There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

I'm not sure if this happens to anyone else while either traveling or living abroad, but I find that I can't help being constantly reminded that I'm foreign. This normally isn't a problem when I'm traveling abroad because I'm obviously traveling- but when you've been living in a foreign city for more than a year (or two, or three), you can't help but want to fully acclimate yourself and sharpen the distinction between you and that obnoxious group of baseball cap, bin liner bag poncho wearing yanks over there who say embarrassingly loud things about the country and the people in the middle of the street. However, doing so has led me into sometimes uncomfortable spots that are completely my fault.

The accent: Now, I don't want to brag, but I can put on a pretty convincing accent, both English and Scottish, but English is by far easier. And it's something I tend to do only when speaking to other locals because let's face it, I sometimes get embarassed about my nationality. A lot. This seems to be fine when I'm dealing with the guy at the cafe or the woman in the shop- people I will never have to see again but for reasons unknown want to apprear local towards. Then there are those who I get thrust in a conversation with even though I know I will never see again. This is a bit more tricky, because if I use the accent, things go fine until the awkward moment where they ask where I'm from, and I have to either fess up or lie. When I fess up and say 'California', I get met with a surprised looked, almost always followed by 'Really? I couldn't place your accent, but I'd never guess American,' or ' Wow, you don't have a very strong accent, have you lived here long?' This again leads me to lie and say 'aye, about 4 years,' or come across as a weirdo who has only really be in the country for about two years and shouldn't have picked up the accent at all. Although honestly, there have been times, like when visiting the wee museum on Mull when I just lied and said I was from 'Edinburgh,' no questions asked.

I know, it's stupid, but I have to either continue the accent lie or get called out on it to wallow in embarrassment. But another factor is that I panic. Sometimes it's easier to lie when panicking than to just be honest. Take today for example.

I have an hour off to lunch and went up the road for a Quiznos sandwich. I've not had Quiznos since highschool and thought giving it a try in Scotland would interesting. I go up to the counter, order, pay, and sit down. Just as I'm finishing my ridiciously pricey meal ($10!!! For a sandwich?!?!), the man who made it came over to clean the surrounding tables and have a chat.
'Do you like your sandwich?'
'Yes, thank you.'
'Have you been to Quiznos before?'
Quick, what do you say? 'Yes, in the capitalistic country that invented chain stores and mass consumer culture', 'No, never.' Crap, pick one.
'Err, yes.'
'Oh, where?'
'London.' What? London? You've never had Quiznos in London! You're lying!
'Oh, are you from London?'
Crap, now you've done it. Don't mess it up, be truthful.
'No, California.'
'Oh, California. They have a lot of Quiznos over there.'
'Yeah.'
AHHHHHHHHH. I know that there is no shame in going into a place like Quiznos or Subway or Starbucks in the UK, but for some reason, I hate myself for doing it. It's as though these places exist to cater to the horde of American tourists who want a sense of the familiar in a far away local. I don't want to be discovered for what I really am in one of those corporate chain cancers, especially after trying to hard to distance myself from the image of the visitor.

It doesn't make it any easier when you leave the shop, only to be met with 'Oh look, Frank, they have Subway over here,' or 'Thank God, a Starbucks! I am totally craving a Frap!' from the bumbag/camera wearing tourist who has abruptly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, obscuring foot traffic, and causing many hateful scowls from those trying to get by. Myself included.

So I met with the temp agency lady today, and voila! Instant job...working in a BIG SCARY CORPORATE OFFICE OF DEATH!!! EEEEEEK! I figure that I'll pick up the stuff like Microsoft Office easy enough (have a wee bit of experience with that), but this whole business of using a switchboard scares the crap out of me. I already failed 'How to use Phones with Buttons 101' so the idea of me working a switchboard is paralysing. But enough of all this scary being employed stuff (although thankfully it's only for 3 weeks), in other news, I have no hair anymore.

