***
In Newark Liberty International Airport's C concourse, a mottled, feral pigeon makes his roost. Stranger still is how no one seems to notice, let alone be concerned by his presence. His flights down the runway-length stretch of gates, his strutting beneath chairs, and his pecking at bits of debris on the carpet are construed as less interesting than the matter of fact. He is the attention-garnering equivalent of walls or clear gray sky.
***
Water in New Jersey tastes much worse than St. Louis. One envisions the plumbing is a series of tubes and pumps siphoning the muddy contents of a river/stream/pond not fit for swimming.
5/20/12 - When the average American thinks of Britain, he probably thinks dental neglect, funny spelling, and backwards driving laws. The briefest visit to the UK does nothing to diminish American perception of difference. Instead, it reinforces it. Beside the operation of brute physical laws, everything is different. A partial list of observed differences in the first six hours between America and Scotland: the electrical plugs, the voltage of electricity to those plugs, light switches, street signs (on buildings, not poles), traffic lights (pedestrians are directed with the consistent green of Go and red of Stop instead of the random and American white and orange), handicap symbols [the person and wheelchair face left instead of right (seriously)], it isn't eight thirty; it's half eight, it isn't a commercial; it's an advert, fire extinguishers are larger and come in pairs, the way toilets flush (unlike America and its lust for power displayed in high pressured jettison, Scots and their old pipes let copious amounts of water pour over waste, making it disappear in a fountain of persuasion rather than force), the way buses operate. Even the lazy and populist dairy slogan Got Milk? is replaced by the more self-possessed and grammatically dignified Make Mine Milk. The constant contrasts give a dialectic Protestant v. Catholic or Democrat v. Republican flavor to the relationship, where once one side take stance or plants a flag, the other is quick to distinguish itself and claim the opposite territory.
The way buses operate warrant special attention. Anyone familiar with American mass transit knows it to be a scary way to tour indeed. A rider (or at least this rider) feels very much in the way of the process. Buses depart the instant the last foot touches or is lifted from the curb, depending on riders exiting or entering. Searching for a pass, let alone fumbling for exact change, isn't tolerated so much as it's ridiculed and held in contempt. After taking their seats a bit frazzled by the aggressive annoyance pointed their way, riders track their progress via posted routes and better keep diligent track. Stops are hollered over fast-foodish PAs moments before a given stop.
In Scotland, the tempo is more largo than addagio. For example: you stand in a clump of people, one of whom does this thing with his arm you figure is some kind of stretch. The bus rolls to a stop. The driver greets you from behind his teller's window, waits for you to decipher the denominations of coins in your pocket, and will print you out a receipt or pass on the spot. He speaks in a thick accent and patiently repeats himself in an accent no less thick. You thank him and zig-zag to an open seat, trying all the way down the aisle to piece together what was just said to you. All you can be sure of, given the tone, is that it wasn't an insult you'd expect from a driver in the USA who somehow has better things to do than help you get to where you need to go. Seat taken and hands folded over lap, you wait for Queens Street. You can't read the street signs (which in British contrariness are placards screwed onto buildings, far off the actual street corner) quick enough, but figure they're probably minor streets anyway. You watch as stops are passed with people standing in them. You watch the environs transition from downtown steel and stone store fronts to fronts sporting more iron bars and particle board. It occurs to you you haven't heard a car honk even once. It also occurs to you that not a single stop has been hollered. No route map is posted. You get the feeling you're in a bad part of town judging from all of the gambling institutions and extra drifting refuse. You think that the distance between stops is awfully long and so you ask the nice old woman in front of you if she knows how long till Queens Street. She says with eyes brimming with compassion, "Heavens dear, t'was wee bahk dere." It's at that moment you learn that there's more than one way to skin a cat. That transit systems can rush you, stop at every stop, and make you sorry for being in the way. That transit systems can also respect your nerves, forgo the annoying PA squawks that are wasted on the locals, free up ad space by making cabins route-less, stop only at the stops its passengers have requesting through depressing buttons discreetly located in the Keep Upright poles, and for £4 they'll gladly take you to the end of the line and kindly ask you to wait for the next bus by that trashcan fire over there.
It turns out buses stop at designated stops only when hailed if not otherwise notified by the interior beep. That rider with the arm thing who boarded before you was hailing in Scottish fashion, arm out at 45°, hand below waist, fingers out and palm down. It also turns out that tourists don't need to know where a stop is. Since you're in need of help, you're expected to ask for it. If you tell the driver you're looking for Queens Street, he'll squirrel that away in his noggin, lean out of his little teller's booth/driver's seat when the time is right, make eye contact with you specifically, and jerk his head to the door, at which point you'll rise, and make your way off without anyone so much as casting a disapproving glance for keeping them in their seats for an extra fifteen seconds since it took you a while to realize this stop the driver stopped at just for you and he's been trying to get your attention without words, calmly, for the past five seconds as you were lost in googly-eyed wonder at how beautiful the buildings holding chintzy retail can be.
