Just Another Day on the Links

     Every life is filled with a few moments in time that freeze frame while every sense is heightened and forever remembered. Sometimes this results from joy, sometimes fear, and sometimes just a sense of wonder at the moment. I have a few such moments in my life, but the most recent occurred a couple weeks ago at St. Andrews, the home of golf. As I stood on the first tee of the New Course warming up and trying to keep hyperventilation at bay, I took a practice swing and looked up to a view that I have imagined looking on to after a shot so many times. There it was - THE backdrop of golf - and I was looking at it and preparing to hit my first tee shot. I will always remember the rush of joy, the sense of history, the sea breeze, and in an odd way a feeling of homecoming. Golf has been something I have loved throughout a fair part of my life, and I was getting to play it in the place it was originally designed to be played.

     My friend Dan accompanied me to play the course, and his comment described my emotions exactly as I walked up to the clubhouse. "I keep waiting for them to come tell me I can't play here or even be here." It feels like such a historic place that you don't want to make any mistakes ever. But everyone was so nice and helped us with everything. We got paired up with some very Scottish gentlemen, one from St. Andrews and the other from Inverness, and I felt like I was invading hallowed ground that they had fought alongside Mel Gibson to protect. But they were very nice and were quite good players which was nice to play with.

     So with knees knocking and palms sweating I hit my first tee shot. Certainly not the best ever, but it was past the women's tees and playable, so those two fears were not realized and for that I was thankful. I managed to par that first hole, and thought maybe it wouldn't be too bad a scoring round of golf. That was wrong, but I stopped caring about how I was hitting and chose to just enjoy the experience instead of getting frustrated and working on my swing. It was a beautiful day with sun, hardly any wind, and it was at St. Andrews, so on that day the score on my card was way less valuable than the memory I brought back of the experience. It was phenomenal.

Get Outta Here, Soccer - Real Football Has Arrived

     One great thing about studying abroad is you do things you either would never expect yourself to do or you would never have the opportunity to do at home. For me, one of those things is playing football. Nope, not soccer - American football. The University of Glasgow has a team, and by British standards, they are actually a very good team. I decided to go to their training day just for fun to see what it was like and since then have not turned back. Keep in mind that I have never played for a football team before in my life. In fact, I have never played a contact sport in my life. One of the knocks on being the youngest child - your mom has had the opportunity to see your brother get hit hard once and you are forever banned from anything that involves taking a hit. Well, not forever, I just have to go halfway around the world to do it.

     Not having played before I was willing to try any position they thought I could play. On the training day I was running receiver routes and tossed the ball back to the guy who was throwing, and he immediately stopped me and asked me to throw. I did and apparently for a Scottish team I can throw the ball decently. So they had me tryout for quarterback. To be honest, I would rather have played receiver, so I was somewhat glad when another American showed up and was at least six inches taller than me and could throw the ball at least twenty yards further than me and had a great spiral every time to boot. So I got to play receiver for a while and loved it. Then our star quarterback had a family matter that called him home and suddenly I was looked to as quarterback again. I said I liked playing receiver more, but now that I am getting the hang of quarterback I am having a great time.

     Today was our first game and thankfully we were able to win. It was an ugly game, but we won 16-0 and it was a great experience. I took some hits, but had fun, and even though I did not play all that well, I am looking forward to next game and feeling a lot more comfortable and confident playing. Who knew I would be playing football in Scotland?

Scottish Vacation Home?

     Being in another country has adjusted my focus significantly. Classes are of little importance to me while I am here. Essentially, I want to pass. I am not here to learn a bunch in the classroom. I can do that anywhere. So I take the opportunities when they come to experience what I can of Scotland. This past Tuesday, my adopted family from the church I have been attending offered to take me up to their cottage for the day. I obviously said yes because the only commitment I had during the day was class. No regrets here - it was a phenomenal decision.

     Their cottage is located on Loch Fyne, which is a salt water lake on the west coast. Here's a taste:

     Sometimes you see places and you never want to stop looking at them and you never want to leave. That was me here. It was a place of unbelievable beauty. We stopped on the way to the cottage and got out to look over what I believe is called something like "The Valley of Rest and Peace." That is not exactly right, but it was a beautiful spot nonetheless:

I feel that even if that name is wrong, it fits. 

     After a little while longer driving, we arrived at the cottage. I could not believe how close it was to the water. High tide literally is up against the bottom of the cottage. The Munros - the family I was with - gave me a quick tour of the cottage and it was so nice. There is a sunroom right as you walk in the door that overlooks the lake, then a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom, and couple of bedrooms complete the downstairs. There was a ladder that went up to the attic that has been converted into a bedroom and it was great. It felt like the perfect adventure cabin or the perfect relaxing cottage, whichever you happen to be in the mood for. I got to sit in the sunroom for the afternoon and had a terrific view:

It is hard to see in this picture, but across the lake is an old ruined castle from the 14th century and hillsides full of fall colors. Over the course of just a few days I got to experience some amazing pieces of Scotland that are relatively untouched and so pretty. Someday, I would like to own a cottage right on the water. If it's in Scotland, so be it.

Healthy Heart

     There is something fascinating about the heart of things. Whenever you reach it, you feel that you really know whatever it is that contains that heart. In people it is reached over time and is brought out slowly as trust builds between them, and as the relationship grows the heart becomes more and more evident. The heart of a place is something that contains so much that is the epitome of that place. Scotland is unique because it offers both opportunities. As I have grown in relationships with people here I have begun to get a sense of the pulse and spirit of the people. But until last weekend, I had yet to experience the Heart of Scotland. It is an actual forest located in an area that could also be referred to as the heart of Scotland, right near the center. A beautiful forest on an average day I am sure, it was stunning last weekend when I got to visit. The autumn colors were fully on display and the sound of the rivers, waterfalls, and streams were present all around. Moss was everywhere and there were so many different types of trees! Much different experience than a Colorado forest to say the least.

     Some of my Scottish friends I have made while here, Jan and Malcolm, offered to take my American friend, Dan, and I along with their Northern Irish flat mate, Andrew, along for a weekend away to Aberfeldy to experience a great piece of Scotland. We stayed in a cottage next to a river:

     Our main objective for the weekend, aside from just enjoying some time away, was to climb a hill called Shiehallion (sha-how-yun, as far as I understand), which is a Gaelic word that according to Wikipedia means "fairy hill of the Caledonians." Check your sources, I do not know a single word of Gaelic. Now, having climbed at least one mountain in my life and having lived at higher elevation my whole life than the highest peak in Scotland, I figured this hike would be a walk in the park. And to be fair, the actual physical demand of the hike was not that high. Typically, however, a person does not expect to have to hike through a hurricane. As we made it up quite a bit of the hike it began to rain and the wind began to howl. The rain was horizontal and I had to walk leaning left just to walk straight. Being the rugged and experienced mountain man that I am, I had decided before the hike that jeans would not be a bad idea because it was cold. Again, I failed to take into account a chance for hurricane. As my jeans turned to "jeggings," my movement became impaired, and it was about this point that we lost the path. The weather was nuts, and we could not see all that far ahead of us, so shout out to the Eagle Scout, we decided it would be best to turn around.

We still got some great photos and certainly walked away with an incredible memory. I saw a boat I would love to own, although part of that may have been the setting:

And if that's my boat this would be my backyard:

And this would be my view from that dock:

So in the end, a failed hike did nothing to spoil the weekend. It was great, finished hike or not.