British Invasion

Q: What has a Marco, a Moxy, the world's largest rubber band ball, and approximately 623,183,834 thumbs?

A: The United States of America

That's right, we've finally returned to country of our birth. We knew we were home when the guy manning the insanely long customs line at Boston Logan Airport yelled “Hello?!” to someone who wasn't moving fast enough. Ah, America. We missed you too.

It seems sort of silly to write another entry when one half of our target mom audience has already heard the information first hand, but oh well. This one goes out to posterity.

When Mark left off, we were winging our way to Edinburgh after a 7 week Grand Tour of the Continent. Watch as I try and fail to condense our 3 week British journey into something readable. Here I go!

Part I: Edinburgh

Oh my, but Edinburgh is lovely. Picture a stone castle perched on a cliff, looming over the winding alleyways and covered stairs of the old town and the broad Georgian avenues of the new town.

Now picture us trying to navigate those alleys and avenues through the huge crowds that descend on the city during the month-long Fringe Festival - giant blue suitcase, trombone and accordion in tow. Disaster recipe 101.

The Fringe Festival is a gigantic endeavor. Theater groups, comedians, musicians from around the world turn every bar and cafe and theater into a venue. You can't walk down High Street (the main street, also called the Royal Mile) without being accosted by scores of performers and hired promoters handing out fliers advertising their shows. Add in thousands of tourists and around 50 tenacious street acts, and you've got yourself a stew - the deliciously creative and chaotic stew that is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Mark and I arrived for the festival's final week. Every morning at 10am we braved the inevitable rain with the other street performers (some old friends, some new friends, plus the inevitable crazies and egomaniacs), waiting for our name to be pulled out of the official sack so we could sign up for our pitch that day. We played some lovely shows in front of the National Gallery of Scotland, and a gigantic one on High Street. I really preferred the atmosphere of the museum crowds, though, even if they weren't quite as big. You can't beat culture.

These were our first shows ever in English, and I think we did well. It was extremely bizarre to realize that everyone probably understood everything I was saying. Mark couldn't break the habit of saying “Supa!” (super) in a German accent, and my syntax sometimes slipped back into Deutsch (“If you're wearing a hat, come now please into the circle!”), but I think overall we did well. And I think our show really stood out as one that didn't fall back again and again onto the same overused stock street performing lines and tricks. To illustrate: I think we watched four separate shows with someone breaking out of a straightjacket wrapped in chains. Now try that while playing the accordion, and THAT I'll care about.

Our friend Fleur who lives in London was also at the last week of the Fringe. We know her from the year she spent at the Clown Conservatory in SF, so it was exciting to reunite (and she even had an extra room for us to stay in for the last few days!). More on her later. Speaking of reunions, one night Mark ran into his cousin (also named Mark) at a bar near Fleur's place. He was just in the city for one night following a car trip though the Scottish highlands. Remarkable! (Get it?)

Also we watched five Fringe shows (theater, not street). They varied from okay to excellent. Call me for more information. This entry is already too long. 

Looking down on the city from cliffs just outside the city center.

Nice city park, eh?

Our big show on High Street.

Part II: Scottish Isles

Mark and I planned to spend some time with Fleur back in London, but we wanted to do some Scottish exploring first. So, storing our excess (and how) luggage at the Left Luggage counter in the Edinburgh station, we jumped on a train and went West, young man. At Glasgow, we went north with only a vague destination in mind – Loch Lomond, a large lake known for having some nice hikes. Our plan was to spend four or five days camping before heading back to London. Interesting fact: Scotland's Outdoor Access Code, commonly known as the “right to roam,” means you can camp anywhere you want, as long as it's not in someone's backyard or on a baseball field while a game's in progress. That first night, we set up camp in the pouring rain somewhere between a subdivision and a tiny highway. Ah, nature.

In the morning, after consulting the Lonely Planet Scotland book that Mark the Cousin left for us, we changed our plan. We decided to push north and west, using the infrequent bus and more frequent ferry service to explore some of the many Western Islands. Because so much of the mainland in that region is peninsular (real word?), cut up by dramatic fjord-like lochs, you can ride the bus all day and only end up a few miles away from where you started. Makes sense that for much of its history this area was ruled by Vikings and other sea lords. Our total number of ferry rides this trip: 6.

The first island we experienced was Iona. It's is a tiny tiny place, but huge in the history of Christianity. St. Columba landed there from Ireland in the 500s, founded a monastery, and proceeded to convert all of pagan Scotland. People believe that the Book of Kells was started there, but because of so many Viking raids in later centuries, was moved to Ireland. Tiny Iona boasts the ruins of a nunnery, an ancient abbey, a cemetery where over 50 kings of ancient Scotland are buried (including Macbeth), sandy beaches, and wind-swept grassy hills.

We set up our tent on one of those wind-swept hills, congratulating ourselves on outsmarting the midges (terrible biting flies that terrorize Scotland every summer). After a sleepless night spent in a violently shaking tent thinking the ghosts of ancient Scottish kings were trying to throw us off the mountain, we weren't so smug. We were, however, witnesses to a magnificent sunrise that lit up the ocean and faraway cliffs. Then, quick, pack up the tent and run for the ferry back to the island of Mull, en route to the mainland.

