F'ailte gu Alba!

Ciamar a tha thu! (keh-mer a ha-oo) It means how are you in Gaelic. And the title translates as “Welcome to Scotland” but I don’t know how to pronounce it.

Thistle, the national flower.

We’re not six anymore, we’re just four, because the girls are in USA. Dubai-London, London-Edinburgh, a bus, a train and a car ride later we’re in Valerie’s bed-n-breakfast where we drink tea and chat. Apparently 18 C is a tropical weather for Scotland, too hot.

Though we had a good night sleep, we can’t make up our minds, which way to go, which thing to visit first. Edinburgh (pronounced lovingly by the Scots as Edin-bur-ah) is full of people because of the annual festival. There are events in every monument or building, including in the street. There are streams of human beings, pouring on the cobbled streets. The flow is impeded by rain, that seems to be capricious, choosing to drop on unprepared people. We have plastic rain coats: when we wear them, it doesn’t rain, when we take them off, we get drenched.

We take some pictures with a Scot dressed in full regalia and playing the pipes. We want to visit the castle but there is at least one hour line to buy the tickets. It would be easier to buy them on the internet and pick them up tomorrow morning. So we go to the Scotland Museum. 

I think this served as inspiration for J.K. Rowling...it is a trunk with 14 locks

You know, there are days and then there are some other days. We couldn’t figure out where to start, because the museum began half a level above from where we entered (though we had exhibits down there). “ We used to do things this way” starts almost any explanation. The presentation was beautiful, inviting, cohesive, but... TOO MUCH INFORMATION! We could have visited for days in a row to absorb all there was too know, and we have only three days here and four more in the Highlands, and there are so many things to learn. I realize I’m tired, maybe I hit the famous wall, the one that every long term traveler hits at some point. I could sit down and complain, wallow in self pity. Or I could acknowledge it, realize I have five more months to go and then I will be home, where I could have my familiar things and the same schedule, over and over again. Well, let’s enjoy those five more months!

At least some of us had fun!

The next day is sunny for 4 hours in a row! We are first in line for the castle and first to see Honors, the crown jewels. The Scottish ones. 

View of the castle and its view (partial)

Just one of the towers.

This is what I learned about Scotland: they were a headache for the Romans, Hadrian built a wall to keep them away. There were a few tribes, some speaking Gaelic, at some point they united and in the heat of the fight they would cry “Albannaich!”, meaning themselves, Scots. When Britain started to have an upper hand, the Scots decided to unite with it, on condition that they keep their crown jewels and the right to have their kingdom. And that’s why we can see them here (and not in London): a crown, a scepter and a sword (we can’t photograph the real jewels, just the metal ones, made for the visually impaired).

The castle in itself is small and not interesting. There is an exhibition about the Royal Scot, a regiment formed from others, where we learned that after the union, the Scots could wear the kilt and speak Gaelic only if in the army. So they joined in great numbers to keep their identity.

Mihai kept looking for a museum lauded by the guidebook. One about war, where everything is made interesting. At the entrance we watch a movie (again about Scots and how bravely they fought). Looking at the objects I caught with the corner of my eye the word Mysore. I was there, I saw the new palace! I read the small print, how the Scot officer killed the raja and took the exhibited objects as a war trophy. I can see in a painting from that time how the Raja is dying, his sword hanging now in a glass box. 

"For we fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for Freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life"
 I wonder how many Scotts lived in Mysore, India, deprived of their freedom in 1799.

I revolt against war, political and economical expansion. I look into Mihai’s eyes and I read my thoughts in them. We get out immediately. Maybe we’re not able to do anything against today’s wars, but we can stop visiting this kind of museums. And a little voice in my head asks me how many exhibits from the so many museums that I visited or want to visit are plundered from their rightful place?

We walk the streets, with their performers, and the crowds attracted by them.

“Museum of childhood” started as a hobby that grew too big for one building, so it occupies two, with a total of five floors. As society evolved, and the parents had a life that didn’t include raising their children, so appeared objects for their care: the bottle with a rubber nipple, the pram (for long walks, because air was good for their little lungs), the first formulas. Then walkers, toys grouped for ages or boys or girls, the majority from Western countries but some from other continents too (dolls from Japan or Africa, different game-boards).

