Reflections from places much rainier than Phoenix
3/28/24 to 4/4/24 – Edinburgh, Scotland (UK) – Dublin, Ireland
Crew – My inner demons with a few cameos from old friends
In 2019, now 5(?!?) years ago, I graduated High School. I went to a high school where every kid from the city could fit in one High School, and there was only one middle school plus three elementary schools.
I had spent 13 years with 350 of these kids and 7 with the other 700. And even though we all had our differences there were a few feelings that you could see in the final week of High School if you walked up to any conversation in the hall
- I can’t believe I actually graduated. I thought I’d die in the 20s building because they still never figured out the heating and made me take chemistry at the same time
- Oh god oh god I’m going to college and everything is going to change. I’m never going to see my best friends again
- I’m so excited to never live in this godforsaken town again.
Not every classmate of mine showed all three of these emotions. Some showed all three. But number three was a popular one. Folks were excited to live somewhere else. Some had a sense of wanderlust, some just hated the majority of folks in the town, and of course, some just didn’t get along with their parents.
How’d that turn out? Well get back to me in 10 years and I’ll give you a definite answer.
But in the meantime, I can tell you in the post-college world that approximately 100 of my classmates are now living in the Bay Area. I think. Tracking some people down is rather difficult. I get why folks are going back home. In this world it’s a lot cheaper to live with your parents and make a bay area salary, the bay area has a ton of jobs, and finding a job in general just sucks. Personally, if I moved back home keeping the exact same job my salary would effectively go up by $30,000 per year if I can live with a parent (15k from saved rent, 15k salary increase from company due to higher cost of living). I can see why my classmates are doing the math themself and realize why they should move home. And of course, I’m lucky enough to enjoy a career that pays well and not be paying off loans. If either of the other two is true, then the urge to move home is all the higher.
The remaining 130 kids of my class I can divide up largely still in undergraduate, in grad school, working in another city inside the US, or being an expats.
Now why did I lead with this topic? Because Piedmont kids are hiding in the woodwork of every city I visit
Not that it’s bad of course. It’s actually why I chose these countries next. I chose Ireland and Scotland because I am broke and trying to save money. Like my other recent trips, my byzantine list of potential trips got narrowed down due to a time-sensitive opportunity arising, once again the opportunity to save money.
This opportunity is that my friend Luca from High School lives in Scotland full time these days. He’s been a student at the University of Edinburgh since undergrad, now in grad school, and has been bugging me for years to go see him. Plus he offers a spare flat room with the great appeal of “free”.
It’s a winner of an argument let me tell ya.
Edinburgh
I’ll say this much about Edinburgh, imagine a travel blog/TikTok of a city. Think of the kind of video that will only film the most stereotypical touristy part of a city with the filters knowing that they only need to film for 60 seconds so the illusion won’t fall. Edinburgh legitimately looks like that video everywhere
No building goes above 4 or 5 stories, almost everything is made of stone, and they threw the castle on a hill with a river surrounding it in the middle of the city. The castle itself also has a moat, for a body of water within a body of water. There’s the street that inspired Diagon Alley in Harry Potter that you can see. Which was great. I also feel the need to point out that half the streets in this city could pass for that.
Great city design.
Luca’s flatmates were also generous enough to let me stay with them: A couple named Olga and Matt. Two other folks just trying to make their way in their 20’s and very, very, Scottish. After getting in, and spending the night playing Mario Kart on Luca’s Wii while meeting his roommates I headed out to explore the city. Luca had to work the first three days I was in the city and was stuck doing multiple essays for much of the other two days. This gave me a pretty fun balance where I could go solo traveling during the day and then have people to hang out with at night.
The whole solo travel thing immediately came into question when after getting a coffee and planning my first activities I was walking and my Bluetooth earbuds told me they disconnected. I assume it was due to the fact that it’s a new country and my phone is confused. (For the record that isn’t how Bluetooth works at all).
It turns out when I get to the museum that my phone isn’t in my pocket. The disconnect came from the Bluetooth signal degrading over a distance (Which is how it works).