Do you every just wake up one day and go, 'Huh, I want a change...maybe cutting off all my hair would be a good idea'? No? Well then maybe you have more sense than me. I've been flipping this idea in my mind for about a week and phoned up on Monday for the soonest appointment. I've been letting my hair grown since August, aka the last time I was in a hairdressers and had them chop off what was then quite long into a mid-neck bob. This meant that my hair from top to end was about foot and 5 inches long.

I ran into the haridresser's after my interview with the temp agency with seconds to spare, but it naturally being Edinburgh, ended up waiting about 15 minutes. This gave me time to stroke my fingers through my hair for the last time...to think about that one time my friend braided it...and how I completely failed to be able to braid it myself. In fact, for having long hair a majority of my life, I am astonishingly bad at styling it. I drool in envy of those who have the ability to braid their own hair. Seeing someone being able to whip their hair up into an impromptu messy bun makes me want to kick a small child in frustration, and witnessing someone using chopsticks or even the humble pencil to pin their hair up sends me into a dark desire to use their chopstick/pencil/stick as an eye extraction tool if they don't reveal unto me the secrets of how such seemingly simple hair feats are done. If it's that easy, why can't I ever do it?!?! EVER!?!?!

But when you look around, the majority of girls here have long hair- hair they take time to style, to straighten, to curl, to fix with assorted products, and while I wish in my soul that I had the time and patience to play with my hair every day, the fact of the matter is that I would still fail, even if I had years to play around with it. So there I was, lost in thought about the pros and cons of hair and how long it would take for my hair to grow back after I had it cut, when the hairdresser called my name. I sat in the chair and showed her a picture of a short Katie Holmes bob- after she was brainwashed into the super straight bob with massive fringe, but way before she was talked into getting it suuuuuper short...

The hairdresser looked at me with a somewhat maniacal smile and said 'you're sure? That's like 8 inches...you're sure?' 'Yeah, yeah, I need a change. Chop it off.' And off it came. Now, I won't say it doesn't look anything like the picture, but I can't decide if I look a little too much like John Denver than any person in the 21st century should. I have to admit- it's short. And shows quite a lot of face. I can no longer hide behind my long tresses. I'm hoping that it will look better in the morning, but I just washed it and it's dry already...and not looking any better.

But hey, hair grows. In two months, it will be a perfect length and I'm sure I'll love it. In the mean time, I'll have to do my best to not look like an 15th century page boy (even though page boys probably had longer hair), and hopefully no one at the new corporate job office hell will mistake my sex.

xx

EDIT: Okay, I think I like my hair a little more now...It's taking a while to get used to, but I think I'm making it work.

We arrived in Fionnphort at around 10:15 and caught the 10:30 ferry over to the Isle of Iona. The ferry ride was pretty rocky despite the relatively calm looking waters. We landed on Iona in 10 minutes, and then headed off to see the sites. Iona is thought of as the birthplace of Christianity for Britain due to a man named St. Columba, although there is some dispute over whether he was responsible for bringing Christianity to the Picts, or if it already existed in those parts and he just helped it along. Regardless, Iona is a religious site that owes its Abbey to him. St. Columba was a Christian monk born in Ireland in the 500 AD area. Word is he got in a dispute over a psalter and ended up being exiled to Iona, where he forced the Picts/Druids over into Christianity (or word has it, buried them alive if they didn't convert).
This is a picture of the Nunnery on Iona, now turned into a garden.
And this is the Abby of Iona. Although I'm sure having the Abbey full of randy monks next door to a nunnery of randy nuns led to some interesting times on the island.