We end our last day in the city at the National Gallery where we admire the Scottish paintings and tapestries.

View from close to the National Gallery, which has a no photos policy.

Then we rented a car and moved around Highlands. We started with Oban, a quaint town with the Doneli castle and some Colosseum like building on top of the hill. 



A gentleman in the War and Peace museum told us that if we can see a cloud over the islands (right across the bay), it means it is going to rain. 

If we can’t see the islands, it means it’s raining already. Weather used to be a subject of conversation and I didn’t understand why. Scotland’s weather could occupy people for ages. Let’s say it is cloudy, but not in a strata, the clouds are fluffy, just forming, rolling over the hill, in the valley, obscuring houses, releasing their droplets on this street, but not on that one, 10 yards further. A gust of wind moves the clouds apart, the sun shines, sparkling everything, raising a rainbow. A few seconds later, the dulness returns. No one comes in Scotland for the weather.

From here we drove toward the island of Skye and on the way we stopped at Loch Ness, that looked like a big flat lake. Nessie didn’t get out to say hello.

On the island of Skye we drove around, taking in the scenery, wild and unrestricted speckled with manicured gardens and colorful houses.

Kilt Rock

Windswept

We couldn’t leave Scotland without visiting another castle.

Eilean Donan Castle, we just took pictures.

 Every clan had a one, that is home for all who claim ancestry here. Dunvegan Castle, inhabited continuosly for 800 years by the McLeod (sounds McCloud) clan was our choice. Ioan had to look for rusted keys to give answers to the questions, like: “With what color was the Fairy Flag repaired?” “Mom, in the book says it was yellow, but here it looks red. Which one it is?” He got all his keys right and received an insignia. Tapaidh leat! (tap-a-lot) Thank you!

We're trying to capture the Dunvegan Castle, but the rusted gate does its duty!

One night on the bus separates us from London and our girls. We wait in line at the gate G instead of F as it is announced on the board. The F gate bus goes somewhere else. In front of us is a group of Indians, talking and helping each other. Above the hubbub raises a plaintive voice “But I waited in line since 9 o’clock. The board says gate F” In short there was a girl who wouldn’t make it in our bus, because she wasn’t in the correct line, because they changed the gates. The man who verified the tickets raised his voice, trying to impress that his job doesn’t include solving her problem. They go back and forth for a few minutes, then one Indian guy leaves the group to tell him to back up, don’t abuse her with words. Instantly two more uniformed men appear, they all concentrate on the man, voices raised, hands on his arms, ready to put him down “What is your concern?” “She comes from where I come! Someone has to help her!” Ooooh, the chivalry! I look at the girl, lost and tired, unable to ask for the curtesy to be moved in front of our line. She is Asian 100%! I wander how  the Japanese metro officers would have handled this situation...

We're watching you!
If you don't know what are these, the answer is at the end of the blog.

Seven days, eight nights, an ancient city and modern in the same time, narrow streets, history on every square centimeter, quaint hamlets, hearty breakfasts, everywhere flags, blue with the white cross of St. Andrew, sign of the Scottish identity.

Haggis, the brown round thing, a tasty and heavy treat for breakfast.

Beana cleibh Alba! (bee-anna clyb) Good bye Scotland!

And the answer is: cat's eyes on the road, that keep the cars in line.

Welcome, Day 100!

It's here! Our 100^th day on the road. We left October 16^th, and now it's January 23^rd.

That said, it's been nuts. We've been all over the place (so far: Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal, and India), heard all sorts of languages, and walked probably more than is healthy. 

Just joking. You can never walk too much.

So, what am I doing to celebrate our 100^th day? Writing this blog post, full of small snippets of our life over the past hundred days.

Before I begin, though, something Melly, a friend from the Write Write And Write group, said before we left:

"The number one thing to remember, mino, if anything ever goes wrong, it will make a hilarious story later on."

And she was right.

Japan

Kyoto

Japan is one of the most organized countries I've ever seen.

While waiting to enter (or exit?) one of the any gardens (which are stunning, by the way), I spotted a black and white dog that looked decidedly out of place.

I nudged Ileana.

Look at that dog. I said, I think that's the first out-of-place thing I've seen here.

