We make our way through customs

Day 2: Tuesday,  September 6^th

Security: “We’re not after style” Problems with who is our contact person - very nice customs man ...

The quotation is an obscure reference scholars far in the future will spend ages deciphering. I can’t quite figure it out now.  In the first place, we were at customs, I believe, not security. You stood in line until invited to go forward to a wicket.  Couples could go together.  

I believe this comment was said in reference to Greg’s passport photo, which is not flattering. Greg remembers the customs official (a white-haired man with very blue eyes, like Peter O’Toole's – my memory), saying all he was after was “a resemblance… We’re not after style.” 

It was fortunate he had a sense of humour. 

On the plane, we had received little cards to fill out with our names and other information. One question stumped us: Who is your contact person in Scotland? We did not know a soul in the entire United (for now) Kingdom, aside from a couple who had moved to Eastbourne last spring. That is about as far away from Scotland as you can get without wading in the English Channel.

The conversation went something like this:

Customs: You haven’t filled in the answer to this question.

Me: No, we haven’t. [I have been told never to give any more information at border crossings than that which is asked for.]

Customs: Who is your contact in Scotland?

Me: Well, we don’t actually have one.

Customs: You don’t?

Me: No, although [to Greg]  I suppose we could name Cam and Dinah.  [To the customs guy] They live in southern England –  moved there last spring… but that’s kind of a long way away in case of an emergency.

Customs: I see.

[pause]

Customs: What are you doing in Scotland?

Me: We are touring in a large circle beginning here in Glasgow and then going to Fort William and maybe Maillaig, and then Inverness and up to the Orkney Islands, then back south to Nairn, then Edinburgh, Melrose and back to Glasgow.

Customs: I see and why are you doing this?

Me: Well, I am tracing my family tree; I have quite a few ancestors who came from various places in Scotland.

Customs: So you don’t have any family here.

Me: Well, not exactly… I might be a distant cousin  to the woman in the Orkneys who is going to guide us around the neolithic sites, but other than that they are pretty much just in cemeteries, I’m afraid.

Customs [in a resigned tone of voice]: I see. Well, where are you staying tonight?

Me: We’re booked into a hotel on ah ... I  can’t pronounce it … Sauchiehall Street. Just a sec. I have the name in my folder.

I reached into my black bag, pulled out my plastic folder for holding reservations, and found  the reservation sheet for the Argyll Guest House.  

His wrinkled forehead relaxed. He smiled, told us how to pronounce Sauchiehall, and suggested we really should plan on going to the Isle of Skye. He said he had never been there himself, but he heard it was wonderful. I said the train trip up there was supposed to be very scenic.

He wished us a good trip and that was that. We had officially arrived in Scotland.

And in case you are wondering about Sauchiehall:

While the correct pronunciations of this famous shopping street in the centre of Glasgow may well be more like "Saughiehall" (with a soft "gh" sound) you will find that from many Glaswegians it will sound more like "Suckiehall" Street. The name is derived from "saugh" the Scots word for a willow tree and "haugh" the word for a meadow (which was later corrupted into "hall"). Originally, it was a winding, narrow lane, with villas standing in gardens of about an acre or so. It was widened in 1846 and is now a mile-long, broad street, running in straight lines, from Buchanan Street in the east to Kelvingrove and the Museum and Art Galleries in the west.  http://www.rampantscotland.com/features/pronounce3.htm

Shunpiking across New England

Greg and I have just returned from our annual jaunt to Prince Edward Island. Ordinarily I would be writing about happenings here in the wilds of NM, but I am breaking with tradition to expound on that age-old theme: what we did on our summer vacation.  

I’d like to say our journey involved meaningful reflection and momentous activity which begged to be revealed, but the real reason is that not a lot seems to have happened in our village while we were away. Mind you, I slept in this morning and missed coffee with my neighbours, so I may be jumping to dangerous conclusions.   

Nevertheless, all I can report is that our morning glories, mistaking the sunflowers for an additional trellis, got so heavily entangled with them that they all fell in a heap onto the strawberries. Something ate bits out of one of the only two pumpkins big enough to be a Hallowe’en jack o’ lantern. And the hummingbird feeder was bone dry.  

So to PEI: On our road trips, I navigate, and Greg drives. I enjoy reading maps – the kind that are made of paper and have to be folded to fit one’s knee. I am not a GPS person. Unfortunately, I am mildly – but I feel, rather charmingly – dyslexic, with the result that I frequently say “turn left” when I mean “turn right” and vice versa, as in “Turn right, no… no… left, that’s right, I mean, that’s correct.”  

