Scotland!

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In Glasgow we met a Hungarian man who knew it all. He knew that we were too young to travel, that vegetarians are crazy, that all young girls want to meet Scottish men and that we couldn't take care of ourselves. But his most incredible claim was that there was no point in exploring the world. He'd been there done that of course, only to discover that every street, every shop, every building, in fact everywhere he went was all exactly the same. And we would only discover this once we got to his age. He felt he was doing us a favour, giving us some warning that it was all a futile venture. I don't know where he had been in his life but it can't have been far.

I had a flatmate in Auckland who had only ever been to New Zealand and Australia. He thought travellers were daft. “What’s the point,” he would say, “of going all over the world when you actually have it all at your doorstep. In Auckland, for instance, there are Chinese and Indian restaurants, we celebrate South Africa Day and have a whole range of Polynesians about the place.” And somehow he thought that would suffice.

It amuses me how people view the world. But it annoys me how people undermine and undervalue the opportunity to travel as though it is an insignificant experience. I didn't see anything along the streets in Scotland that remotely resembled any street in Thailand. I've never heard the bagpipe played in Pakistan and certainly never thought to order haggis in China. Scotland is unique just like every other place I have had the privilege to visit. I acknowledge difference of opinion, experience and interest, however I do pity those who feel that one world means that the one place they're in is the one place to be.

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Photos

Grey Building, Blue Sky
Edinburgh

Picture Perfect
Busking on the streets of Edinburgh, this girl would smile for money

Midgets
We managed to crack ourselves up with all these mirrors that warp your image

Part of the Castle
There were quite a number of little museums about the place with interesting Scottish history

View of Edinburgh From the Castle
In the foreground is a little dog cemetry for soliders dogs who died

Stained Glass Window
Inside the Castle

Scots Monument
I think this is called Scots Monument, in any case its an impressive stucture you can see for miles

Poo Perch
Poor guy didn't know his head would be a bird toilet one day

Blowin' in the wind
This guy had an impressive combover that gave him a mowhawk look in the wind, not sure thats what he was after.

Comments

[Érika]

Next time that you meet this weard men again, tell him to came to Brazil and he´ll see if is thr same as Scotland!!!!! (laughs).

[Mum]

mohawk
I'm still laughing about the combover!

[Laetitia]

Wise man?
Well, at least this man is happy to be where he is...and there is something wise about that, although I do pity him for not being able to appreciate the numerous and wonderful details that make us different....Wisdom is certainly not a question of age and vanity seems to be his problem... travelling certainly opens the mind, maybe this encounter was there to remind you this.....