Unfortunately for my very interesting quote, even the dog was in-place— he went up to a security guard and started eating the scraps of his sandwich as if he was very used to such royal treatment.

--

While in another garden, hurrying because the closing time was approaching, a gardener walked up to Dad. The rest of us kept walking, because we wanted to see as much as possible of the garden before it closed.

When Dad caught up to us, he said

Știi ce mi-a zis omul ăla? "Sloowly, sloowly, hurry-hurry-hurry!" Adică, bucură-te de grădină, dar grăbește-te.

[And in English!]

You know what that man told me? "Sloowly, sloowly, hurry-hurry-hurry!" Which means, enjoy the garden, but hurry up.

That about sums it up.

Tokyo

Dad has a compass on his iPhone. He pulls it out regularly, makes bee-dance motions with his hand, and then checks the direction we're supposedly going in.

While pulling out his iPhone to do exactly that, he says,

Stai să ne busolim puțin… Ăsta este un cuvânt nou.

Let's compass ourselves a bit… this is a new word.

China

Beijing

Near our hotel room in Beijing, there were a few restaurants.

One of these was a 'hot-pot' restaurant. You order raw food and the waitress brings over a bronze pot and fills it with boiling water.

You then use chopsticks to throw your food into the pot.

That's the easy part.

The hard part is getting it out.

As Dad said while we were 'bobbing for apples with sticks,'

Mi-a căzut și mi-a scăpat bucata cea mai mare de carne de la inventarea "mutonului."

I just dropped and lost the biggest piece of meat since the invention of mutton.

We found it…

Eventually.

--

Usually when we go places it's because our parents are pushing from the back for us to go there.

Not so to this random place we went to in Beijing. Dad unexpectedly said, as we were looking about…

Visul meu, speranța mea, este să nu mai venim pe aici. Uitați-vă bine.

My dream, my hope, is that we don't come here again. Look well.

—

Upon meeting Bunica and Bunicu and Nasha in Beijing, Bunica remembered she wanted to bring out the brushes she'd brought for us.

Am făcut bagajul foarte organizat, ca urmare acum nu găsesc nimic.

I made the bags very organized, so now I can't find anything.

—

You all remember that the real name of the Great Wall of China is the Great Steps of China.

This unprecedented find was helped by Ioan.

—

Peking duck is also known as the duck from paradise, as dubbed by Ileana.

Tibet

Lhasa

I try to get a quote from each city we go to, but we'd been in Lhasa for almost a week and I still had no quote.

Someone say something funny for our Lhasa quote!

I exclaimed, and Ileana burst out laughing.

Nepal

Kathmandu

We were in a restaurant other than our beloved Alchemy, and we'd just ordered what looked to be very red and green food.

Red, of course means spices. Green often means the same thing.

Ia să vedem ce e aici, Mama a zis, luând niste carne dintr-o farfurie, Uite, Tata.

Let's see what this is, Mom said, taking some meat from a plate, Here, Dad.

The food looked to be spicy.

This looked like a blatant attempt at poisonization! We all stared at Mom.

Dad dies, Ileana says, and Mom says, "Free at last!"

Dad grins and says, "Ah. Guess I shouldn't have let him cancel the life insurance."

(Referring, of course, to the fact that we are every American's worst nightmare: Jobless, Homeless, and Uninsured.)

When we'd finished eating, I looked at my plate with a frown and said,

Okay. I ate one piece of chicken, one of those, and a fourth of the macaroni. That's it. So why am I so full?

Dad grinned.

You're full of yourself. He said.

Of course, with such bantering going on around me, I had my iPod Touch out almost constantly. When I drew it out again, Ioan said,

Are you sure you want to take that risk?

Prompting, of course, another quote.

What risk? It was a calculated mistake.

And when I put it away, Ioan said,

Are you sure you want to do that? A funny quote WILL come.

— 

The next morning, at breakfast on the terrace, we looked up because a strange noise was coming from the water tank.

"Oh," said Mom, "it just filled up."

"How much water do you think is in that?" Ioan asked,

"About 1000 liters."

"What happens when it runs out?"

"No more hot water." Mom said, "And then you get rusty water."

Ioan looked over toward Ileana, a mischievous smile on his face. Ileana is well-known for her long stays in the bathroom when there is access to a shower and/or mirror. 