Greg, on the other hand, has a – somewhat annoying – hearing deficit. We remind me of the elderly couple who used to motor around Parkhill; one couldn’t see properly, and the other had mobility problems preventing him from getting behind the wheel. Unfortunately, when one spouse died, the other had to give up driving.   

In any event, Greg seems to have a hard time hearing my directions. For example, I say, “There is a turn coming up.  You’ll need turn left, no, sorry, right … in about 100 yards… I’d slow down now … now…. slow … slow, here it is, it’s here, turn, turn now.” 

 Greg snaps to attention only when he hears these words:  “That was the turn. You just missed it. We will have to turn around.” Those of us who still attend church may be reminded, as I am, of a similar rhythm in “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” words whose sudden intonation in the middle of the communion prayer wake up those of us who have turned our attention elsewhere.

In any event, freeway driving makes a lot of sense for us, since turns are at a minimum. Therefore, it was with a bit of trepidation that, hearing dire reports about the imminent collapse of bridges, tunnels and traffic flow in Montreal, I decided we would “drive through the States.“ This involved long stretches of two-lane highway wending its way through northern New England. 

After getting advice from my cousin, whose work frequently takes him to New York State, we decided to cross over at Cornwall, remembering to “go past the burnt-out customs station on the island and continue right across the river.” Our more cautious overnight hosts in Morrisburg advised crossing at Valleyfield, but that bridge was in Quebec and likely near collapse, and if we missed the turn to it, we would find ourselves willy-nilly going through Montreal, so we fortified ourselves with Tim Horton’s coffee and set out from Cornwall.

Ironically, there was bridge construction there, but nothing, including us, fell into the St. Lawrence. In addition, the line-up consisted of only of us and three other cars approaching three customs booths. I always get nervous at the border, and my hands were so sweaty the envelope containing the passports stuck shut. The customs official asked where we were going, and did we have reservations for the night. We did, but quickly realized that was not quite what he meant. Greg couldn’t remember the name of the place we’d booked, and I mispronounced Skowhegan. But the agent waved us through anyway.

Fortunately, he didn’t ask any of the questions we’d been asked before and for which we now had composed witty ripostes: Are you married … to each other?  (What’s it to you?). So do you have the agenda for this dream conference? (As a matter of fact, yes, I do; I’ll just get out my binder). Who is the Archbishop of Canterbury? (Like you know who he is!). Have you ever been prevented from entering the United States? (You mean like the American ambassador to Canada?). Do you have any fruit? This time, I did, but I figured hey, don’t ask/ don’t tell.

Driving in a foreign country can be tricky, but we found it pretty straightforward. Soon, we crossed Lake Champlain on a small ferry, which came every fifteen minutes and had sides, thank goodness. A sign in the tiny washroom on the deck advised keeping the door closed in winter to avoid having the pipes freeze.

When we came to a crossroads on the Vermont side, I put my earlier use of street view on Google Earth to good effect and said, “Take the car past that big red-brick building with the two chimneys where they sell pizza,” rather than “Turn left, I mean right.” The restaurant was just as it appeared on Google Earth in 2009 except that a large empty flower box had been added to titivate the gravel parking lot.

 Slowly, we made our way towards Skowhegan. We went 25 miles per hour through a lot of very small towns with nowhere to eat. In between, we sped up to 50 mph and watched for moose. We finally ate at the first place we saw in a college town on Highway 2 in northern New Hampshire. Signs said the eatery had been voted the best pizza place in the area three years in a row ending last year. There were pizza crusts on the floor presumably from the night before. A sign in the somewhat sticky unisex bathroom, which also held extra pop (or is that soda?) cartons and an old refrigerator, indicated what cleaning tasks should be performed. None had been checked off.

 I did not order pizza, but my spinach wrap was surprisingly good, once the chatty college boys in the other room remembered to serve it. After a longer than anticipated break, no sooner did we get back into the car, turn left, no, right, up a steep incline to the main road, but we spotted the town’s slightly more upscale “Family Restaurant.” I took an extra acidophilus tablet and hoped for the best.

Such are the delights in going off the beaten path, but I must stop now, as I have run through 1,100 words and, as in our travels so far recorded, gotten almost nowhere.

To be continued …