The Impression of Scotland
Created | Updated Oct 20, 2010
First of all, if you are trying to find some less objective data on scotland, do not stop here. Try some of these entries instead:
Highlands of ScotlandDalriada or The Highlands of ScotlandScotland
I stayed in Scotland for a month. So here is Scotland through the eyes of a tourist.
Scotland
The Highlands are not high. 3000 ft. is not high. But Scottish mountains are undoubtably much more amazingly beautyful than most of the much higher hills around the globe. They are realy massive and that makes them look high and magnificent. And they look as though somebody has moulded them somewhere else and then put them where they are now. I liked the bare dark-green and brown slopes, elegant and incredibly inviting. Countless waterfalls and streams run down the hills that are often covered with mist which makes it all look a bit spooky and mysterious.
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond is a nice large loch, just a few miles north of Glasgow. The banks are nice and quiet, you can have a picnic and go swimming (the water is surprisingly warm, ofren warmer than air) and have great fun. But the realy wonderful thing about the Loch are the islands. Dozens of them, all shapes and sizes, from the very little ones you could hardly sit on to the big ones you could build a hotel on. Luckily you can't. It is impossible to even buy a house there and nobody who lives there can sell it either. Which is good. The islands are left untouched and unpopulated and absolutly beautyful. They all look like real paradise islands, with trees and bushes and sands and rocks and strange bird sounds and thousands of blueberries always on the reach of your hand and everything is so clear and fresh. Totally amazing.
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is an absolutely beautyfull citry, almost too full of very impressive Gothic buildings. Among these buildings there is a giant rock that looks like it does not belong there and on this rock there is a castle.
Because of the many hills in Edinburgh you get the feeling it is built in levels. Imagine walking the streets and narrow stairs suddenly appear in front of you. You climb the stairs and when you reach the top the city continues with the same massive tall buildings and if you look behind you you can see the windows of the upper floors of the tallest houses so close you cauld almost touch them. For me it was quie unusuall and impressive to see how the hills did not stop the city from spreading further, around the hills and over the hills and on the hills as if they were not even there.
I have not seen many cities but I have seen some but I have never seen a city that was built like Edinburgh is.
Despite its beauty, I would not want to live there. In fact I could hardly belive anyone does at all. The streets are always fuul of people, but they are all tourists or tourist workers. Not a local person in sight. Anywhere you go there are pipers in full Scottish outfits and they are filling the streets with the sounds of the pipes that follow you around all day. The whole thing looks as though the city was built especialy for tourists, almost like an amusement park (with all those magical buildings and all).
More on Edinburgh here:
Glasgow & people
I stayed in Glasgow most of the time and I have met quite a few people there. In fact, all the Scottish people I have met were from Glasgow. And the only thing I can say about the people of Scotland is that they are simply the nicest people of all the peole that inhabite the Earth. Despite the sarcasm.
But it is actually quite hard to get in contact with them. It is very easy to meet lots of interesting poople in Glasgow, but if you are a foreginer you are most likely to meet only foreginer students (Glasgow is full of them) and no Scottish at all. And I have no idea why.
Glasgow is definitly my the most favourite city. It is not as impressivly beautyful as Edinburgh but it is still beautyful enough (it is afrer all an industrial city) and it definitly has more life.
It is a good city, architectualy and sociably, very green everywhere you go, lots of parks and stuff, with seagulls flying over and screaming all the time and with yellow street lights that make the sky look yellow at night. Nice buildings and streets, despite the litter and the danger of being hit by a car. Cars driving on the wrong side of the road were confusing enough, but in Glasgow drivers do nat care at all about the people who are crossing the road and they would not think twice before running them over if letting them live would mean slowing down or even stopping the car.
The atmosphere is very nice. Very vivid, during the day and especialy during the night (the streets are always full of people then, from dusk till dawn). Enough things to see and do and all sorts of cultural and enetrtainment events to please anybody.
All in all, Glasgow is wonderful. Of course some might argue that it is hard to live in, but there is not a place in the world where living is easy.
For a second oppinion check out these entries:
Food
Whatever they eat in the rest of Britain, it is probably not much different from the stuff Scottich people eat.
And the stuff they eat is simply bad.
I could never find out what Brown Sauce actually is. It is brown and it is a sauce and it is in a brown plastic bottle and it has "Brown Sauce" written on it. Nobody knows what it is. It is Brow Sauce and that is that. Does nobody ever wonder? And does nobod ever wonder why do they color the cheese orange? The orange Cheddar cheese is exactly the same as the yellow one only it has orange color in it. Why!?
Still, there are some foods that are known to be typicas Scottish.
First, the haggis (usually had with some chips in those parts). I found it quite eatable. It is nothing special though. You can find many versions of haggis under all sorts of different names all over Europe.
Irn Bru is a wonderful and delicious fizzy juice ("designed to cure hangover"), mosty unknown outside Scotland (exept maybe in Russia - I have heard something about it being exported there), but widely spread and loved inside the land itself. It has a strange orange color and an undeterminable taste. A friend of mine said ir reminds him of dentist and another friend said it tastes exactly like Koke (but she was wrong). I loved it from the moment I first tasted it.
I have heard some myths about so called "deep fried Mars bars" but I never came across such thing (I can't say I am sorry).
Slang
I don't know what is it about Scottish accent, but it is impossible not to like it. i could listen to a Scot for hours and not because of what he is saying but because of how he is saying it. I did have many problems with it though. Everybody was trying realy hard to make themselves understandable and I was grateful for that. (They were quite entertaining though when they were holding themselves back trying to speak more slowly.) When they were speaking in their full (light)speed dialect I could not undersatnd a word.
Anyway, enough has already been said on this subject. Here is a useful entrie on that:
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that Scotland is simply the nicest place there is. I was impressed.