Now this presents a bit of a problem. I run back outside and retrace my steps. It is pissing rain on me as I’m walking the streets looking like an idiot. No luck finding it. I go to the coffee shop and see if I left it there but no dice either. The barista felt bad for me and they let me know where the library was so I could start looking on iCloud for where the device was. It says of all places it’s in the surgery museum. Which is great! So I ran over there and checked reception but they hadn’t seen it. So the receptionist let me use her phone to see if it was still in the building. It was.
So I turned on the “Hey I lost my phone” feature and they were nicer than I deserved and they let me say “Please drop it off at the surgery museum reception desk”. Run back to the library. Check the location. Hasn’t moved. Spiral into realizing that I’m about to lose $800 when I have to buy a new phone in the States and a temporary phone in the UK and then see that the phone moved two minutes ago. Run back (mind you it’s still pouring rain), and low and behold at reception someone turned in my phone! It turns out that a medical student had seen it on the ground, grabbed it and when the lost notification showed up they dropped it off at reception.
What’d we learn? That people in Scotland are incredibly generous and saved me from being a complete idiot. And also that I used all my karma for the trip instantly. You just know for the rest of this trip I was offering my bus seat to every person who looked tired and buying rounds for other people.
With that scare dealt with I moved back to my planned itinerary. The attraction I spent the most time at and also saw first in the city was the Scottish National Museum. For both Scotland and Ireland’s National Museum, they’re completely free! Which was a huge win. And I used this to my advantage to dip in and out. It was next to the University of Edinburgh so there were tons of cheap food options around as well. And this museum was big. Five floors bring you through Scotland’s history (with the oldest being on the bottom floor). It had everything from artifacts left by the Romans to the Jacobite rebellion to some of the first steam engines.
Fun fact the leading theory for why the Romans left Scotland is simply because it was too cold and miserable!
Continuing to hit up the largest attractions in the city I went to see the castle. Great for my wallet too Luca came in clutch and I could replace my need for a ticket with the following conversation:
“Ticket?”
“Oh sorry I’m Luca’s friend”
“Ah come along then” and I was let into the lower level of the castle which winds in a massive loop. The castle is made up of several smaller museums and memorials inside the castle which is also one massive museum.
The Royal Scottish dragoon museum honors the regiments who have fought from the 17th century into the modern day. The dragons have a French banner from Waterloo that they took and still brag about. (Dragoons are the bastard child of the infantry and cavalry: Infantry who ride horses to their spot in the battle then dismount and shoot on foot.) Also if you’re wondering what the regiment is doing today they’re all tankers. Pretty common in older militaries where they didn’t want to retire the cavalry regiments permanently.
There were great views of “New Town” from the castle. Construction of New Town began in 1767, predating the creation of the United States. So you know. Truly showing how new is a relative word depending on where you live
I also got to spend more time with Luca’s coworkers at the Children’s Science Festival on my second night in the town. It’s a festival for young kids (aged 5 to 12) to learn about science! But due to apparent popular demand, they had a night for just adults who also wanted to get involved. So I got to meet a bunch of Luca’s friends and coworkers, practice surgery, do a blood bar, and play with legos.
Lastly, for Luca’s castle job, got tickets to a gin-tasting event for free! (And yes, I was very appreciative of the amount of perks at this point from his job). The guide was entertaining, and I even got a new tote bag from the event. I honestly haven’t done many alcohol tours or tastings in my life, this is the only one I can even think of. Highlights included me “winning” the competition for the weirdest gin anyone from the tour had drank (bubblegum) and them proudly showing the “Gin Alley” photo of the UK that led to Gin distillation getting banned from the city for just under 200 years.
Coming in hot with an attraction a civil engineer would take too much fun from is the Forth Bridge! It was known for being the world’s longest cantilever bridge. I personally think they should hype up the fact that it’s the first major steel structure ever built. Every high-rise and bridge built before was either made mainly of brick, stone, or concrete. Even the Eiffel Tower, a monument of civil engineering in its own right, was made of wrought iron. Not steel.
I instantly had to put my money where my mouth was with our faith in our profession questioned when I realized that the train I was using to reach the location was going to cross Forth Bridge. Which I mean I appreciate the first of anything ever built. But the first one is never exactly the best one. I mean I’m not going to downplay the Wright brother’s plane. But I wouldn’t want to fly in it. Following?
