Do You Want Some Gin with Your Cookies?

I am drunk. Not an odd thing when one knows that I am in Scotland. Scots find drinking to be a olympic sport so why should i deny myself a little bit of cultural competition? Plus when your hanging out in a haunted 500 year old house you definitely want to ply yourself with enough alcohol so when you see the ghost of a beheaded priest walking down the stairs with a bible your reaction will be less "HOLY SHIT" and more "wow, that must have been one hell of a sermon"....

The more and more I visit Scotland the more paradoxical the culture becomes to me. I am no longer blinded by awe or the newness of it. Instead now when i see several drunken bastards puking in the street I am not shocked, instead I look at the cans of Tennents in their hands and think you daft bastards no wonder why your all puking. The stuff is in competition with Natty Ice and Ankor with being the most chemically induced beer this planet has so far created.

So the paradoxes have started piling up like a gang bang train. The other day I was taken to go see my boyfriends grandma. She was a nice old lady with kind eyes, an unbelievably brilliant thick Scottish twang and can get me drunk quicker than a roofy at an UCSB frat part

What I've realized is that Scotland is no place for the grannies that are the faint of heart type. The grandmas giving you hot coco and a slice of key lime pie dont exist here.

My boy friend's grandmother is no alcoholic by any means but she is just very prepared. Her alcohol cupboard would rival that of Gary Busey's personal bar.  The gin and tonics she forces us to drink are explosive and the single malt whiskeys' are not just wee drams but fucking imperial pints. The scotches are are so strong they easily peel your nipples off and could grow you a full size man-package!

You don't get cookies here, no you just get a hangover. Most American grandma's turn their grandchildren into diabetics but here they seem to turn theirs into alcoholics. My granny used to offer us stale cereal and  fermented orange juice, not such a good deal...however, my sister did recently inform me that the "tang" my grandmother used to give us was actually outdated orange juice with an abundant amount of champagne to disguise the OJ's fermentation or maybe she was trying to sedate us? No wonder i get a long with my boyfriends grandma so well! I am used to my drinks being heavily spiked by old ladies....

Not only is my partner's grandma a brilliant bartender in disguise but she is also very observant and calls it like she sees it. At one point the conversation started dancing around religion and gently pushed towards Catholic priests. Now in other company I would have steered clear of that topic but seeing as she is an elder Catholic woman I thought we were safe enough.... I was most definitely wrong. Because before I knew it the word poof and priest were uttered in the same sentence. I proceeded to spit out the contents of my (mostly) gin and (very little) tonic and stared in shock. That didnt stop her.
"Oh yeah, Most priests are total poofs." I thought maybe my definition of the word poof had altered in the last minute some how...maybe it meant utterly devote?
"They are all homos"...Apparently not.
Now she is not racist or a homophobe. She's a grandma which means she loves everyone! She is just an elderly lady with a keen eye and an unPC vocabulary.

According to Granny though, her priest was most definitely straight and also a saint.  "He comes over and drinks with my son and I.".... I could not let this fantastic contradiction pass me by so I said "he drinks with you?" and her response is "Och aye! He loves his drink."

And so my adventures in Scotland thus far have been  paradoxically fabulous. Loaded with drink pushing grandmas, puking strangers, and colloquialisms. Oh how I have missed this unPC world! I hope that one day i will grow into being such a granny where nothing is too taboo to touch.

Watch Out! Minority on the Bus!: Stories From My Archaic Travel Blogs

So it occurred to me that i have a few other anecdotal stories from my South East Asia travel blog; a blog that i set up for that particular trip but haven't written in since. As a result I have decided to share these odd little snip bits of traveling life with you all. Warning they are a bit rough with spelling, grammar, and political correctness. Also they tend to be a bit laborious to read but alas they are, I feel, the perfect little introduction to my new home here at blogger! Here is the website: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/spunkycaligirl/1/tpod.html

Also I thought i would pull one of the stories from the website just so you can see what it's all about.

Watch out! Minority on the Bus!

I panicked...

As I walked onto the bus i was patting myself on the back, i saved six whole American dollars! ...I shortly found out why the discount. As I looked up from my mental pat I noticed all eyes were on me. Partly because i was a foreigner and also partly because I was the ONLY foreigner...

