Saturday Adventure

Finally, after two months without leaving the city of Glasgow, I went on an adventure that took me away. I have spent the last few the fridays and the saturdays playing a little game I like to call “pick a direction and walk in it.” This game invariably brings me enjoyment, whether from the discovery of one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen, with heart breaking and inspiring epithets- the kind you find only on the very old grave stones when things like life or death or memories mattered- to a pretty walkway covered in leaves where I pass a group of boys in their early teens getting drunk and giggling at each other.
This hobby developed from my need to explore coupled with my total lack of funds. People always say the Bohemian life gets old quickly, but for me it’s still kind of fun and romantic to wear socks and extra sweaters instead of turning on the heat. The thing that kills me is that most fun things cost money, like train rides and eating and buying costumes.

But today, running around the city wasn’t enough. After staying up until 2 am finishing a paper due monday, I had promised myself that I would splurge and leave Glasgow. My very scientific method for deciding where to go consisted of the following:
1) Open a map of Scotland on googlemaps
2) Open a map of the train system around Scotland
3) Realize that anything outside of the area right around Glasgow and Edinburgh is very expensive
4) Open a rail map of just the area around Glasgow and Edinburgh
5) Look at where I can go for fairly cheap, compare with what the area looks like with googlemap’s satellite view
6) Pick one that looks like the train station is right next to large expanses of land
7) Go to Charing Cross, buy a roundtrip ticket (mispronounce town, forced to try three times before you are both clear where you want to go).
So I hopped on a train to Kilpatrick (pronounced “kill Patrick”) which I thought, since it was the same direction as Partick (pronounced “Par-tick), was Kilpartick… not Kilpatrick.

I arrived in Kilpatrick around 2:30. It would be completely dark by 5. I picked a hill that looked big and exciting. I set my alarm for 3:45pm so I would know when to turn back, and I headed off, fully expecting having to slip my way up the side of the wet, grassy slopes and hop fences and to come up against the sudden rock cliffs that make up the hillsides.

All I have to say is bless the Scottish farmers for creating footpaths everywhere through their farms. Just after leaving the station, an elderly man in short shorts and carrying a camel pack passed me jogging towards the same hill I had decided to pwn. Based on the absurdity of his outfit, I decided he probably knew where he was going and followed him in search of a path. Luckily he was jogging slowely and I was speed walking, so it wasn’t hard to keep up with him. Although I would stop to take pictures and let him stretch out his lead, partially because it clearly made him happy to look back and see me further behind.

Adorably understated, the British (and, in this case I am extending a generalization from England and into Scotland) refer to what I would definitely consider “hiking” as “walking.” I met someone and started a conversation with him, asking what he liked to do. “I like to walk.” He said. He was instantly endeared to me as I looked at him, eyes wide, and exclaimed “I like walking too!” Of course what I meant was that I like to walk… what he meant is that he liked going on backpacking trips through the mountains… which is also cool, but not nearly as endearing as someone who’s first response of what they liked was walking.

My life motto, “if a sheep can do it, I can do it,” continued to serve me well by pushing me to be all that I can be. Speed walking is more difficult than one would think, particularly up steep hills. I thought myself fairly well in shape- running a few times a week, walking a few miles every day, doing pilates. But half way up the hill, I was taking breaks for pictures just as an excuse to rest, and holding my breath as people passed on their way down so it didn’t sound like I was breathing hard. As I began to huff and puff my way up the steepest parts, I looked up to see a gathering of sheep, looking over the ledge at me, laughing and calling me names. This will not do! I WILL be a better hill climber than those sheep. This is preposterous and cannot be! How am I more out of shape than a sheep? After all, haven’t I lived my whole life saying that if a sheep can do it, I can do it? Isn’t that precisely the philosophy that spurned me on to first undergraduate and then graduate school, to develop meaningful relationships, and to finish slices of pizza? And now… oh! how far the mighty have fallen. But not for long. I now have a new goal. In addition to getting better grades than a sheep, I will become a better climber than one as well.

Oh gosh.

As I watched the little old man in short shorts wearing a camel pack extend his lead further and further out in front of me, I realized: I really am more out of shape than a sheep.

Here I was, panting and hiking, and the sheep turned to me and said, “Oh, come on, it’s just a walk.”

When I got near the top of one hill, I deviated from the path, which continued straight through the hills towards a loch, in order to climb up the rock walls to the summit. I came within 20 feet of the top- the very top- where I could have turned in a circle and seen down on every side. That was my goal. But as I picked my way up there, climbing on rock formations and turning around to look at the beauty around me, I had the sensation I was being watched. I turned around, and right on the top of the hill was a sheep. A sheep with horns. A sheep with horns and a look so menacing I just knew it was planning to attack me and knock me off the cliff and then go to the bottom and poop on my lifeless body. Don’t be silly, I thought, as I inched closer. It turned its body to face me.

That is why, instead of going the last 20 feet to the top, I turned around and tried to nonchalantly high tail it back down, whistling so it wouldn’t suspect anything.