5/21/12 - To continue (momentarily) the theme of difference: Pantene (of hair care fame) is pronounced "pan-ten" instead of "pan-teen," healthy baked goods are wholemeal instead of whole grain, drivers are instructed to Give Way, not Yield, and closed roads are circumvented by Diversions rather than Detours.
***
The streets in Glasgow are, as to be expected during waking hours in a major city, full of both people and vehicles. Surprisingly, there are the fair number of four-legged commuters. More surprising still is how all of the canines are on the loose. Joining the pedestrians on the usually generous sidewalks are dogs who make their way with as much single-minded purpose as their human counterparts. Evidently, there is no leash law in Scotland or the constables (not police) have bigger fish to fry. The first time I saw a dog in Glasgow, I assumed it was a stray. (My exact thought was likely the more indicting, "Where is your owner?") No one looked alarmed, though, or moved to the other side of the street in fear at the sight of the shepard mix. Upon further observation, seeing how the dog moved with the surety of routine, how well it obeyed the rules of the road, and how a man with sparse blonde hair and an empty stare six feet back seemed to be weaving the same course, I concluded the dog was still within the confines of domestication. Owner and owned were wholly unconcerned about automotive peril and their other halves. The dog was absorbed in trotting and sniffing; his person was sucking on the stubby remnant of a cigarette and, when watching his pet, did so in that way people watch one thing in order to think about something else entirely. Both appeared ready to part at any time but without animosity or unseemly pathos. It's not that they were uncooperative or distant. They were obviously headed to the same destination. It's just that they weren't codependent.
***
This does not and could not fly in America. For a country that prides itself on freedom, the US doesn't do well with the appearance of public disorder. The freedom we're comfortable pursuing in America is the freedom to be control freaks, to have liberty over something else. We Americans like thinking that other beings can't handle what we can, that they'd just botch it all up. So where possible, we prevent them from the opportunity. In a country where a person can change his name to Tyrannosaurus Rex, we shove dogs in purses or harness them in choker collars. As a result, American dogs handle freedom less graciously. An American dog unhooked from a lead is a dog gone wild—galloping around, jumping on everyone he meets, oblivious to all dangers, getting side-tracked from every pursuit .
I'm not disputing the safety of leashes. I'm relaying an instance of what travelling is so good at doing: questioning our presets. With enough training and trust, dogs can take walks without our constant correction.(although not legally on most US soil). After speaking with a Scot on the topic, I learned they think leashed dogs are the dangerous ones since there's obviously something in the dogs that requires restraining.
***
***
I'm not disputing the safety of leashes. I'm relaying an instance of what travelling is so good at doing: questioning our presets. With enough training and trust, dogs can take walks without our constant correction.(although not legally on most US soil). After speaking with a Scot on the topic, I learned they think leashed dogs are the dangerous ones since there's obviously something in the dogs that requires restraining.
***
Buildings in Scotland are impressive—not in height, but in ornamentation. Few surfaces are plain or flat. There are textures and thick lines, keystones and coins, weight-bearing columns and bevelled or beaded edges, small statues in coves and capstones on ledges, an occasional gargoyle. It feels like the architects took a standard box and dressed it up, put a tuxedo on it, a monocle on its eye, a pocket watch in its vest, and a top hat on its crown.
Where my American mind frequently returns to is how expensive it must have been to build a city in that fashion. So much of the budget was spent on superfluity. One feels privileged to see them, let alone step foot in them. But one can and does enter if one is in the market for a video game or a new T-shirt because these buildings now house chain and boutique retail. An orange Nike swoosh, a white Apple, blue Gap rectangle, and hundreds of other logos have been grafted onto the faces of these buildings. It saddens me to see this humiliation like graffiti on a marble sculpture or a torn canvas. That these structures, built as they were to last and impress, are just uncommon venues for the common, ubiquitous selling game feels wrong. It feels deceptive or misleading to look up at the stone work, the hewn opulence, the monuments to values greater than utility and then to look down and see the red letters H & M and scantily clad mannequins.
Back home, we're much more forthcoming. You know every big box store or strip mall you come across was designed to sell you a good or services as quickly and cheaply as possible. This feels more honest, more fitting with the transactional event which is the building's final cause. With our architecture, we say, "Let's not bring beauty into this. That's not why you came here." It's like foreplay with a prostitute.
But then I think of how the buildings' beauty in Scotland (and elsewhere) is still a free gift, regardless of the cause it now serves. I remind myself of how the architects were hired hundreds of years ago for reasons no more noble: to flaunt individual's wealth, hawk merchandise my early modern analogue couldn't afford, or declare through brick and stone a bank's or merchant's arrival onto the Big Scene. Although the intentions of construction have changed, it doesn't cost anymore than it ever did to walk by and take it in, dumbfounded.