The final night in the city Luca’s roommate Matt had his annual birthday pub crawl and he was gracious enough to let me tag along. The group started at around 16 then slowly got whittled down through the night. One drink at a bar and there being over half a dozen bars it slowly descended into madness. Drinks are relatively cheaper in the UK than in the midwest and certainly cheaper than the West Coast.
My only major regret from the trip is that I was unable to make it to more of the nature spots on the two islands. The most famous nature spots were far away by public transit (~4 hours) so I had no luck making it there. Well, Scotland’s rainforests aren’t famous but I really wanted to see them. They’re temperate and have over 2000 known species of moss!
Oh and I did Rosslyn Chapel, which was in the countryside and the chapel that began famous in the Da Vinci Code. Such a dumb book but it is pretty fun to read on an airplane.
Flight to Ireland
“Sam?” is a statement that is terrifying because I need to instantly run through my internal memory of people I know to figure out who’s talking to me. This happened as I was trying to get my luggage to fit in the overhead bin (Needed to zip it all the way up oops), I turned around to sit in my seat and the girl next to me looked at me funny waiting for a response.
And holy shit, in great news, it was Ella Neil! Who I got along with well in High School, was two years behind me, and was part of the ensemble in the musical Rent in my final year of High School. I was the stage manager (which was a chaotic experience but a top 5 memory of High school).
She’s now doing a film degree at Trinity College in Dublin after leaving Bard in the US, and per requirements for all Piedmont run in’s, we had to swap every piece of gossip possible involving the town, its teachers, and people we both know. Even better, unlike so many of my friends… who will not be named… she actually knew things about people that I didn’t.
This helpfully illustrates the two rules I’ve learned about Piedmont kids hiding abroad.
- The number one thing anyone from Piedmont wants when you meet them is the latest news from the Town
I feel like a town messenger at this point traveling the world screaming to the winds “Hear ye hear ye” and trading information with those I come across. A swap of every upperclassman’s current updates in the musical for information on the undergraduates. Finding where another’s exes are hiding. Updating someone on my ex. Which two high school students have gotten back together. Even which ones have married (true story!)
- You’ll have never talked to them for years but be left wishing you had
Some folks are really hard to contact. Text will not work. Your best bet is to trap them at a bar when they’ve had a few drinks. Also, the people who have not moved back to the Bay generally didn’t for a reason. If they became an expat they especially have their reasons for not returning home. These people ran from Piedmont as far as they could for years not because they loved speaking to us.
But it was a highlight of the trip, to be honest. The small world coincidence of it made it so fun. Plus she’s energetic and genuinely fun to talk to. Nothing like reliving old theater memories or how lovingly insane our English teacher was. And she was also a jew who took Mandarin! There are at least three of us now!
Anyhow, Jesus, I wish I’d talked to Ella in the past 4 years. Fuck.
Ireland
Where Edinburgh has a modern medieval design that could turn the average gas station from that city into a convincing postcard Dublin is much more of a modern concrete jungle city at first glance. Mind you it’s still leagues better than your average American city. Like a functioning bus system. You have to use coins to pay for the bus if you don’t have a card. And you can only get a card at the post-station. And I flew into town on Easter Monday so all the post offices were closed. Not ideal but gave me an excuse to carry coins around.
To start it off: Winning the award for the most unexpected but fun museum I saw was the print museum! In the eastern part of Dublin. Was this a super niche museum that truly only inspires printing nerds? Oh yea. (The museum’s logo is the alchemist symbol for antimony, which makes up a hardening agent for typing dies. That’s deep in the weeds right there). But the guides were incredibly passionate about it and they took the time to walk me through printing out a wanted poster for me, while I set up the print. The museum was also free and pretty empty so I had a one-on-one session with the guide. They even had a printer from 1850 that is still capable of mass-producing posters (4,000 an hour) while I’m out here with my 2022 printer being incapable of printing my design drawings. This somehow made me hate modern printers more.
For a more popular attraction, the Little Museum is Dublin’s most popular attraction so I went to take a look. Guided tours aren’t really my thing! But this one forced my hand by requiring a half-hour guided tour with the ticket, non-optional. So here we go, a 30-minute crash course on the history of Ireland post-famine led by a native Dublinner (known as a “Dub”). Takes you through a ton of artifacts all over between the overcrowding of industrialization, the revolution of 1916, the following revolution, the civil war, and Ireland into the modern era.