And that was how my 27^th birthday began.

Hebridean beach

The abbey and ancient cemetary

Our terrible and beautiful camp site on the hill. This is the last picture we took before Mark's camera ran out of batteries. The charger? Back at Left Luggage in Edinburgh.

Another island we spent a few days on was Islay, home to no fewer than eight whiskey distilleries. On the day after my birthday (which still counts as my birthday because I was born on the West Coast of the USA – time difference!), we trekked several miles in the misting rain, past blackberry bushes and skittish sheep, to visit 3 different distilleries: Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg. We took the 10am tour of Laphroaig and learned a whole lot about the process of making Scotch whiskey. Then we sat in their visiting lounge and drank complimentary drams of their wonderfully peaty quarter cask. Educational and delicious. We didn't tour the other two, but did (of course) take full advantage of their visiting lounges and complimentary drams, fortification against the gray rainy moors.

Add in another day spent biking along the Atlantic coast and through the Highland interior, startling sheep and communing with Highland cattle, and you've got yourself one excellent Western Isle excursion.

We bought 2 disposable cameras to use for the rest of our Scottish adventure. This is one of our six ferries.

Out in the Hebrides, signs show Gaelic first, then English.

Enjoying Lagavulin's visiting lounge.

Our campsite in the front lawn of the White Hart Hotel. Outdoor Access Code!

A meeting.

Our bike trip lunch spot. If it were less misty, you could see Ireland. A joke our Laphroaig tour guide told us: "If you can see Ireland, it's about to rain. If you can't see Ireland, it's raining already."

Sunset over Islay from the ferry.

Part III: London

London is BIG. Or at least that's how it felt to us after spending a week where a town was huge if it had more than one grocery mini-mart.

We stayed with our friend Fleur (there she is again) and she really treated us to a complete English experience. My favorite day was when we toured the National Gallery of Art in the morning, had traditional afternoon tea complete with crustless cucumber sandwiches, then finished the afternoon in awe at the British Museum. So much awe that Mark and I returned the next day. Egyptian mummies and statues, Roman ruins, Assyrian reliefs, Medieval art, the Rosetta Stone, just centuries and centuries of evocative artifacts, and for Mark, an entire room full of clocks and watches. We could have spent a month there without getting bored. Especially since almost all the museums in London are free.

Speaking of museums, we also toured the British Library (Magna Carta + the oldest bound book in Europe), the Natural History Museum (giant sloth skeleton), the Hunterian Museum (a room full of jars with dissected body parts + Charles Babbage's brain), the Tate (lotsa art), and the Tower of London. I'm willing to plan your next London trip, just mail me a check. FYI, I only accept pounds now.

A red double decker AND Big Ben. Mark and Fleur to the right.

Part IV: Staverton and Totnes, Devon (a county in the western part of England, full of beaches and moors, where all the Brits go on vacation, right next to Torquay where Faulty Towers is set)

Mark's dad's best friend since he was little is conveniently named Marco. He makes wonderful paintings, wears a green beret and purple sweater, and lives with his wife and two daughters in Staverton. Their older son lives in Santa Barbara (the family originally lived in California). We spent two and a half idyllic days with them wandering the moors and hiking through the fields and gardens of an ancient estate (Henry the VIII temporarily owned it!). We were treated to “a real English cream tea” (in contrast to our apparently insufficient London attempt) and Lhasa (18 years old and headed off for a year of theater school in Stratford...that's right, the one upon Avon) gave us a tour of Totnes's hottest sights (including but not limited to the vintage store and local organic market).

Excuse my parenthesesing. 

Mark, a wild moor child, and the moors.

We rode with Lhasa on the steam train from Staverton to Totnes. An entire car was full of school kids dressed up like WWII evacuees. We got our own cabin.

Part V: The End

You made it, even if you just read the beginning, looked at the pictures, and rejoined us for the end! Congratulations.

Mark and I are busy adjusting to our more stationary lives...sort of. On Thursday we head up to Maine to visit his brother, and on October 2 we fly to San Francisco, and sometime before October 20 we fly to Austin for his cousin's wedding. In any case, we're adjusting to the sound of American accents and the sad dearth of digestive biscuits.

Some statistics as we look back on our whole trip:

Hostels stayed in: 1

Friends' houses stayed at: 6

Nights spent camping: 13

Bread and cheese meals: approximately 924

Times Mark changed his pants: 2 (Me: “Can I tell people you only changed your pants twice this whole trip?” Mark: “If that.”)

Total shows performed: 30

Total hearts touched: one million rainbow smiles

Average mileage: 49 miles per gallon

Total fuel used: 67.4 gallons

Total distance driven: 3,344 miles

Number of stall-outs: none...absolutely none at all...

And with that, we bid adieu. Maybe we'll see you soon, or maybe we just saw you. Anyway, thanks for reading and ciao for now!

Until next trip,

Marya and Mark