5/22/12 - Glasgow is a place where you can get a buzz from people-watching. Thousands of people all dressed seemingly with your eyes in mind. Crazy fashion. Haute couture. On the women: Printed tights with outrageous Aztec or animal patterns, pastel capris, or genie pants with a little less flair than MC Hammer's. Sheer cotton blouses from the American 70s or UK 2012 as homage to the American 70s. Deconstructed shirts leaving little for the seamstress and less for the imagination. The one modest woman in ten opting for a sundress and a flapper's footwear. High heels with toe lift for the rest (wobbling over cobble stone streets, mind you). Hair pinned and spun around wildly. A tattoo on most spaces between the top of shoulder and clavicle (usually birds), calf (more abstract, like a whirlpool/spiral), or top of foot (the outline of stars without fail). On the men: constrictive black jeans with the tongue's of sneakers overlaying cuffs. Hair short on the sides, combed and gelled to attention or swooped into an asymmetrical coiffure. No shortage of Lakers' caps on the more subdued. Zepplin T-shirts are big. 1 in 20 wear an S inside a diamond on their chest; 1 in 200 wear a bat silhouette inside a yellow oval. If a collared shirt, then the top button must be buttoned without a tie. A mustache is a self-aware joke he can sport on his face. Black, Risky Business Ray Bans on the bridge of everyones' noses and a shopping bag or four in in everyone's closed fist. Rebels weaving solo through the myriad or cliques walking in four-wide crescents, whispering comments about that girl or guy or scanning the periphery for looks shot their own way. Sprinkled throughout it all are workers, business-suited, or the endangered apres-garde, cloaked in muted colors, scurrying like people without umbrellas in the drizzle.
5/23/12 - We (my wife Megan and I) took a train north through the heart of the country, from low-to-mid-to-high-lands. The center is fertile farmland. The native tree cover has been clear cut for ages. The fields are wide open and gently bulbous. Sheep dapple the pastures. From a distance, they can be confused for gray rocks as little as they move. Other land is painted sublimely with dense, vibrant swaths of intense yellow. These patches brightly shine in the vaguely geometric pattern of tilled fields, like a piece of sun was flattened, barely dimmed, and stamped onto the ground. A nonplussed native informed us the crop was rapeseed upon inquiry.
Further north, the terrain grows desolate. The dominant colors fade from greens and yellows to browns and grays. Glaciers dug deep here. The volcanic land undulates violently as we weave between mountains less tall and jagged than their Rocky counterparts but still amply imposing to a boy from Midwest flatlands. Mortarless, ghostly walls of hand-laid stones divide arid hills. Picts long dead saw something worthy of toil in them.
To make matters worse, we could not decide whether we belonged on the second or third leg from where we were standing. The road sign terribly skewed the angles of incidence for the various roads to the point of disorientation. We could not decipher what was what. This was a sobering moment amid the dizzying traffic noises. Megan and I exchanged a frazzled look of Now What? Although 4 km is easier than 4 mi, it's no stroll in the park when you're carrying around 15 lbs. of your life on your back and the other 25 lbs. is crammed in a wheeled carry-on that loves to tip over inopportunely. Already dreadfully close to an hour into a journey whose total length is unknown, we shuddered at the prospect of starting down the wrong path only to have to double back. Defeated, we resolved to take the second leg and try to call the rental company from a local's land-line.
We managed to make the dash across two of the six intersecting branches without being struck or losing a shoe. We huffed and puffed for an inadequate respite, recollected ourselves, and set out for a place to as for a request.
The cruelty of fate requires the first few businesses we came across be shuttered. The street gradually devolved into industrial complexes with sparsely populated car parks. We trudged past a dilapidated strip mall. Finally, one Open sign hung expectantly in the storefront of a locksmith shop. I left Megan in the shade of the building to guard our bags. I entered glistening with sweat due to the unseasonably warm temperatures and the sojourner's incentive to wear more clothes to pack less away. I passed through a showroom of hinges and handles, door knobs and door bells, a surreal tunnel of walls lined with gleaming brass and polished nickel, affixed nearly floor to ceiling and each nonfunctional. Past the showroom stood the sales counter and, beyond, the shop floor. A metallic smell hung in this space, formed from the suspended particles cast off by the row of grinding machines.
An employee was leaning on a table off to the right, thumbing through a glossy catalog. He closed it and came around toward the center, near the cash register. The employee was in his early 40s, balding and forgetfully clothed, sweating himself from the Highland lack of central air conditioning. Name-tagless, he waited for me to make my opening remarks.
I was a humble supplicant. I smiled a none-too-big smile. I took pains to explain our predicament concisely. My wife and I are touring your fair, bonnie land. We are exhausted after an afternoon of hiking. We are scheduled to rent a car and, despite our best efforts, we can't make it to the rendezvous. So, if I could trouble you ever so briefly to make a lone call, I have the number right here...
To my surprise, he said no.