To get away from the city for a bit I hopped on a bus and traveled for a little over an hour. Near the end of the line, you can hop off at the city of Howth. It came highly recommended and is a typical coastal walk. Beautiful Irish coastline, traditional lighthouse within view. Even a seagull nesting site. Absolutely gorgeous. The area was quiet and what you would expect of the Irish countryside. It was similar to Edinburgh where the countryside visits I most wanted to see were too far without a car/license and even then would’ve taken hours. I’d have loved to make it out to the cliffs of Moher or the giant’s steps but it wasn’t in the cards.
Looking for things to do and having gotten my English binge-drinking out of the way, I saw a movie called “Baltimore”! It’s about an English heiress turned IRA revolutionary and her misguided heist that happens. Not exactly sure if they meant for the terrorist bomber to be the hero but the movie certainly didn’t make her the villain. It leaves it up to the viewer to decide. Also, let me tell you that the Irish have no qualms about showing off their violent relationship with the British. I got photos of the post office that still has bullet-sized chunks of granite blown off from the pillars during the 1916 revolution. The largest park in Dublin is full of plaques where the fighting happened in. Even the print museum has a printer that was used to print the Call to revolution posters for both revolutions. I’ve been to former British colonies that hate the British less than the Irish do.
For logistics without a generous friend who I knew was in that city, we were staying in hostels for this leg. I’m fairly mixed in hostels. I don’t stay in hostels much, but at $20 a night it was going to be a quarter of the price of the cheapest hotel room. I stayed in a hotel for my other recent trips but hey I thought I’d give it a shot. Overall I can’t say anything distinctly bad about the experience but I did miss having a room all to myself. Course, there were perks like a cheap private restaurant being on the ground floor. What can I say? I can’t be pleased. And at the end of the day as I stated above the money factor really does trump all.
Unfortunately, I was not able to try out any of either country’s food. Haggis (love it or hate it it sure is unique), I can’t have nor can most pub food that they serve in Ireland. The alcohol though doesn’t worry I got enough samples of. Ireland is also a more expensive city than I was expecting. But Edinburgh was around a reasonable price.
Overall Thoughts
This was a trip that I didn’t expect to change my world or do something dangerous. But in both parts of my journey, I met a Piedmont kid who was attempting to put as much distance between them and Piedmont as possible. I also met plenty of folks who were helpful and kind to me.
So while I think I’m living an exciting life by moving to a new state after doing college somewhere else, I’m getting shown up by the fact that under every country, I can just peel back the wallpaper and find a Piedmont kid etching out their own little world. One thing I’ve heard muttered a lot is that the world is getting smaller. And while that’s a much longer essay I might write in the future I think that there’s a lot of truth in that sentence.
Will everyone stay abroad? Once again I couldn’t tell you. It’s a hard world to stay abroad. It’s a hard world to find a job in. It’s an even harder one to find a job that comes with permanent citizenship. There aren’t many routes that will get a young person permanent citizenship. Asylum is out of the picture (Piedmont’s atrocious social scene isn’t a valid reason). So we’re left with two options: You get married. Or you manage to find a role so valuable a company is willing to sponsor you in your 20s.
Barring if you can cross the barrier of paying rent, you have to be ok starting over socially and the crippling loneliness that comes with living in the modern day. the statement “It takes a village” isn’t a false idea. Funny enough, on the plane while writing this I’m watching “In the Heights” (Finally I know). A musical about family, community, and the cost of giving it up.And we’ve only considered the selfish reasons. If your family needs you home, that’s the hand you’re dealt and you get a ticket back home. No shame in any of these things. I’ve been incredibly lucky so far that I can even live in a different state and travel as much as I can.
But as usual, I don’t come to a conclusion when writing these essays. Too many years of competitive debate and a crippling case of being Jewish will do that to you. I can tell you with certainty however that I’m not doing anything even slightly taxing these next few days. I bought the wrong shoes and my feet are both bleeding a lovely shade on said shoes. Past that, I averaged 8 miles of walking a day for the trip so just about everything hurts.
In the meantime, all you can do is smile and laugh at a world where I’m lucky enough to find friendly faces an ocean away.
Warmly,
Sam
Dead Man Travelling 