All of Scotland - The Pilot's Daughter

Lets talk about Scotland. Scotland was an amazing trip and experience. I was there for four days and went to Edinburgh, The Highlands, Loch Ness (I know its in the Highlands but had to add it), Isle of Skye and the Fairy Pools, Glasgow, oh and hiked to the top of Ben Nevis. I felt like I saw the entire country. I saw all of this with a couple of friends and one of my friends brought his cousin with him, and by cousin I mean “kind of” cousin who was about my dads age with kids. He was without a doubt the most interesting yet kind person I ever met in my life. I feel I have met some pretty special people during my travels, normally though they are foreigners, which maybe makes it less hilarious. He was such a big part of the trip I have to talk about him.

This man, Pat, was fabulous. First day of meeting him, he initiated skinny-dipping in 30 degree water with 60 degree air temperature. Ok that is an exaggeration but it felt like it was freezing.

Next I learned that he had a prosthetic leg by him sitting next to me in the car and asking if I minded if he took off his leg. No judgment what-so-ever but that is a pretty shocking for your car neighbor to ask.

At our first hotel we were staying at we grabbed a beer at the hotel pub and ran into a wedding party. It was the groom and groomsmen enjoying the night before the wedding. It was so great to sit and talk to locals and hear about the Scottish culture. We learned a lot that night for example the Scots really don’t wear anything underneath their kilts. We learned this the nice way, meaning the groom told us it was tradition and he wanted to be extremely traditional for his wedding. We weren’t as fortunate the next night at a pub in Edinburgh when we were surrounded by stag parties (bachelor parties) and lots of hairy butts were shown. But back to the hotel, before we know it when we looked over at Pat, the leg was off and he was telling three stories of how he lost his leg for us all to guess which was correct. The night ended with lots of people have his leg in their face or on their shoulder—the shoulder was mine.

When we got to Edinburgh, the magical enchanting city of Edinburgh, we thought he might not go out partying with us like we were planning on doing or at least the chance of the leg coming off at a very crowded pub was less. But of course as you predicted we were wrong. We were talking with a group of guys and next time we looked over the leg was off again. Natalie, my friend, had to have a talk with him at that point letting him know that he was being too “dad” and she was not going to meet guys this way.

But on a serious note he made the trip great and I would not do it over without him.

Scotland on it’s own was amazing. Beautiful green land that you would only expect would exist in Scotland. The intimate city of Edinburgh with character on every corner. Oh and I’m forgetting one of my favorite parts of the trip! I was in Scotland for the Wimbledon finals and if you are a tennis fan you know Murray is Scottish. Being in his country for his first Wimbledon win was one for the books. But I think the leg coming off at the bar tops it.

And of course below is lots of pictures.