We watched Rory McIlroy take the most impres­sive lead in US Open his­tory to win the 2011 title, and when you see these golf super­stars mak­ing sat­is­fy­ingly effort­less shots, you long for the same kind of feel­ing that can only come from some­thing as pri­mal as hit­ting a ball. It’s been years since I held a club in my hand, but I was itch­ing to play and we headed to a dri­ving range, tak­ing it easy on my last day in Scotland.

I’m going home a dif­fer­ent per­son. Not a dras­tic change, but a refine­ment of the growth I’ve had in the last year, and a gal­va­niza­tion of the spirit. This trip has taught me that life is full of hap­pi­ness, and my mem­o­ries of Europe will be filled with the peo­ple and places that have made the last three weeks a rich and won­der­ful experience.

Barney likes to roll around in the grass, and some­times he comes back in with pieces of foliage in his fur. He even has a shed with a duvet in it that allows him to sleep com­fort­ably out­side, even when it’s dark and the tem­per­a­ture drops. The back­yard pro­vides a tremen­dous amount of pri­vacy, thanks to all the lush greenery.

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We took a jour­ney by car through the mid­dle of Scotland along Loch Ness to the city of Inverness¹, and stayed at a local bed and break­fast for the night. Inverness is con­sid­ered the Gateway to the Highlands because it’s the most north­ern indus­tri­al­ized city. It has nei­ther the urban con­ve­niences of a mod­ern city or the his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter of an old one, so remains some­thing of a ho-hum sub­ject in itself, but our short stay was just to break up the drive, and along the way was some of the most breath­tak­ing scenery I’ve ever encountered.

Scotland has long been on the top of my list of places to visit for exactly these types land­scapes, but my favourite things to take pic­tures of are these farm houses under the moun­tains. At the same time, they’re a chal­lenge to pho­to­graph because lit­tle details like sheep and streams of water run­ning through the cracks of moun­tains dis­ap­pear when try­ing to cap­ture the sheer scale of the ranges.

The sun hasn’t been around much. When it rains it’s a fine spray, almost mist-like, but it can be just so dense that you’d get just as wet as if it was com­ing down in “stair rods” as they like to say here. The clouds hang low and shroud the tops of trees and moun­tains, mak­ing you feel like you’re right at the door of heaven.

These houses are so remote and serene, fre­quently with sheep graz­ing all around, and I won­der what life must be like to live among such splendor.

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1. Meaning “Mouth of the River Ness” in Gaelic. [↑]

Edinburgh reminds me of Ottawa in many ways. It’s not the largest city in the coun­try (pop­u­la­tion less than half a mil­lion), but it’s the cap­i­tal, and serves as the finan­cial hub of Scotland. The accents here are very sub­tle and quite posh. Save for the old archi­tec­ture and some­what angu­lar roads, it looks like many Western cities.

Arthur’s Seat is a group of hills that pop up from the hori­zon, high above the city, an is vis­i­ble from my bed­room win­dow. It serves as a visual cue for Edinburgh, and when trav­el­ing out­side, one can always look to Arthur’s Seat to see how far (or close) one is to home.

Atop Arthur’s Seat, over­look­ing part of Edinburgh.

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