I don't know how long these things can be, but I'm breaking the blog up into bits because the next half of the trip is when things get more interesting. Anyway, the sun was *attempting* to shine, the birds were singing, and I was in a mood for some fresh air. I love hiking, and luckily I managed to find a country that considers 'hill-walking' a normal, popular past time. The walk from Torosay to Durat is roughly 3 miles, a distance I know I can easily do in less than an hour. My travel companion, on the other hand, has never had to walk more than a mile in her life, and was much more wary.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but Durat Castle is the wee splodge on the right hand side on that little jetty of land. Anyway, I wasn't going to let Barbie let me down, so I gave her a friendly, 'come on, it will be fun and burn off those calories from the pub' smile, and started out. However, before we had even gone two miles, a friendly car of Spanish tourists pulled over and offered us a ride. And I know I'm being horrible, but I have to take a moment here to be smug. Barbie (as I think I will call her from now on) always makes a point to prove how Mexican she she. I'm not sure if it's an L.A. thing, or what, but she is always spouting things off about her Mexican roots, throwing lots of heavily accented Spanish words into normal conversation, and talking about how in her culture you do this, that, can't do this, yada yada...so I couldn't help but smirk when the Spanish driver asked 'habla español?' and Barbie replied 'un poco.' Then the driver went on in Spanish, and all Barbie could do was stare blankly.
Anyway, besides calling Barbie out on her lack of Spanish, despite being so hardcore Mexican (although none of the Mexicans I know own Prada, Gucci, Channel, a boat, or take taxis to go two miles), the Spanish couple were really lovely and we appreciated them for offering us a ride. It really made me wish that one of my friends who studied abroad in Spain was here to translate...and on that note, I want to take a second here to reflect on something a friend of mine observed. She felt that growing up in Orange country, although I would like to extend that to Southern California in general, raised people to be accustomed to comfort beyond what exists in 99% of the rest of the world. Such circumstances, she argued, produced one of two outcomes. Some were raised to crave a life of material luxury, involving the perennial search for Beemers, frappuccinos, and pedicures, while the rest, who she felt were the lucky ones, grew up to spend their adult years pursuing simplicity, as if to shed the layers of excesses they were born unto. (see here for citation) Being in the presence of Barbie made me see how true this observation is. Having gone to school in Southern California, I made a large handful of friends who hailed from the OC and LA, but even though they shared a common location with Barbie, their ideology is completely different, and I have to say, while Barbie is a nice girl and I enjoy the odd night out with her, I cherish my SoCal friends even more knowing how awesome they are to have realised that there is more to life than having to own designer labels. And all this is making me homesick for those friends and wishing that they were here to go traveling with. Anyway, enough ranting and moaning.

We arrived at Durat castle, one of the most defensive fortresses in the Isles. was originally built in the mid thirteenth century, but underwent heavy renovations in the 1920s to make it more of a home, including the thinning down of the 15ft thick wall to accommodate for a 'modern' kitchen. It was one of those castles I love, with fake mannequins, plastic food, and recreated scenes inside to help give visitors a taste of what it was like way back yonder.
This is the view from the top of the castle. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the castle, but loads of people were anyway. I managed to control my desire and be good for once.

And I'm back! After four days of being in a state of almost constant sleep deprivation, I finally back in Edinburgh with pictures aplenty. The day began for me at 5:40 am. After sleep-walking though my breakfast and getting ready, I kissed my boyfriend good bye and headed out the door to walk to the train station. Fortuitously for me, it was at that exact moment that a taxi pulled up and my travel companion opened the door, motioning me inside. I was well prepared for the walk in the morning to wake me up some more, but you don't turn down fate like that, so I jumped in- besides, she was paying.

We get down to the station and because of the quicker taxi ride, have half an hour to kill before our train arrives. However, I'm a bit wary, since our intended train would only give us a 9 minute layover at the station, and with British trains being what they are, I felt 9 minutes was cutting it close, so I convince my friend to get on the next train, giving us 20 mins. at Glasgow. We get to Glasgow, my friend goes off to buy her breakfast (Burger king chicken sandwich meal deal that filled the whole train car with the aroma when she tucks into it), and soon we are off.

