As much as I generally enjoy my adopted country, sometimes one just needs a break from the French. Therein lies one of the major advantages of living in Europe. Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, Croatia, Greece, Turkey for crying out loud, are all just a short flight away. The rub, of course, is that the vast majority of flights depart from Paris, which, if you don’t live in Paris, is not exactly convenient for a weekend jaunt. (An expensive train ride followed by a stressful run through the Paris metro and RER is not exactly the best way to start and end a relaxing weekend in my book.) Blessedly, Ryan Air and Easy Jet operate throughout France so you do not necessarily have to fly via Paris, provided you are willing to take your life in your hands, meticulously weigh your hand luggage, and plan to fill up a bottle of water at the airport because you won’t get one in the plane. In Poitiers, we have two choices operated by Ryan Air: London and Edinburgh. At 32 euros the roundtrip ticket, it is cheaper to go Great Britain than to pay for gas and freeway tolls for a long weekend elsewhere in France.
For my 30th birthday, Nico treated me to a long weekend in Edinburgh. It never ceases to amaze me than in an hour and a half, we can just "pop over" to Scotland. Neither one of us had been to Scotland before as tourists and we were more than excited to explore and taste whisky! (Nico had been to Scotland on business, but driving around industrial parks in Glasgow doesn't really count.) Normally I'm the control freak planner when we travel, but this time, Nico had told me to cool it and that he was planning everything and he did a fantastic job. On Day 1 we drove north to explore Perthshire, stopping at the charming town of Pitlochry, the Edradour Distillery, and tromping around Loch Tay. It was all absolutely beautiful - never in my life have I seen so many shades of green and purple in a natural landscape!
Day 2 was for Edinburgh. We dutifully walked up and down the Royal Mile, but decided that we would probably commit murder if we had to deal with all of the tourists to visit Edinburgh Castle so we skipped it and headed back down the Royal Mile to find Cadenhead's Whisky Shop and drank whisky instead. Well, we tasted whisky and bought several bottles. After that thoroughly enjoyable experience, we thought we would stretch our legs a bit more and walk up to Arthur's Seat. Fair warning if you ever decide to do this: it is not a walk, it is a hike! I was very gratified to see that even the fittest-looking individuals were huffing and puffing their way up the hill. We rounded off the day with more exploration of Edinburgh's charming streets and popped into a pub or two where I was pleased to hear several people speaking in Gaelic with the bartender.
On our last full day, we visited Edinburgh's botanical garden and then headed east along the East Lothian coast to go on a 9km walk starting and ending at Aberlady Bay, stopping on the way at the site of the Battle of Prestonpans (history buffs and Outlander fans will understand!). The walk from Aberlady Bay was the perfect way to end our jaunt to Scotland complete with marshland, beach, cliffs, countryside, and castle ruins.
I found Scotland to be a pleasantly exotic place: you pay with pounds and hurtle down the "wrong" side of the road, not to mention Scottish accents. But for all of its exoticness, being in Scotland was also strangely familiar. I could speak without thinking about gender or complex grammatical structures and no one asked me where I was from – I suppose they didn't need to ask when they heard my obviously American accent! This may sound strange, but going to the supermarket was a soothing experience. First of all, unlike in France, stores are open on Sunday! On Day 2 of our trip, I asked a Tesco employee if they would be open on Sunday.
"Aye," he responded gravely, "but our hours are limited. We’ll be closing at 8."
"8 pm?!?" I nearly fell over with shock and then skipped off happily humming to myself.
British store hours fill me with joy, but so does the produce. For one thing, they have a real, honest-to-goodness cracker selection. (The French don’t really "do" crackers. The closest thing to crackers in most French stores is in the apéro section and is more akin to Pringles than crackers.) Being able to buy whole-grain crackers just makes my day. To complete the cracker experience, let’s talk cheese. You may think to yourself that I live in France, so I surely must be the most spoiled cheese-eater in the world, and that’s probably true to some extent. However, there is one gaping hole in the French cheese landscape and that is cheddar cheese. You can find it in some French stores, but it is hugely expensive. Instead of shredded cheddar cheese, the French use shredded gruyère or Swiss and for the most part, I can handle that in my French life. However, when faced with a whole display of cheddars in varying states of maturity, I smile like an idiot. Needless to say that when we were in Scotland, our lunches were invariably picnics made up of crackers, cheddar cheese, and some other tidbits like cherry tomatoes to round it out. One of my favorite memories from our trip was sitting on a bench next to the car park by Aberlady Bay looking out over the water and most contentedly gorging myself on aged cheddar cheese and Milton’s crackers.
In addition to the abundance of crackers and cheddar cheese, a third item completes the trinity of food items that I cannot find in France. On our first day, Nico and I popped into a supermarket to find some easy breakfast items that didn't require utensils, like bananas and drinkable yogurt. As we wandered through the store, I spotted a sign out of the corner of my eye and disappeared down the aisle with an excited squawk. When Nico caught up to me, I was beaming at the array of instant oatmeal. I must be one of the only people in the world to get so excited about instant oatmeal. You can buy oatmeal in France, although they tend to look at you strangely when you talk about eating it for breakfast, but there is no instant oatmeal to be found. Other visitors to Scotland may get excited about tartan scarves or bagpipes, but by far my favorite souvenir from Scotland was two boxes of apple and blueberry instant oatmeal. Whisky comes in a close second.
The next time we go, we plan to fly into Edinburgh and either drive further north to Inverness or head west to explore the islands. I’m sure that the landscapes will be breathtaking, the pubs pleasantly cozy, and the whisky wonderfully smoky, but I need to remember to check if the grocery stores carry the equivalent of Kraft parmesan cheese.
