Scotland

Josh and I have been having a great time in Scotland this last week or so. The Pisa airport in general and the passport controllers in the UK were a pain to deal with, but we made it to Edinburgh (pronounced "EDIN-Brah") on time and with all our luggage. We spent a lovely week in Strathmiglo with a good friend of Josh's mom relaxing and making a few trips into Edinburgh. We visited a couple of neat museums (which were free!), walked around the Christmas'ed-up city center at night, and, of course, partook of a number of fine Real Ales.

In case you have been drinking ale for a good number of years and are confused as to whether it was "real" or not, let me explain. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was started in the early 1970s in response to the increasing lack of flavor of beer in pubs. They promote good beer in general and cask ales specifically. Cask ales are unpasturized, unfiltered, naturally carbonated (if at all), and most importantly, at cellar temperature. Improperly served, this results in a pint of warm, flat beer. When the proper care is taken, however, the temperature and carbonation are perfect for bringing out the best flavor an ale can offer. In the US, you might be lucky if you can find a bar with a single cask ale on hand, but here, it's the norm to have 3-10 available at any given pub. It's a sweet time to be a beer lover in the UK.

But I digress. We've been working at Pillars of Hercules for three days now, and so far it is looking like a great place. The people are friendly and the work is interesting. We've picked vegetables and bagged them for sale, gathered eggs and graded them, prepped land for planting over-wintering crops, and built a wood shed. The last one was probably the most fun. They basically just handed us the materials, showed us a drawing of what it was supposed to look like, and let us go. Quite trusting, these folks. We dug holes for posts, secured cross beams, used power tools to cut strips of corrugated metal down to size and then screwed said strips onto the cross beams. So if you ever need a wood shed built, you now know who to talk to :D