My wife and I just spent two most amazing weeks in Scotland. We traveled there because my daughter, Katie Hall, 26, received her PhD from University of St. Andrews.
Katie, who grew up in Brentwood, specializes in primatology; she knows a lot about how apes and monkeys communicate. They’re very smart animals, they feel real feelings – and they are also pretty sneaky: My daughter’s thesis was all about how chimpanzees deceive one another in the competitive quest for food.
Anyway, Katie told us before coming to Scotland to expect lots of rain, so we came prepared with umbrellas, slickers and the like.
We got incredibly lucky on graduation day: the sun was out, the speeches were inspirational; the ceremonies at St. Andrews looked like something out of Hogwarts. The school just turned 600 and is imbued with history.
On graduation day, I wore a kilt. It was a “MacGregor†tartan; I was told growing up by my grandfather that we have MacGregor blood. His name was Wilfred McGregor Hall; there were other McGregors before him; my daughter’s full name is Katherine McGregor Hall.
The most famous of the MacGregors was a guy named Rob Roy MacGregor; Liam Neeson played him in a 1995 movie called “Rob Roy.†It was a great movie, but it came too closely on the heels of “Braveheart†and so didn’t receive all the applause it deserved. Braveheart got all the attention that year.
I looked “official†enough in my kilt that a group of French tourists grabbed me in a historic graveyard we were touring in St. Andrews. They all wanted to have their photos taken with me. Feeling very Scottish indeed, I happily played along.
I’m not a golfer, so I didn’t participate in that, but one can’t help but pick up that golfers visiting from around the world consider the Old Course at St. Andrews to be holy ground.
From St. Andrews we rented a car (we had to drive on the “right†side of the road) and embarked on a terrific journey, filled with history, castles, B&Bs, lots of sheep crossing the road, great food, the best fish and chips on the planet – and even better Scotch whisky.
Making things even better, we consistently bumped into the friendliest people on earth. I can’t imagine anyone not having a great time in Scotland. If we even looked momentarily lost, people would come right up to us to ask if we needed directions. Often such encounters turned into deep and lengthy chats.
Scotland has a fascinating and yet extraordinarily brutal and bloody history – lots of beheadings and the like.
I got to see William Wallace’s sword at the Wallace Memorial. Nearby we saw Bannockburn, the battlefield where Robert the Bruce finally won independence from the English. Edinburgh Castle was fascinating.
Scottish writers (Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and many others) are revered in statues and paintings everywhere. We had tea at a coffee shop in Edinburgh where J.K. Rowling wrote much of Harry Potter.
Loch Ness was of course beautiful. It couldn’t be otherwise. I saw a stick poking out of the water that looked just like the Loch Ness Monster.
From Inverness, we took a ferry to the Isle of Lewis, where we saw the Callanish Stones – much like Stonehenge, only you can walk right up to them and touch them.
On the Isle of Harris, which is attached to the Isle of Lewis, we saw locals producing Harris Tweed. Another ferry took us to the Isle of Skye – a true hiker’s paradise.
We spent some quality time in the Trossachs (a beautiful mix of lochs, farmland and highlands), where our possible ancestor Rob Roy MacGregor lived. If there is even the slightest chance my daughter and I are actually related to the guy, I wanted to learn more.
In his lifetime (1671-1734), Rob Roy was considered something of a rogue – and, at the same time, a folk hero. He was known to rustle cattle, but he took care of the people, too. He was the best swordsman of his generation.
The authorities tried to lock Rob Roy up on several occasions, but he always escaped – adding to his legend. He is sometimes referred to as the “Robin Hood of Scotland.â€
I’m sure I had more fun tracing possible family roots than my daughter or wife did, but they humored me anyway, which I appreciate. Who knows, I might never get back to Scotland, though I’d love to return.
If you can go you should. Really. I highly recommend a travel agency called Absolute Escapes (www.absoluteescapes.com). A very helpful guy named Andy Gabe made all the arrangements for us. All we had to do was enjoy ourselves.
Last but not least, as we were almost ready to head home, we zipped down to London for two days. Dorothy Storer, a British friend of ours who lives in Topanga, has a place in the tiny village of Cottesbrook, in Northhamptonshire. She told us before we traveled to the UK that she would be there at the same time we were visiting.
She was kind enough to put us up. She had all kinds of friends who kept popping in and out, often unannounced. It was fun to experience so much spontaneity. We should all do more of the same here in LA.
In London, we toured Westminster Abbey, took in a Shakespeare play (Henry V) at the Globe Theater, visited Parliament, toured the British Museum and checked out a few pubs.
We rode the Tube everywhere; it will be so nice when we can do the same here in LA.
After two weeks of steady movement, it was nice to plunk down in Brentwood once more. We were inspired by the friendly people of the UK; we are now resolved to “pay it forward†and be as nice to international visitors as the Scots and the Brits were to us.
So that’s how I spent my summer vacation. How about you? Send us your favorite photo from the summer (with a caption, please) and it might just appear in your favorite community newspaper.