Hear that, Ileana? He asked, If you use more than 1000 liters…

—

The next night, at dinner, while confronted with some of the spiciest food we've encountered, Dad said,

Mananc ceapa ca sa-mi scot iuteala.

I'm eating onions to take away the spiciness.

Yeah, the food was that spicy. 

But we had not yet arrived in India… where 'not spicy' means 'two little chiles.'

India

Goa

One night, after a movie, Ioan, Dad and I decided to start playing FAZAN.

The basic rules of the game are this— 

1. Have someone say the alphabet. Someone else must then say STOP.

2. The person saying the alphabet must say a word starting with that letter.

3. The person to the right or left of the first person must then say a word that begins with the last two letters of the previous word. (Which is why this game is very hard in English.)

4. Repeat step 3 until someone cannot find a word, at which point play starts again from Step 1, and the 'loser' receives a letter from the word FAZAN.

When Dad started winning too easily, we changed to a derivative of the game "we're going on a picnic…"

That of naming gods and goddesses. When we couldn't find anything for a C We called down Ileana.

And spent another hour trying to figure out gods and goddesses name. Apparently, according to Dad, Christ doesn't count for the game, because:

Real gods don't count.

When we got to K and couldn't find anything, it was Dad's turn. He said,

"I don't know anything for K… there's a psychiatric medication for that, but I don't know any deities."

I asked Dad if he really knew 26 medications from A to Z… and he knew about 20 of them. (There are not many medications for J, W, etc.) He knew them, side effects, use… etc.

I think I want to be a psychiatrist when I grow up!

—

Hampi

The first day, we all went up to see a temple walking distance from our hotel. However, when we finished sightseeing the temple, Ioan, Mom, and Dad wanted to climb up some huge rocks and see from up there, but Ileana and I just wanted to walk home.

Because Ileana gets lost coming back from the bathroom in an airport, I took the lead.

And led us into a thicket of brambles that didn't quite look like the path we'd come back by.

HOWEVER. The bramble path was right in front of us, and the correct path was out of the way and to the right.

While we were trying to push through the bramble path, Ileana stepped on a bramble.

This is painful— proven by Ileana's loud exclamation.

"This is all your fault!"

"I didn't make you step on a bramble." I said, laughing, "You should have looked where you were going."

For the sake of humor, it's YOUR fault! Ileana exclaimed,

And that was that. XD

Kerala

Dacă mănânc tot ce e aici, pot să dorm eu în camera din mijloc și țânțari o să leșine.

If I eat everything that's here, I can sleep in the middle room and the mosquitos will faint.

No explanation is needed for this quote besides the fact that spicy food deters mosquitoes.

China

Guilin

As we were climbing 800 steps to reach the Moon Palace (a round, circular HOLE in the middle of a mountain in Guilin, China, that looks like a 'full moom' in some places and a 'full moon' in others), Ileana and I spotted a white person.

At the beginning of the trip, says Ileana as we climb, everyone was looking at us like 'oh look a white person!' And now I've turned into them!

It is true. It's soooo amazing to see a Caucasian (or African, or anything besides Indian/Asian) that we sometimes stare.

NO ONE tells you about this when you head off to Asia.

—

I ordered a spaghetti bolognese at the Luna restaurant.

The waitress as she was reading it back, said:

So you wanted a spaghetti broken eggs, green beans and pork, … etc etc.

Yes, please!

—

It is cold in China. When I am miserable, everyone must be miserable as well. Hopping around is not an acceptable behavior for freezing people.

BUT… that is exactly what Ioan was doing.

Ioan! It's cold! HIBERNATE!

Guangzhou

IT'S COLD! I'M COLD! I'M COLD! I'M COLD!

There was no heating, you see, in our rooms.

Hong Kong

Our washing machine (how awesome are washing machines!) makes strange sounds. Something like an airplane taking off.

Mom's reaction was something like this:

Cine își ia zborul?

Who's taking flight?

We are! Except we're taking the ferry out of Hong Kong, not an airplane. ^_^

— 

As a side note, Chinese New Year Parade was amazing, long, and somewhat tiring— we were squashed against the fence in one position for about an hour. Moving meant losing part of the parade. NO WAY.

It was… amazing. But more on that (and hopefully pictures) later!