Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Scot Free
View of Oban, Scotland from McCaig TowerToday I'll tell you one of my favourite travel stories.
This is by way of compensation to your friend and mine, mistah JC from the Vinyl Villain. The other day, I was goofing on him that he was from England when he is in fact from Glasgow.
Just to reassure everyone, I was just trying to needle his ethnic sensitivities. I'm perfectly well aware that Glasgow is in Ireland.
Ha, ha, OK I've pretty much killed that gag now.
On to the story, just to prove I actually know something about Scotland and British Isles geography...
When I was a mere lad in my 20s, I took half a year off of school to do the ol' back-packing through Europe bit. Yada, yada, yada, by and by I ended up in the Scottish resort town of Oban. It's on the west coast, up by Argyllshire I believe. (And btw, JC, the bus to Oban departed from your fair city of Glasgow.)
I instantly fell in love with Oban and it sings in my memory still.
When I first got there, I stood out on the docks and drank in the sea air (always a treat for prairie dwellers). A sound .... there was a faint sound drifting in over the water. God damn if it wasn't bag pipes lost someplace out in the misty islands.
Normally on the back-packing trail, a person hooks up with some fellow travellers at the hostel and then goes out with a group. Safety in numbers and all that. Oban excited my imagination so much that I couldn't wait for that procedure. I decided to head right out to the first pub I came across and strike up a convo with the locals.
Have you seen American Werewolf in London? There's this marvelous seen near the beginning where the two American boys walk into a raucous pub that falls totally silent as soon as the locals notice strangers at the door. I had exactly that experience.
I sat at the bar and was promptly treated like a ghost. People were literally having conversations over top of me and the barkeep was far too busy polishing glasses to serve me.
Finally, I had had enough humiliation. Rather than crawl out with my tail between my legs, I decided to give the proprietor a graceful way to get rid of me.
"Look, obviously I'm a tourist. I'm looking to go on a bit of a pub crawl tonight. Could you recommend some good pubs in town."
Well, now he was offended.
"A goood pub? Ye want ta knew a goood pub? You'rrre in it, lad! You'rrre in it!"
Then he served me and the locals warmed up to me a little bit. It was here I first discovered (and have verified on other occasions) that many Scottish people have a bizzarely detailed knowledge of Canadian geography. Through most of my travels, when people asked where I was from, I had to resort to things like "You know where Toronto is? OK, it's about 2,000 kilometres west of that." Not the Scots. Most of them were familiar with the location of every major city in every province. Only the Germans out-did them in detailed geographic knowledge.
I was studying political science at the time, so by and by I turned the conversation to politics. This was the 1980s and Margaret Thatcher was PM then, so the locals were moping that Scotland was under-represented in government, just as they always are when the Tories are in office.
They went on at some length about how powerless they were feeling at the time. So, off the top of my head, I ventured the opinion:
"Gosh, it sounds to me like what you people need is some sort of federal system."
Once again, the pub went totally silent. It seems that, over top of all the other noise, even people in the furthest corners of the pub had heard me say this. You could hear a pin drop. I thought I had made some major faux pas and was certain I was going to be lynched.
Then, the whole place erupted in a great cheer. People came up to shake my hand and slap me on the back. An incredible quantity of alcohol started to show up in front of me. Pint after pint of beer. Shot after shot of the most insanely delicious aged single malt whiskies I have ever tasted (all locally made, of course).
My dreamed-of pub crawl did indeed happen, in a much grander style than I could have imagined. I was escorted from pub to pub by an enthusiastic crowd (OK, maybe it was only three or four guys, but it seemed like a crowd at the time.) I never touched my wallet the rest of the evening.
I have a vague memory of playing pool in some other establishment, but the rest of the evening is black until I woke up the next morning outside my hostel.
Apparently, the notion of federalism was popular in that part of Scotland at that time. I'm pleased to report that the UK now has what we in North America would call federalism and that the Scots at long last have their own regional parliament. I smiled the smile of auld lang syne when I heard that.
A quick post-script:
Several months after the above events, I was in a hostel in Austria and told this story to a snooty English fellow. I had already told this story many times by then, so I had worked it up into quite an act with all sorts of wild hand gestures and little bits of acting-out of the parts (it's too bad you all can't see those parts of the story).
The Englishman listened intently, completely enraptured by my story. When I finished, there was a long pregnant pause. Finally, the Englishman, with a skeptical look on his face, looked me in the eye and asked:
"Do you mean to tell me that you got a Scotsman to buy you a drink?"
Here endeth my tale of Scotland.
Now, your turn. Let's have some fun telling our favourite travel stories.
posted by Mentok @ 10:16 a.m.,
5 Comments:
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At 3:47 p.m.,
Elizabeth said...
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That's a great story, Mentok. I've only been to Scotland once, by accident, but hopefully I'll get a chance to visit soon.
It's a long story, but my most memorable travel experiences were the leading up to a good friend having to drive 2 hours to collect my incoherent and belligerent ass from a car park in the middle of nowhere Wales when I was 17.
And congratulations on your first non-smoking year! -
At 11:02 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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Ah, to be 17, belligerent and lost in Wales again! Don't we all wish we could have those days back?
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At 5:05 a.m.,
Unknown said...
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Mentok.
I read this a few days at a time when I was down and low about a few things. It made me smile and laugh out loud. I meant to come in earlier and say thank you but have been caught up in a busy time at work and home.
So, better late than never.
THANK YOU.
PS
You can just about see a small hotel in the distance at the back of the photo behind the ferrry terminal where Mrs Villain and myself were at a wedding 5 or 6 years ago. It was a real lovely gloriously sunny Scottish day that made me realise how lucky I am to live in this country. -
At 9:54 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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You are most welcome, JC. It was my pleasure. (My pleasure but I'm afraid not the pleasure of my real life friends who have heard me tell this story more often than the lawnmower joke.)
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At 4:23 a.m.,
said...
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As a resident non-Scot this absolutely tickled me. So obviously Scottish, bunch of drunken Muppets that they are.