The train ride from Glasgow to Oban is incredible. I always like taking trains because not only are they still a novelty to me, they are also more scenic, less cramped, and just all around more magical than the bus.This is what the day looked like as we made the 4 hour train journey to Oban. Along the way, we passed some lovely lochs, forested glens, and glistening green hills. We finally arrived in Oban at around 12:30. Everything relating Oban and the Isles is symbiotic, which makes everything work out very nicely when there are no delays. The train arrives in Oban 10 minutes before the Ferry leaves for Mull. The buses in Craignure, the ferry terminal 'village' wait for the ferry to arrive before leaving, and arrive at the ferry terminal 10 minutes before the ferry leaves.
The ferry ride over from Oban to Mull is just as lovely as the train ride, but much shorter (only 45 mins). However, the ferry snakes pasts many of the much smaller isles, and we were treated to beautiful images of lighthouses, fort ruins, and endless rising mountains shrouded in the clouds. Apparently the Sound of Mull is chockablock full of marine life, including 4 different kinds of porpoise, humpback whales, orcas, basking sharks, sea otters, and seals. They apparently were all on holiday because we never saw any.

We arrived in Craignure and immediately jumped on the bus to Tobermory, the so called 'Capital of Mull' because it has the largest population on the island (aprox.700). Tobermory is a very quaint little town that you can tell caters to the tourists. Either that or the people in Mull have a deep obsession with scented soap, because there were soap shops everywhere selling about 500 different kinds of soap, from lavender bars, to heather scented soap on a rope. They also had this amazing bakery that sold fresh bread for the same price as a store bought loaf, and had super delicious baked goods.The town is split between the main street, which is one long street of coloured buildings, and the residential area, which is up this massively steep hill and over looks the town. It is no wonder that even though everyone in the viliage seems to get their dinner from the Fish & Chip van and follow it up with a few pints at the pub, they still have amazingly tight butts and thighs- who needs a stairmaster when you have to haul yourself up 400 meters of a 45 degree hill? Besides burning calories, it also affords lovely views of the town below and the harbour.We stayed one night in Tobermory, then caught the 9:30 bus down to Craignure, where my friend had managed to find us accommodation. Which turned out to be tents. We were given a little tent with two cots in it, and had to pay £2 for bedding, which turned out to be a sheet, and 3 blankets...but more on this later. We were in a rush to catch the little train which went from Craignure to the 'castle' Torosay. I say 'castle' because it is really a stately home. Castles are built for defense, and this was definately built for beauty. The amazing thing about Torosay Castle is the freedom visitors are given to explore. You can open the books in the library, sit in all the chairs, and poke around in all the little nooks and crannies.
All of it was very stunning, and the gardens of the estate went on for acres and acres trying to mix in a variety of different styles. The major one, popular in the 18th century, was classicism, so Grecian columns and statues dominated grounds.

We were incredibly lucky and even though the forecast had predicted heavy rain for the entire week, it only really came down a few times. The day we visited Torosay was overcast, but nice, and we figured we would be adventurous and walk to the nearby Durart Castle. Durat castle is a 11th century castle built as one of the most defensive castles in the Isles. It is also still the currant residance of the Clan Chief of clan the MacLean, a nice old man who greeted visitors in the gallery.

Continue the fun in part two!

This is it, the night before my mini-holiday. I got my little backpack packed and ready, the same one I used in college, and my travel companion has completely filled her 65kg backpacking pack. For a 4 day, 3 night mini holiday. She has also informed me that she has waxed her arms for this trip, I assume in the hopes of meeting Mr. Right...who obviously will be a rural Island man with a deep abhorrence for arm hair.

I've always considered myself a tomboy, and growing up, I don't think I was every very clean. I always wanted to hang out with the boys and do interesting things like see who could climb the highest tree, dig the deepest trench, and eat the most mud. As I got older, I got jealous of my 9 year old little brother's Boy Scout troupe, and figured that if I just bought the Eagle Scout manual, I would know everything Eagle Scouts knew before any of those little twerps even made it to middle school. And if I have to brag, I know how to make a damn good fire, rain or shine, even if it means my face soon resembles a miner from 1958. Hell, I even backpacked 60 miles last summer and camped in a scary ass forest next to the trail, filled with bugs of death and growling, grunting, wild boars. And it was all in the rain, I might add! But enough of this, the point is that I am going with little miss Barbie- someone who has never eaten out of a can, can't leave her hair straighteners behind, and thinks walking more than two blocks is an effort.