The worker and I shared a silent moment. With Megan standing outside and the sand relentlessly spilling through out vacation hourglass, I pressed the issue. I assured him the call wasn't long distance and added that my wife and I were at his mercy. We didn't know how we'd make it otherwise. It would only take a minute and we would be ever so grateful. Just a simple call and we'd be gone. He looked like what I imagine I look like when speaking with a telemarketer. He told me to wait right there and went to consult with his manager. The manager worked in a foreman's office replete with a big plate-glass window that looked out onto the store. The pair conferred, the skeptical one leaning in close as though to prevent my overhearing. The manager stared at me as though safely obscured behind one-way glass, rather than the office's two-way glass.
The two developed a plan of a attack in under ten words and emerged from the room, the worker trailing behind. The manager assertively asked that I recap the situation for him, which I did. I showed him the paperwork we had verifying our rental reservations. He scanned it closely, all but holding it up to the light to look for a watermark. I explained that I would make a call and that would be it. I would wait outside with my wife. I tried to emphasize that, although it was a great favor to us, it would be no effort for them. Local calls are free, everywhere, right? Something about the logo must have set him at ease. He checked me out once more, running a final gut background check. His demeanor changed entirely when I passed. He said sure, he'll make the call himself. At this, the worker returned to his catalog. The manager picked up the phone, dialed, and had a congenial chat. I was promised a car would retrieve us within 15 minutes. I thanked both smiths effusively.
I rejoined Megan outside, accompanied by the manager. He was now jocular, eager to make small talk. He asked us where we were from, what we planned to do in Inverness, and told us of a good little Italian place we should try. He raved about the weather of late. We said we were lucky.
A diminutive Volkswagen eventually did come to our rescue. The manager saw us off, even shutting Megan's door for her.
In the chill of climate control, I wondered what that was all about. Going in, I presumed I would have no trouble saving our day. I was dressed well in an oxford, V-neck sweater, and chinos. I was clean and freshly shaven. My conduct was impeccable, too. Aware of my relative position of need, I conducted myself with utmost deference and civility. And the request was paltry. A phone call is even less intrusive than using a bathroom. We were relying upon some basic human decency, more bedrock than sparing change for a bus ride or lending a hand to change a tire. In play was the kind of entry level human obligation that doesn't cost you anything more than a minute out of the 1,000+ your day consists of, like reciprocating a greeting or explaining to a foreigner where Harbour Street is. What's the risk in a little courtesy call? Why would anyone reasonably reject my request? I couldn't square their intransigence.
It hit me while the three of us were passing a BP filling station, shortly after thinking how the 'B' means something different to the British than to me. I had been profiled for the first time in my life. I was, by my accent alone, of questionable moral origins. I could be a fly-by-night American con artist, a cowboy ne'er do well, or a parasitic Amway scammer.
I had never before considered the possibility I could be suspicious because of my nationality. That 'American' could mean anything other than trustworthy was news to me. I had never been an outsider or a member of any group approximating a minority to that extent. Here my whiteness, my maleness, my lack of major blemishes or other disfigurement didn't afford me the modicum of respect to which I was accustomed.
Now is the time where I clarify I'm not claiming I'm a victim of hate or that I know full well what it's like to be systemically oppressed. The inconvenience and discomfort were obviously trivial in comparison to other real world prejudicial outcomes. The employee, after all, was probably willing to assist me until the moment I opened my mouth. Most of the truly scary, damaging discrimination happens before a plea can be uttered. Still, the bewilderment I felt was real in a way I'd been spared from before. Consider my eyes opened.
Further north, the terrain grows desolate. The dominant colors fade from greens and yellows to browns and grays. Glaciers dug deep here. The volcanic land undulates violently as we weave between mountains less tall and jagged than their Rocky counterparts but still amply imposing to a boy from Midwest flatlands. Mortarless, ghostly walls of hand-laid stones divide arid hills. Picts long dead saw something worthy of toil in them.
***
The next stop on our tripartite trip was the highland's unofficial capitol, Inverness. After arriving at the train depot, we searched the adjoining car park (British for parking lot) for an Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee propped up against what we imagined to be a diminutive Volkswagen. Some would deride this search of ours as wishful thinking. Our antecedent request had been shoddy at best. Not possessing an operative phone on the trip due to extortionist international call rates, we sent a Hail Mary of an email prior to leaving Glasgow to the rental company's Contact Us address. We included our ETA and noted we would have no means up updating them as to our actual time of arrival. Our hope was that this information would be disseminated from the general mailbox to the Team Member of the Month, who would jump at the opportunity to wait around for an indefinite amount of time. After all, the service is so central to their business model, it's half of their slogan (i.e., "Pick Enterprise. We'll pick you up.") But alas, the only vehicles idling were taxis leaned on by men speaking animatedly into phones with indecipherable cocktails of accents..
