The hills of Scotland indeed sing, but the lyrics baffle me

Towards Monifieth from Dundee

I had the chance to meet THE Nessie of Scotland at my french summer camp in July. Well, so we fondly called her. Rachel/Nessie was so good as to welcome me to her cozy town of Monifieth outside Dundee for a weekend.

I took the national express bus from the victoria station for an 11 hour bus ride up north. Surprisingly it passed brilliantly quickly. I amused myself writing, reading, and continually shooting dazzled looks outside at the fairytale rivers, shining fields spotted with cows and sheep, and perfect wee villages with perfect wee gardens. The bus driver cautioned us as we began, and my stomach filled with confused butterflies--wait. Was that my language? I often asked Nessie to repeat herself, but he wasn't even intelligible. I shrugged and hoped it wasn't too critical. If I could survive a year in France understanding if best the bare minimum, this should be doable. A few hours later I worked up the nerve to peep up at the guy sitting next to me.
It went a bit like this:

Me: "Gawd, it's hot in here, isn't it?"
Nice Scottish guy: "Bjiwe orklp kenr ejre je zej hot wiem ekler....kjre ehir box. eirheiwor heo box." (with a gesture towards the ceiling)
Me: "Ah...Yeah." (awkwardly clears throat, nodding, and returns to kindle)

On arrival I instantly felt at home, her mother had made a deeeeelicious soup and the family chatted on as if I had always been there. If I focused I could keep up. The friendly bickering continued as Nessie and I made a beeline for Dundee to celebrate her birthday with her buddies. As we paraded about town, I was fortunately very rarely lost in the conversation. I think her friendly pals made a bit of an effort speaking slowly, bless their hearts.

The next day we scrambled to make the bus to Edinburgh (ah ha, I spelled it right!) for the Fringe Festival. I've been to various carnivals and festivals with strange costumes and people eating indigestible objects, you know the like, but this was the first of its sort.






Not only did we see aliens casually ambling the streets, we were asked if we had a moment for a poetry reading (which is now my new favorite request from strangers), if we had seen a real space monkey, then if we were interested in "a one night stand". At the last question, we hesitated (who wouldn't?) before realizing it was the name of a comedy show.
We also bumped into Yoda and a scarily realistic golden mermaid.

He was actually hovering!

Yes, there you have it,
THE William Wallace.

Scottish humor? 

Again...the humor

Standing in the very spot of the international military Tattoo spectacle made me grin two weeks later while watching it on the telly with my grandpa. I only then truly got the pride of the Scots, and the original beauty of their traditions.

The question of the entire weekend became, "Well, do you have a kilt then?" Unless you're tooting the pipes on the corner for change, you're meant to wait until someone is tying the knot to bring it back out of the dusty corner of your wardrobe. Pity.

Edinburgh Castle

Overwhelmed by the various options of entertainment, we ran away. We found ourselves on the rolling hills outside the castle and spread out on the softest greenest grass known to man, or woman. Nessie did her best to show me how to roll down appropriately.

Music everywhere!

To make up for not sticking around the festival long enough for much scottish music or *cough* a one night stand, on returning, Rachel's bro Steve played his guitar as we had a nice cup of tea.

The following day I set out early to the beach for a lone promenade. Rachel's mum thought I was a bit kookoo, but it was well worth the photos. I cuddled up to my ipod with some classic snow patrol and breathed in the intoxicating views.

That afternoon Jess and Steve, the extraordinarily friendly and helpful siblings of Nessie helped us continue the nature exploration at Crombie Country Park. I learned some scottish slang (some of which my mouth refused to pronounce), what Irn Bru was, and the doggies learned some professional jumping.

They'll be famous soon enough.