Traveling With Young Adults

Travel arrangements to Scotland made for three; plus my 88 year old mother; plus my brother and nephew; plus my two adult sons! I started to sweat just thinking of how this group could possibly travel together without everyone being unhappy. Then we lost one when my youngest son decided to visit some friends in Bulgaria instead. I had a feeling I could talk my other two sons out of traveling with us, but I was secretly both surprised and happy that they had decided to come. I was trying to weigh up the pros with the cons of attempting this trip. My sons both had drivers' licenses and could have helped with the driving, except the cost of putting them on our rental contract was more than we wanted to spend. I was looking forward to spending time together as a family, but was very conscious of the challenges of making plans for a diverse party of 7 or 8.

However, the boys began to pull their weight almost immediately. They had the best phone coverage and could check routes and ferry timetables easily. My oldest is a go-getter and happily made plans for the following day trip to Edinburgh. And his enthusiastic approach to trip planning convinced everyone else that we were making the best decision. No last minute arguing over where we should go with Jake in charge!
Sam is more of a loner and would take off and explore the area on foot. He came back with reports of what was worth visiting and how to get there. Already some of the pressure of making all the plans was starting to lift from my shoulders.

Lunch stops are always stressful because it is hard to find a spot that accommodates both our number and our varying tastes. We found a cute little sandwich shop off the main street where we could sit outside. Sam decided he'd rather eat at the Jolly Judge pub and ventured off by himself. Later, after hours on the road, he decided he needed a coffee and was gone. I felt a relief that at least one of the party was not waiting for me to take care of their needs. It was refreshing to see such independence.

They were quite happy to spend an evening by the fire playing cards, reading, or sharing a bottle of wine with us. My boys had grown up and did not need me to entertain them. They were capable of planning a day out in London at the galleries, museums and parks. I wasn't invited, and that suited me just fine. I knew they could take care of themselves and that freed me to take care of other matters.
Of course, not everyone in our household felt the same. New found independence, especially when it means expressing one's individuality instead of the previously subservient manner, can ruffle a few feathers among the older generation.

Although we want to see our children grow up and are proud of their independence, it is difficult to accept that the day is coming when they will no longer need us for anything... and their company cannot be bought.
I expected my blogs about this trip to be humorous, relating the comedy of errors of what should not have been attempted. However, Scotland surprised me with its raw breathtaking beauty, and my sons surprised me with their willingness to be both sons and adults.

Spital and Flash

I was quite pleased with my Airbnb bookings for our 7 day trip to Scotland. In order to keep the cost low I had managed to find two places that would accommodate our party of 8 under one roof, and in roughly the general area of Scotland we were most interested in visiting. Then I saw my brother's pictures of the hotel where he stayed in Scotland and started to worry that my choices would be slightly inadequate. How could an old school house and a cottage live up to a castle!

You never quite know what you'll get with Airbnb. This company started when its founder placed a blow-up mattress in his living room and called it a bed-and-breakfast. You get all sort of people renting out all sorts of accommodation, and I suppose I could have found a castle for a price. Because I wanted cheap, I would probably not be getting something to write home about.
I was pleasantly surprised with our first place: The Old Schoolhouse, sitting by itself beside a stream tumbling through farmland. It took us a while to find the place, and the key which had been left under a rock by the front door.

The place had 5 bedrooms, three baths and a huge open kitchen/living area. Everything was tastefully decorated with bright curtains over the windows set in thick stone walls looking out over the garden. If we felt we were better acquainted with Scotland by driving here, we were now thoroughly immersed in the land. We had a greater urge to go outside and explore our surroundings than connect to the wi-fi inside. And although it was quite a winding drive out to the nearest store, we thoroughly enjoyed cooking and eating together in that great kitchen. We wished we could have stayed longer...

But our second place was calling, literally! Our next host had been furiously emailing me for about a week now. She was asking about sleeping arrangements, and time of arrival. Then I received this enigmatic message: "spital. If I'm later than you I shouldn't be far behind and will put new mattress in when I arrive. I'm very sorry for an".  We puzzled over this during our lunch stop on the bonnie banks of  Lock Lomand. The puzzle was slightly cleared up with this following message: "I'm in Fortwilliam. I was getting a couple of new mattresses. While here my grandson has put flash in my granddaughters eyes. We are at the ho".  We reversed the sequence and pieced together the story with the help of an introduction to the Flash brand of bleach.

After all this, we had some difficulty finding the place. We were in a remote village of the Highlands with no cell phone reception, so we stopped at the local pub and asked for our host. Remarkably they knew her, someone they called "Zola" after the South African born barefoot runner. The pub gave us a hot meal of fish and chips and directions to the cottage which was left open for our arrival. I was slightly concerned about the mattresses, but all the beds looked ready for us. No sign of "Zola" , so I messaged her to tell her of our arrival and ask her about the nearest place to buy milk. I got this reply: "Still en route to hospital. Jane will bring milk. My cat if she is a pest. Feel free to put her out." Jane, the

neighbor, was around immediately, and we made ourselves at home in someone else's home. I had fun reading the visitors book to see who had stayed here before us and what they had found out about the area. The comments about the nearby distillery, light house and bakery were very helpful in our making the most of our stay in a village whose name I still can't pronounce correctly (Acharacle).
We did finally meet "Zola", when she popped in to bring us a bottle of wine one evening. We were able to get more of the story involving her granddaughter and their visit to the hospital. She was concerned that she was neglecting us because of having to drive 3 hours each day to Fort William.

We assured her that she couldn't have made our visit to her cottage any better and thanked her for giving us a piece of Scotland that no fancy Scottish hotel could offer.... an insight into what it might be like to live in the beautiful Scottish Highlands.