Anxious not to waste a moment of precious vacation time, we took stock of the situation. Problem #1: we don't know how to get to where we're going. Problem #2: maps cost money. Problem #3: we're on a fairly strict budget, the strictness of which would leave you ruing the expenditure of a couple pounds Sterling on a map you used all of once since the B&B surely has a free tourist edition with coupons for the Spot Nessy Ferry Tours along the bottom. Problem #3: Cabs cost way more than maps. Problem #4: I believe we can walk any distance if we're realistic in our expectations. And so, more or less together we arrived at a solution. We opted to seek out the rental car location on foot armed only with the knowledge of its address.
With luggage in tow and slung over our shoulders, we wove through the unusually narrow sidewalks in the general direction of the Enterprise lot, which is to say away from the depot. In the span of a half an hour, we progressed from a touristy part of town to a decidedly humdrum part of town. Every ten minutes, we asked a Scot how to get to Harbour Road. (We asked repeatedly because, after about four turns, I cannot process additional directions over the interference of my mantra-like repetition of the first few.) There followed much pointing and meaningless landmark referencing, the spiel capped by assurances it was just 'doon the wey'. Megan and I trudged on with notably less pep in our step after each demoralizing exchange.
What let the most wind out of our sails was our first confrontation with a multi-lane roundabout. From above, these must look eerily like bulls-eyes and you, the walker, are the peripheral bullet hole. Without the benefit of traffic lights or crosswalks, pedestrians take their bags and their lives in the hands in the crossing. The set-up would make for a penultimate level in Frogger, the whirlpoolish, multi-input mayhem discouraging you from hopping forward without immediately hopping back.
Anxious not to waste a moment of precious vacation time, we took stock of the situation. Problem #1: we don't know how to get to where we're going. Problem #2: maps cost money. Problem #3: we're on a fairly strict budget, the strictness of which would leave you ruing the expenditure of a couple pounds Sterling on a map you used all of once since the B&B surely has a free tourist edition with coupons for the Spot Nessy Ferry Tours along the bottom. Problem #3: Cabs cost way more than maps. Problem #4: I believe we can walk any distance if we're realistic in our expectations. And so, more or less together we arrived at a solution. We opted to seek out the rental car location on foot armed only with the knowledge of its address.
With luggage in tow and slung over our shoulders, we wove through the unusually narrow sidewalks in the general direction of the Enterprise lot, which is to say away from the depot. In the span of a half an hour, we progressed from a touristy part of town to a decidedly humdrum part of town. Every ten minutes, we asked a Scot how to get to Harbour Road. (We asked repeatedly because, after about four turns, I cannot process additional directions over the interference of my mantra-like repetition of the first few.) There followed much pointing and meaningless landmark referencing, the spiel capped by assurances it was just 'doon the wey'. Megan and I trudged on with notably less pep in our step after each demoralizing exchange.
What let the most wind out of our sails was our first confrontation with a multi-lane roundabout. From above, these must look eerily like bulls-eyes and you, the walker, are the peripheral bullet hole. Without the benefit of traffic lights or crosswalks, pedestrians take their bags and their lives in the hands in the crossing. The set-up would make for a penultimate level in Frogger, the whirlpoolish, multi-input mayhem discouraging you from hopping forward without immediately hopping back.
To make matters worse, we could not decide whether we belonged on the second or third leg from where we were standing. The road sign terribly skewed the angles of incidence for the various roads to the point of disorientation. We could not decipher what was what. This was a sobering moment amid the dizzying traffic noises. Megan and I exchanged a frazzled look of Now What? Although 4 km is easier than 4 mi, it's no stroll in the park when you're carrying around 15 lbs. of your life on your back and the other 25 lbs. is crammed in a wheeled carry-on that loves to tip over inopportunely. Already dreadfully close to an hour into a journey whose total length is unknown, we shuddered at the prospect of starting down the wrong path only to have to double back. Defeated, we resolved to take the second leg and try to call the rental company from a local's land-line.
We managed to make the dash across two of the six intersecting branches without being struck or losing a shoe. We huffed and puffed for an inadequate respite, recollected ourselves, and set out for a place to as for a request.
The cruelty of fate requires the first few businesses we came across be shuttered. The street gradually devolved into industrial complexes with sparsely populated car parks. We trudged past a dilapidated strip mall. Finally, one Open sign hung expectantly in the storefront of a locksmith shop. I left Megan in the shade of the building to guard our bags. I entered glistening with sweat due to the unseasonably warm temperatures and the sojourner's incentive to wear more clothes to pack less away. I passed through a showroom of hinges and handles, door knobs and door bells, a surreal tunnel of walls lined with gleaming brass and polished nickel, affixed nearly floor to ceiling and each nonfunctional. Past the showroom stood the sales counter and, beyond, the shop floor. A metallic smell hung in this space, formed from the suspended particles cast off by the row of grinding machines.
An employee was leaning on a table off to the right, thumbing through a glossy catalog. He closed it and came around toward the center, near the cash register. The employee was in his early 40s, balding and forgetfully clothed, sweating himself from the Highland lack of central air conditioning. Name-tagless, he waited for me to make my opening remarks.
