PDX
I tell you all this so you will understand that when I say I’m eating at an airport bar, you will understand the reckless, devil-may-cry mood I’m in. The restaurant in question is a Rogue Brewery — a dubious establishment in the best of circumstances.
Sure, there was a time when Rogue was a flagship beer. One of the best Oregon beers… one of the best beers in the world. But as anyone who’s visited the brewery knows, their award winning brewing stopped in 2002, what remained was simply brewing. After a strong decade of accolades, they’ve had nothing to be proud of sense then. They cut the quality of their ingredients to stitch a few extra dollars onto their bottom line. Their head brewer “went another way”. Now they’re the Ass-King of beers, right along with their idiot cousin, McMenamins. At least McBeer has fun places to go, even if their beer and food are embarrassments to the northwest.
Enough of that. I’m travelling again. Like every great adventure it begins with a wait. I’ve been waiting for days, for weeks, for months! — in my own little way. But then, I didn’t really know I was waiting until now.
Now I’m through security, well into my second drink, and I know exactly that I am waiting.
If only the waiting were a guarantee of a great adventure. While the wait is a sure thing, what comes next could be anything. I’ll do my best to keep track of it all here; a little more real time than last July. Last July… the trip began so well and ended so terribly.
Oh, July.
Right! About the trip! Well this just gets stranger and stranger. I’ve kept to the policy I made after the Evil X dumped me. When I realized how much extra money I would have (she cost A LOT to support), I decided then that if anyone abroad invited me to come visit them, I would go. So when Tea Elf invited me to come while she was studying in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, I said yes. I wanted to go back to the U.K. and see more rural areas anyway. The trip quickly turned into Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Wales, but then I realized how much time off of training this was. I axed the Welsh part of the trip, changed my tickets, and now I’m going to see Scotland and Ireland.
The last time, Sommer did a brilliant job of making an itinerary. This time Tea Elf and I are mostly winging it. I took care of finding us places to stay; she took care of major transportation, but we’re going to use Google Maps for public transportation locally, and we don’t really know what we’re doing on any given day.
It’s a fucking adventure.
Man I keep getting off track. I blame drinking almost not at all and now having these two drinks do their impression of a Sea Monster in my belly — ahoy thar.
Anyway. The plan.
I arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow after nearly a day of travelling. It will be a little before four. I’ll take bus 100 to the same stop I took last year, and hike the same hill I did last year, and stay the night in the same hostel I did last year. I knew it was good, so I picked it. I hope Sommer and Michael won’t mind — it’s just for the night. The next day we take a bus to Inverness, the Capital of the Highlands, and far to the north. We’ll stay in inverness for two nights, then take a couple of train rides, including the Harry Potter train route (not the steam train, that’s only available in the summer) and a ferry to get to the Isle of Skye. Two nights there and then we head back to Edinburgh. The plan that night is to dance tango with the locals, then, the next morning, catch a flight to Dublin. In Dublin we’re renting a car and driving down to Cork for two nights. That will be our base as we do a little international road tripping. I hope to get to the western coast and see some more castles. Then stay the night of the 3rd (of April) in Dublin and fly out on the 4th. I have Straps class on the 5th and a normal life awaiting me.
Anyway, me and my blue hair need to make our way to the terminal. Not long until the point of no return.
Take care, Elves.
-UE-