Driving Scotland

Have you seen the Top Gear episode set in Scotland? No, because it would be quite impossible to race cars in the Scottish Highlands. When driving along the banks of Loch Lomand on what the map described as a British 'A' road, I averaged about 30 mph. I drove as close as possible to the stone wall on my left, and hoped the on coming bus wouldn't take off my mirror when passing me on the right. It was not the road on which to sit back and appreciate the scenery of the loch. And as I was creeping along clenching the steering wheel, three BMW's roared past me without hesitation. Maybe they were on their way to the first filming of Top Gear in Scotland.

We had chosen to hire a car in England and drive up to Scotland because that was the best way to see the country. The motorways are fast and the Lake District provided a scenic lunch stop half way. The roads became smaller the closer we got to our accommodation. The final approach to the old schoolhouse was a one lane farm track winding through the sheep fields. The high stone walls keep the sheep off the road, but also lead to many blind corners and sudden stops when we met an on-coming farm vehicle. It must not have been very smooth riding in the back seat, because my son politely asked me to lay off the heavy use of my breaks the next day.

Our day trip to Edinburgh was easier. The city has several park-and-ride lots with a short tram ride into the city. This led me to believe that Scotland was prepared for the motoring tourist and I confidently set off across country after programming the GPS to guide us to one of the three castles I planned to visit. Doune Castle is well known for being the film location for Monte Python and more recently, the Outlander series. I expected a well signed approach and big car park. The sign, however, pointed us down a small lane round such a sharp corner I had to reverse to successfully complete it. And we were lucky to find the last space in a car park designed for about 10 cars. I wondered how the filming crews ever made it to this site.

Weary of the winding roads, we looked forward to our next accommodation in the Highlands. It didn't look far away on the map so we pushed on, following the on-board GPS, "Turn left now." "Board the ferry." And just like that, we were driving on board, crossing Loch Linnhe at a gap so narrow it would have made more sense to build a bridge. The crossing took 5 minutes and cost £8. This became the norm and we boarded two more ferries on our visit to the Isle of Skye the next day.

Driving on the Isle of Skye became even more challenging. No stone walls meant sheep wandered onto the road and were not motivated to move off. Farmers herded their highland cattle across our way indifferent to motorists. And there were more deer. There was never a time when the driver could sit back and relax.
To relax meant to stay home, and there was so much to see. On the map an outing might show a distance of 30 miles, but the route directions would claim it would take over an hour to drive that distance. We had to become less ambitious with the driving we did each day. Stopping at a distillery in our area we asked when the next tour would be. Finding out that there would be a wait of 45 minutes was not a problem. We were ready to order a cream tea, sit by the fire and wait.

We avoided getting back in the car to go out to eat that evening as well. We walked down to the nearest pub.  Driving around Scotland is almost too much of a good thing. My son was starting to ask me when we would see a highway again.
You can't really compare driving in Scotland to driving in the US. We overheard a tourist explain it this way: "In Scotland 100 years isn't old, and in the US 100 miles isn't far."

Oh, the People You'll Meet!

It started 25 years ago in Brasilia. Not my travels, that I was born to do. My mother flew to Rio on my due date and continued on to New York and London with me only two months. No, I married someone I met at a National Geographic conference and began a longer journey, a wonderful wandering one.
It was a great conference. National Geographic did a great job making the teaching of geography meaningful and I have used much of what I learned there in the classroom.  In closing, the group of teachers gathered to say goodbye and sign each others' atlases. (This was a geography conference, mind you!) Someone signed mine, "I don't know much about you... Jon."  Well, he at least knew my phone number by the time he left Brasilia, and that was the start of our long-distance dating. We took turns traveling 14 hours by overnight bus to be together on week-ends. Later we traveled from coast to coast across the US with an air-pass, and explored Southern Brazil by bus and train. We got engaged in the romantic historical town of Tiradentes and honeymooned off the northern coast of Brazil on the island of Fernando de Noronha. I suppose I gained much more from that conference than a few teaching tips!

Jon and I decided to continue our careers overseas and started out having our first child while teaching in Bulgaria. Jake was a well traveled little boy by the time he entered first grade in EARJ. There were plenty of others like us choosing to bring their children up overseas, and we made lasting friendships.
One of the curses of this kind of life is that you move from country to country and have to leave friends behind.

I was struggling with this when we lived in the Marshall Islands. I remember asking the company president's wife how she coped with their life of moving every two or three years. She explained that she saw it as a blessing because she had had the opportunity to meet so many people in each place she lived.
And now that Jon and I, our children all grown, are coming to the end of our time overseas, we will miss that part the most. We won't miss international education, which has sadly lost its way as it attempts to become competitive in the business world; we won't miss all the planes, trains and bus trips; we won't miss the shipping of boxes and storage of memories; but we will miss meeting the people.  Over these 25 years we have had the privilege of spending time with outstanding educators, diplomats, ambassadors, commanders, military families, preachers, missionary kids, linguists, musicians, engineers, rocket scientists, pilots, doctors, entrepreneurs, Olympic athletes, Canadians and Nigerians.

These, along with our cleaners, nannies, drivers, teaching assistants, and school secretaries, students and parents, have made our life infinitely richer.
We recently were invited to attend a Ramadan 'iftar', a meal which breaks the fast at sundown. We normally would have jumped at the chance since this is what makes living overseas so interesting. But we would have had to cancel a long-standing invitation to Happy Hour at the American Embassy. We love this chance to meet people like us who are temporarily in Kuwait, misplaced and away from home. The conversation never starts with the question, "Where are you from?" because that is often not so easy to answer. Instead we say, "How long have you been here?" and "What brings you to Kuwait?" Then we wallow in the familiarity of meeting someone from a country we have never lived in, doing something we never knew was possible. Jon and I feel at home in a place where everyone readily shares a part of themselves to enrich the experience of others.