I was a humble supplicant. I smiled a none-too-big smile. I took pains to explain our predicament concisely. My wife and I are touring your fair, bonnie land. We are exhausted after an afternoon of hiking. We are scheduled to rent a car and, despite our best efforts, we can't make it to the rendezvous. So, if I could trouble you ever so briefly to make a lone call, I have the number right here...
To my surprise, he said no.
The worker and I shared a silent moment. With Megan standing outside and the sand relentlessly spilling through out vacation hourglass, I pressed the issue. I assured him the call wasn't long distance and added that my wife and I were at his mercy. We didn't know how we'd make it otherwise. It would only take a minute and we would be ever so grateful. Just a simple call and we'd be gone. He looked like what I imagine I look like when speaking with a telemarketer. He told me to wait right there and went to consult with his manager. The manager worked in a foreman's office replete with a big plate-glass window that looked out onto the store. The pair conferred, the skeptical one leaning in close as though to prevent my overhearing. The manager stared at me as though safely obscured behind one-way glass, rather than the office's two-way glass.
The two developed a plan of a attack in under ten words and emerged from the room, the worker trailing behind. The manager assertively asked that I recap the situation for him, which I did. I showed him the paperwork we had verifying our rental reservations. He scanned it closely, all but holding it up to the light to look for a watermark. I explained that I would make a call and that would be it. I would wait outside with my wife. I tried to emphasize that, although it was a great favor to us, it would be no effort for them. Local calls are free, everywhere, right? Something about the logo must have set him at ease. He checked me out once more, running a final gut background check. His demeanor changed entirely when I passed. He said sure, he'll make the call himself. At this, the worker returned to his catalog. The manager picked up the phone, dialed, and had a congenial chat. I was promised a car would retrieve us within 15 minutes. I thanked both smiths effusively.
I rejoined Megan outside, accompanied by the manager. He was now jocular, eager to make small talk. He asked us where we were from, what we planned to do in Inverness, and told us of a good little Italian place we should try. He raved about the weather of late. We said we were lucky.
A diminutive Volkswagen eventually did come to our rescue. The manager saw us off, even shutting Megan's door for her.
In the chill of climate control, I wondered what that was all about. Going in, I presumed I would have no trouble saving our day. I was dressed well in an oxford, V-neck sweater, and chinos. I was clean and freshly shaven. My conduct was impeccable, too. Aware of my relative position of need, I conducted myself with utmost deference and civility. And the request was paltry. A phone call is even less intrusive than using a bathroom. We were relying upon some basic human decency, more bedrock than sparing change for a bus ride or lending a hand to change a tire. In play was the kind of entry level human obligation that doesn't cost you anything more than a minute out of the 1,000+ your day consists of, like reciprocating a greeting or explaining to a foreigner where Harbour Street is. What's the risk in a little courtesy call? Why would anyone reasonably reject my request? I couldn't square their intransigence.
It hit me while the three of us were passing a BP filling station, shortly after thinking how the 'B' means something different to the British than to me. I had been profiled for the first time in my life. I was, by my accent alone, of questionable moral origins. I could be a fly-by-night American con artist, a cowboy ne'er do well, or a parasitic Amway scammer.
I had never before considered the possibility I could be suspicious because of my nationality. That 'American' could mean anything other than trustworthy was news to me. I had never been an outsider or a member of any group approximating a minority to that extent. Here my whiteness, my maleness, my lack of major blemishes or other disfigurement didn't afford me the modicum of respect to which I was accustomed.
Now is the time where I clarify I'm not claiming I'm a victim of hate or that I know full well what it's like to be systemically oppressed. The inconvenience and discomfort were obviously trivial in comparison to other real world prejudicial outcomes. The employee, after all, was probably willing to assist me until the moment I opened my mouth. Most of the truly scary, damaging discrimination happens before a plea can be uttered. Still, the bewilderment I felt was real in a way I'd been spared from before. Consider my eyes opened.
***
The age of Scotland, the building materials and craftsman skill in using them, creates an anti-hermit crab situation. The dwellers are what change but the shell remains the same. Churches and cathedrals have become mortuaries or event spaces. A castle in Inverness, replete with turrets and towers, is home to a functioning municipal court, judicial staff, and sheriffs. A peek in one of the lower windows reveals fluorescent lights, cubicles, and supposedly inspirational posters. How strange. ***
Bunnies are even cuter in Scotland.
5/24/12 - The diversity of Scottish landscape is stupefying. Some areas are lush green; some are barren save for brown clumps of terrestrial barnacles; some places stretch to the horizon like a taut sheet, without tree, bush, or weed; other places are wrinkled with creeks and covered with gorse and meandering cattle. At some points Loch Ness pools placidly on flat rocky shores like it was a puddle, not so much as sloshing; at others, the water gushes down 40 feet and could only be reached by sliding on an 80% grade. Some hills are blighted with all but the scraggliest of trees felled; other hills are so packed tight with 60 foot Scotch pine that sunlight can't strike the mossy ground below at high noon.
