter how insignificant the hamlets, no matter what font size they are granted on the map, you can always find within their boundaries a Chinese take-out and/or a tandoori restaurant. I don't think it's exactly what servants of the 19th century Empire had in mind, but it was a welcome diversion from battered lard. For all that, the UK is a sauceless region, applying no dressing to their salads of iceberg lettuce or dipping substances to their chicken nuggets. They have some concoction called "Brown Sauce" which I was not brave enough to try. I have a healthy aversion to any brown food item of unspecified composition, and besides that, it's difficult to sell me on a substance known only by its colour... it would be like referring to beef stew as "Brown Lumps in Liquid". I could not determine its intended usage.

We were eager to begin our ABC tour (Another Bloody Castle, Another Bloody Cathedral, which you may remember from the Italy tour) so we headed the next day to a local one. A word of warning to travellers: "castle" is often interpreted very loosely in brochures and is quite likely to mean "large manor home belonging to inbred noble family looking to prop up dwindling inheritance by sucking in tourists". We were treated to accounts of the droll "eccentricities" of the family owners through the centuries (one of whom remained a bachelor, was a snappy dresser, and was into rock gardening... you do the math) as well as terribly precious shots of the family, appropriately tweedy and pedigreed, posing with various royal personages. At one point, we descended a narrow, crumbling, claustrophobic stone staircase that spiraled downwards into the innards of the castle, a windowless basement with clammy, dank stone walls. A single flickering bulb barely illuminated the gloom. I immediately felt like every vertebrae of my spine had turned into squirming electric eels. "What was this room?" I asked, trying to contain my sudden conviction that liquid nitrogen was growing from my hair follicles. We checked the brochure. This was the torture room, where unfortunate people (Communists, no doubt) were dumped and then left to go insane or starve to death. Several people's bodies had probably rotted where I stood. I could have kicked Ben Johnson's slowpoke ass as I hurtled skyward up the steps. It was like Ye Olde England's answer to the final scene in the Blair Witch Project.

To drown our sorrows at being rank peasant paupers (my ancestors had descended from the prestigious Turnip Family nobility back in the old country) we followed our noses to the Glen Grant distillery. Chris, being a Grant in a 1/16th capacity, was attempting to claim his heritage. We missed the last distillery tour but we must have looked rather puppy-eyed and pathetic since they gave us two shots each anyway. They explained to us the finer nuances of new and mature whiskey which were lost on me as I chugged water to assuage the sensation of rocket fuel in my epiglottis.

Off to Inverness in the evening. Inverness is a very nice city, nestled above Loch Ness along the River Ness. Nerds that we are, we celebrated its historic beauty by finding an Internet cafe (cleverly called Invernet) and emailing friends and family.

Although it's not marked on the map (surprise), there is a nuclear reactor in Thurso, which is on the far north coast of Scotland. Friends of ours, more masochistic and hermit-like than we, had elected to work there. Apparently in the winter the sun comes up about 10 am then goes down around 3, and that summer it had rained constantly for 3 months. Chris and I agreed we would both suck a bullet if we had to live there. We popped up to their home, somewhere around 58 degrees latitude, for dinner, then drove all next day around the north coast. If you have never been there (and I suspect you have not since, to understate a bit, it is off the beaten track) let me tell you it is a mind-blowing experience. At times it seemed like we had accidentally stumbled onto another planet. The vegetation is mostly heather, which casts a weird purple-black colour onto the craggy hills as it forms a patchwork with rusty golden grasses. The road is a single lane, barely wide enough for one car, that stretches like a fluttering gray ribbon across the seemingly infinite rolling plains that terminate in the omnipresent mists. When the sea can be sighted it is a roiling foamy slate blue into which the mountains plunge. The only inhabitants, when any other sign of life is sighted, are the sheep that dot the sharp slopes. They wander, fenceless, across the road as if they own it, and they probably do.

UKers don't really get the whole driving thing. To them, going twenty minutes down the road is a full day event. One might even book a B&B for the evening, just to be on the safe side. On the other hand, for North Americans, a four hour drive is like a quick trip to the local coffee shop. The locals pretty much thought we were nutso when we told them we were going to drive the whole north coast one day, then the next day drive the entire western side all the way down to Wales.

Ah, Wales. Would you like to buy a vowel? Wales' main claim to fame, besides truly weird weather where it simultaneously blazes sun and pisses down rain, is as strategic military turf where warring English kings developed bigger and better ways to whup one another's asses. We visited one castle which had an extensive display devoted to medieval weaponry, which included several types of catapults and a giant cannon type of crossbow that would shoot a five foot long dart. It's good to know that the brilliant scientists of the day channeled their energies into this, rather than developing indoor plumbing, harnessing electricity, or finding a cure for the plague.

No trip to Wales would be complete without a trip to The Village. For those of you who might actually have a life and not know this, this is where the cult TV show The Prisoner was filmed. It's actually a bizarre collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere, built by a megalomanic eccentric who wanted to re-create an Italian town. You can wander through the village, or take one of the many footpaths into the surrounding forest, which lead you to spine-pricklingly-surreal things the Pet Cemetery, a creepy little shrine that looks like it was designed by a child in an asylum for the criminally insane. On the way home from The Village, travellers must drive over a single-lane wooden bridge (which looks like it was whacked together with odds 'n' sods from the local Home Depot) and pay a toll to the two coverall-wearing locals with awkward facial tics and three teeth between them. It's one of those things that you're pretty sure shouldn't be there, but it's so freaky that you just want to pay your five pence and get away, quick, before they steal your soul.

Going home meant an eight-hour wait in Heathrow. Damn, wish we'd had some HobNobs. We were most definitely nobbled.