About and Abroad: Travel Week in Scotland

I’m sitting out near the Thames River in Port Meadow right now, safely back in good old Oxford. This last week was a week sans classes, and therefore “travel week” where we could pick up and go wherever we wanted so long as we got back for the start of Naught Week of Michaelmas Term. Oxford life should now start off with a bang, as we get our main tutorials and clubs get going and all the students move it.

Knowing of our week-long freedom beforehand, we’d brewed a couple schemes up for an adventure – the first using motorcycles, the second mopeds, and the third a bus to Edinburgh. After realizing we didn’t know how to ride motorcycles, and then that getting anywhere via mopeds would’ve involved terrifying use of the freeway or innumerable and confusing directions simply to exit London, we decided it was off to Edinburgh.

We stayed in a hostel right near the Old Town city center, with the exception of one night couchsurfing and another in the nearby town of Stirling. For me, it was something of a practice week for the months of travel I hope to experience after I graduate in December. And it made me so STOKED on this whole idea of longer-term, engaged travel (“Vagabonding” by Rolf Potts in my new Bible and should be yours if you are thinking of ever traveling at all in any way). We didn’t bring many things in our packs, and lived cheaply. Our days were largely unstructured, and we walked most everywhere we went. A whole week may seem like a long time to spend in one place, when there’s all of Europe spread before you as cheap as a RyanAir ticket – “Doesn’t it seem like you could see SO MUCH in that week?” Those folks are right, in some ways. You could physically transport yourself to a lot of places in a week if you really wanted. But there was no substitute for getting to know the bartenders at Sandy Bells after a few nights of rotating folk music, for waiting out rain and weather and finding eventual sunshine over the ancient skyline, for knowing the roads and pieces of histories and acclimatizing to the friendly air of the Scots. A week was not enough at all for a place like Edinburgh.

We heard a lot of amazing folk music, had some unbelievable whiskey, hiked above the city on a dormant volcano, saw the sites of the Scottish reformation and the brutal retaliation it received, and even sang Wagon Wheel and Bob Dylan for a crowded Saturday-night pub. I’ve got the Royal Mile city center road largely memorized, and average only twice through a sentence to understand the Scottish accent. I’m practically dying to get up to the Scottish highlands, especially the Isle of Skye (famous for the sea kayaking!). I’m seeing a lot of Alaskan parallels (except here they’ve chopped all their forests, killed all their wolves, grizzly bears, and moose, and don’t really have glaciers anymore). We saw lots of un-ironic kilts and good bagpipe players and did indeed have haggis in a pub in Stirling.

That way of intentional but open travel not hasty to move along to another place resulted in people-focused experiences and the kind of cultural rewards I’m only beginning to discover are possible. I’m now twice as motivated to really dig deep and save money and make something of my spring adventures. But, of course, after an academic butt kicking here at Oxford, where I can apply many of the same lessons of travel I’ve learned up in Scotland. This week we’re getting Bodlian cards, meeting with academic advisors, and touring the Union where I’ll definitely be attending the weekly debates. Stoked on all that too. Just got to get some sleep at some point!

Yup. That’s the word, big bird.

Oh! And if you haven't checked out the new Sigur Ros Album "Kveikur" yet, do it. Right now. They rock so hard this time around. As usual, incomparable.