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What makes a people more patient? Whatever it is, Scotland has it stockpiled.
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Most surreal road I ever traversed: to reach Chanonry Point (where the bottlenose dolphins are rumored to feast just shy of high tide), one must drive through a golf course. Not wind between the borders of holes protected by a scenic canopy of trees like in a Cadillac commercial, but to drive down a one-lane, two-way road blazed clear through the fairway—as in to actively put yourself between players of unknown handicap and a 4.25 inch hole behind the wheel of a decidedly more realistic target. The driver becomes a mobile hazard. Balls whiz overhead. But there's more. Add to the mix vision obscuring 8 ft. tall bushes flanking the road (to create blind spots for the golf-carts who must cross the road perpendicularly, obviously) and motorized wheelchairs sharing the road with you at 5 MPH tops and you get the elements for a perfect storm of anxiety. A place you want very much to drive at great speeds through to decrease the odds of a direct hit but in which you're forced to idle through in order to avoid bending fenders with vehicles not requiring license or insurance. Many questions go unanswered beyond which came first: road or course. Where did the elderly come from, why are there so many of them, and why aren't they frightened? Is this like an octogenarian version of Russian roulette?
5/25/12 - I take it back. Everything isn't different. Sex sells. Seagulls are brazen. Cigarette butts don't biodegrade. Groups of Asians with hulking cameras are obviously travelling. Instant coffee still takes like crap. Children's television is unsettling when muted on a big screen. But life is usually at least a little off like a kaleidoscope slightly turned. All the colors are the same, but the shapes have shifted and rearranged a bit. The variances in spelling, cheers instead of thanks, grand instead of great. You're in the same ballpark but on the other baseline.
5/26/12 - Acquaintance must dull the grandiosity of sights. Otherwise, Scots could hardly be capable of productivity. They'd either be shuffling along, mouth agape with craned necks or dozing from exhaustion after seeing so much. Seeing all of this is exhausting.
5/27/12 - If I had a pound for every American city I've seen on a shirt/hat or 50 pence for every American song I've heard, I could pay for a couple nights in a hotel. Cool is the greatest American export.
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The streets are teeming with tourists. Millions of pictures are taken here each year. It has taken a few years, but the investment in Edinburgh's New Town has surely yielded quite a nice return.
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On the sidewalks, pedestrians tend to walk on the right side—even the Scottish ones. I take this as incontrovertible proof the rules of the road are innate and the British left-sided insistence is unnatural.
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If only I didn't have to work. I could people-watch and sight-see all day long.
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Even here, women still dress generally better than men.
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The Scottish accent does to English what coffee grounds do to hot water.
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Scotland was not to be messed with way before Texas. The country presents with something of a a Short Man Syndrome. It likes to bear its teeth. Their national flower has vicious thorns; their motto translates roughly to, "If you hit me, I'll hit you." When you read the plaques at museums, it's understandable. They've been on the grocery list of a few hungry empires over the millenia.
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I have a hard time believing I'm actually here, that I've been here for nearly a week. It makes me suspicious, how around every corner or bend is yet another countless view/building/monument of overwhelming aesthetic pleasure. I feel like a child whose been invited/encouraged to binge on candy bars. A rush gives way to lethargy, but not a sick too-much sort of lethargy. More of a wedding night sort of tired, where you've experienced so much joy you collapse with a smile on your face and spittle slipping out the corner of your mouth.
5/28/12 - Life is a bit like a vacation without the fixed date of departure. Any time you're aware the trip is drawing to a close, you're nearer to its end than you were the day before, you shove the thoughts below. You focus on what's left. But the truth nags at you like an askance frame on the wall. You tell yourself that maybe it's level or your stare at the carpet. But it won't leave you be, not entirely, because you know it in a way that can't be avoided. Like your kinesthetic sense. Shut your mouth, pinch your nose, stuff your ears, and squeeze your lids, and you still know you're moving. This is coming to an end.
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Looking at a map of Edinburgh, there are a lot of green circles, squares, and rectangles interspersed throughout New Town. The larger patches have labels like Prince's Street Garden or Queen's Street Garden. In anticipation, you conjure up images of a Saturday in the Park with Friends reenactment with yourself supine in the midst of a troop of pleasant Scottish strangers. When you arrive in the city and set course by your map to wander through such a park, you find them wrought-iron fenced and boxwood hedged just tall enough for a man of average height to look longingly into. You think, "Ah, a fence is useful to keep the wayward animals out," and you stroll along the perimeter to find a gate requiring opposable thumbs to operate. You walks blocks looking for such a gate and, when one is discovered, it's not only shut but locked without a sign posted nearby explaining how the park is closed for maintenance or has unusual hours. Later, you're told the property owners of nearby gargantuan town homes are given keys to access these urban nature reserves.