So off I go! Wake up call at 5:50, train departure at 7:15, arrival on the island at 3, and up to our hostel by 4. It's gonna be a loooooooong day.

xx

The weekend after handing over that bound, 67 page dissertation fell on one of the fortnightly dinners with my boyfriends parents. While we all sat down to one of the few authentic and delicious Chinese meals in Edinburgh, I was naturally bombarded with thousands of questions about where my life was now heading. 'Erm...,' I paused in between bites of beef with garlic sauce, 'well, I only handed my dissertation in 2 days ago, and haven't really thought much beyond that.' 'Well,' by boyfriend's dad replied, 'you should have a wee holiday. You've worked so hard all year, you deserve a few weeks off to rest and enjoy yourself.' And boy did I plan to.

The following two weeks, as was expected, was spent consuming large amounts of alcohol and pretending that it was well deserved or that since this was the last time everyone from our course would be together, we might as well go out guns blazing on a major rager. But honestly, two weeks is enough for me. I'm not what you would call a workaholic, but I get antsy when there is nothing to be done...and so far, when I am not recovering from the night before, I am puttering around the house looking for something- anything- to do: wash all the dishes, dust all the furniture, scrub all the mould from the shower, wash the windows, iron every article of cloth that exists, etc, etc, etc. And all the while, while at least one of my old coursemates is busy recovering from the night before by planning the same night out and complaining about her dwindling funds, I am secretly applying for as many jobs as I can find.

The depressing aspect about my degree is how utterly useless it is in life. While my boyfriend studied infectious diseases in the hopes of one day curing HIV, all I can pretty much do is confirm that things look old. Or at least argue that old things are somehow relevant to the modern age. This leaves a lot of uninteresting job opportunities for me, such as the exciting world of secretarial work! The fascinating life of administration! The mind-boggling merriment of sitting day in and day out in an office somewhere doing something completely unrelated to what I worked hard to succeed in for 5 years.

Actually, in all honesty, I would be working right this very minute if I wasn't so damn susceptible to peer pressure. I know I need money ASAP, so the logical, smart thing that I would have done, having spent a week 'relaxing,' would have been to go to the temp. agency. I've used temp agencies before, and guaranteed, I was always given some sort of clerical job that paid well within that week. It was wonderful...constant employment and a cheque every week. But then I let myself get talked into going on this trip to the Islands....

So, here is where it stands. 1) I have no money and am putting everything on my credit card. 2) I am utterly annoyed with the incompetence of my fellow traveller, who quite frankly wouldn't be able to figure out which direction to take a bus on a one way street. 3) It means that I am delaying my sweet temp agency job for another week, and thus reiterating that 4) I have no money!!! I keep telling myself that this trip will be fun, that seeing the islands will be a new and unique experience, and that I might as well do this while I'm young because I'll never get the chance again, yada yada yada. But so far, planning this trip, though not my idea, has ended up being left up to me to plan. I researched the hostel (only 2 folks, on the whole island, and an hour apart from each other), researched the bus time table (one bus every 2 hours going from tip to tip), and figured out how we would be able to get our butts from the hostel to Iona and back without being stranded on the bloody little island, population 700 (ferry leaves at 1500, after that, find a warm sheep to cuddle up with). Meanwhile, all my companion has done is look to see what castles exist on the islands (not noticing that 80% of them can only be accessed with a car), whine to me that I'm making her walk 3 miles in order to see two castles in one day ('why can't we take a taxi?'), and go on and on about the new boots she just bought specifically for this trip (her Calvin Kline and Jessica Simpson boots would 'so' not work).

All this trip planning naturally had to go hand in hand with a major allergic reaction I had with a newly purchased makeup, which left my face swollen with a thick cover of small, itchy little bumps that haven't quite all gone away, leaving me perpetually feeling like Quasimodo. Great. So stressed about being poor, stressed about going on this trip with L.A. Barbie, stressed about my deformed face, and stressed about how poor the combination of everything is making me.

I am so going to need a vacation after all of this.