Learning of this hurt me. It was like I became aware of an insult uttered once and for all before I was born, like I'd scanned a list of very important people and found myself snubbed. I am familiar with boundaries to protect the real estate of individuals, but I couldn't recall running across such a boundary for a class of people. These parks are out in public, their presence inescapable as if designed to say, "Attention: You can't have this. This is not for you." In America, the trappings of wealth are more secluded. They're usually in gated communities off the beaten path or inside buildings well north of eye level. You're rarely allowed, let alone forced, to view it from all sides and angles. It's much easier, as an excluded party, to pretend it isn't there. I wouldn't be admitted to country clubs, but those aren't smack in the middle of the city surrounded by busy roads. You have to go a little out of your way to find them. Of course I see fancy cars, but that's obviously private property. I don't expect admittance. These jointly-private parks remind you that the best of nature—trees for shade and lawns for picnics or an evening's reprieve—can be cordoned off and kept from you.
I get it—the reason for the fences. I'm a threat, a suspicious person, a faceless, shifty member of the public who can spoil the garden. I'm empowered by perverse liberty as an uninvested party to taint what isn't mine. And it seems to be working. From what I can see, the parks are pristine—if a little under utilized. I imagine the benches have no initials carved in them and there's no refuse resisting decomposition in a rut. But it seems to me a bleak concession to hopelessness or pessimism, that people you don't know will ruin what you have if given the opportunity.
5/29/12 - The rumor has been personally confirmed: they are more snooty/highfalutin in Edinburgh than Glasgow. In two full days, I have seen at least ten signs around open grassy areas forbidding ball games except for croquet. (I have seen zero croquet mallets, balls, or gates.) Orientation in the Royal Botanic Garden in the form of a map costs £1.50. The entrance to Her Majesty's tropical green houses will set you back £4.50, achieving the desired exclusivity (and the unintended consequence of making the Queen of the British Empire come off as hard up for cash).
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Edinburgh is the only area in Scotland where public consumption of alcohol is legal and is home to the citizens least tempted to do so.
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Two sounds haunt Scotland: bagpipes and pigeons.
On various strolls throughout our journey, Megan and I heard bagpipes somewhere in the offing. More than once we were disappointed when, in pursuit of the sound, we arrived at a tchotchke shop playing a CD that had suffered many reductions in price. Midway through our trip, we learned the best place to find bagpipers is in public parks next to a monument/statue (the backdrop for an irresistible photo op). The pipers busk in traditional Scottish garb and do their best to pop capillaries in their foreheads through extreme exhalation. The two times we met with a flesh-and-blood bagpiper we were impressed at the sprightliness of the instrument. Although Americans largely recognize it from funereal dirges, it can be quite the multi-layered note-producer. At its frenetic height, the bagpipes can induce its audience to sway uncontrollably like a cobra before a different sort of pipe. For all the noise, the playing requires little movement beyond fingers dancing up-and-down the chanter and a slight toe tap. This makes for an uncanny agitation/composure juxtaposition, the bright red face and intermittently heaving chest against the rigid, upright stance.
I now know no city, on either side of the Atlantic, is complete without pigeons. Whether they free-ride on cargo ships or were indigenous to both sides of all faultlines prior to continental drift, the birds are international. Like the ones I'm used to, Scottish pigeons expend their waking hours gleaning on pavement. New to me, however, was their domestic life. Because urban areas in Scotland are more tree-friendly, the birds can make their homes directly above your head instead of in a distant overhang or attic. Gorged on scraps of food and nestled unseen in the crook of a branch, they unwind by loudly wheezing. It's impossible (after no shortage of examples) to determine whether the pigeons are in extreme pleasure or pain, whether the trills are orgasmic or asthmatic in origin. Whatever their cause, the sounds are labored. Easily 50 percent of a pedestrian's daytime walks are within earshot of a pigeon's odd cry. The cooing can and does poke a hole in any inflating balloon of thought.
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The grass here is hard to believe. All lawns are reminiscent of putting greens, which is funny/sad when you consider all of the money and effort that goes into making a different variety in America do what the Scotch variety does on its own, effortlessly. It feels synthetic, the ideal on which those cheap Astroturf carpets or welcome mats were modeled. It's a creeping netted grass, happy at a height of half-an-inch and resistant fingers being run through it.
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You hear more pleases and thank yous in Scotland than America. Your pardon is begged if your shoulder is brushed by another in passing. Much greater is the willingness to strike up a conversation with a stranger (but only if prompted, like when an unleashed dog runs up to a stranger wanting affection). Is it because their ambient individualism isn't steroidal? Is it because of the cultural homogeneity? The citizenry is exceedingly white with tepid convictions aside from soccer. Class is a little harder to discern nowadays than it used to be given the casualizing of contemporary fashion. Gone are top hats and tails. Is that why it's okay to pull up the empty chair at a table in a pub and start to slur and carry on because we're the same, you and I, since we're in here basking in the electrical equivalent of candlelight having a few wee drams? Or is it just the Scotch talking? Is that why it feels safe to say hello in a park, because only your neighbors of adjoining buildings have access to? Or is it just Eden speaking through you?
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