I immediately asked myself why did i do this! I mean took the "first class" bus to Siem Reap (a cool 11 dollars) where i got snacks, nonparasitic water, a partially working toilet WITH a door (rather than some ditch with rotting cow carcasses in the middle of nowhere), a nice hostess, entertainingly sappy Khmer music and a distance of only six hours ! So why would i change? Because number one I am a budget backpacker who thrives on adventure, the unexpected, and cheap transport and number two ....I am an idiot.

Before I share my lovely little Hell bus of pure sadistic fun experience here is just a little summary of my Siem Reap weekend  extravaganza. Siem Reap is home to Ankor Wat (and several other temples) which is the largest religious compound in the world.

A shitty picture of Ankor Watt

 It was facinating! For my Ankor Watt exercursion, I thought I would save some money and use one of the free bikes at the guest house. Not-such-a-good-idea...I found out after i had committed to the idea that it was a mere 43 kilometer journey. See a trend here? Now Forty-three km on a knee that had a massive surgery 8 months prior was a terrible idea!

bad knee (its on the left)

 It was like a 90 four year old have copious amounts of sex with a 20 year old.  In the end it is just not a working relationship (Great for the 95 year old but terrible for the 20 year old).

Example

And that was exactly the relationship i had with my knee. Throw a 200 year old bike into the mix and it most certainly was NOT a condusive working relationship. Yet, however ridiculous the idea was i stuck it out, although my janky knee barely did, and it turned out to be an amazing experience (the only way to see the compound if you ask me). My bike i named Senior because it looked like it would'nt even get me down the block let alone go 40k! It was a rusted peice of metal that was probably fashioned out of old deactivated land mines, however, suprisingly, it went longer than i did!

                       Senior, my rusted out bike (a bad representation of its jankiness)

I left the guest house at 4.30 in the morning--not a  journey you want to make might i add with being a young single white female in a place where white skin was just as coveted there as the origianl Borat man thong is for young drunken Fraternity boys.

Point made

 After making it a block down the road i decided that i was going to go the non-touristy route. NOTE: i do not recommend this route! I was terrified (literally piss in my pants, praying to god terrified!) that i was going to be taken out my some land mine that happened to have been overlooked. It did not help that I read the night before that they still have dottings of landmines in the lesser known areas of Siem Reap, aka where i decided to bike! But i made it, and not only was I crying with joy, but also happened to have the contents of the whole jungle on my person i.e. dirt, bugs, spiderwebs, tree, plant, etc. All in all it was a great experience!

So after my 43k 8 hour journey i decided it was time i head back home. I ended up booking the local's "business class" bus instead of the tourist's "first class" bus. Let me just say now that it was so not worh it. And it terrifies me to know that the bus i took was considered the nice Khmer bus...i shutter to think what the "economy" khmer bus looks like, probably an acutal land mine with wheels, or an emaciated cow with a basket attached to its back, or 5 poor kids and a chair they carry you in, or a hearst....The mega bus in comparrison looks like fucking Air Force One or Elton John's private pink jumbo jet (bedazzled and all!)

So i took the step down into economy which led me to be the only white person being stared at by 50 plus Khmer people (and i literally mean stared at!) So i thought "its okay. I'll just sit in the last seat that doesnt have a neighbor next to me. It will be fine..."; however, upon my entrance onto the bus the driver immediately took my ticket and sat me in the only seat i was praying to Jesus and Alla himself he would not place me in...thats right, my new neighbor was a Beautiful Khmer woman and her lovely screaming new born baby. After a few minutes of sitting in my undesirable seat i thought that it could be worse. She did have a completely adorable newborn, so i thought i'll just go with the flow, play with it and smile! The baby didn't think it was such a good idea and vomitted on my hand....so okay playing with baby not such good idea. i'll just sit here and ignore the faint waft of baby puke and bat poo eminating from my hand and from the air vents, and so i did for 8 straight hours. However, that did not stop the mother from deciding it was her duty to show me the whole process of rearing a child. She proceeded to breast feed it, burp it, let it vomit, cleaned up the vomit, let it cry and the clincher-change the diaper (ass pointed toward me) while i got her elbow to the face....It took a long time but Lesson learned! I will never try to save money on transport again lest i want another taste of baby feces and newborn bile.



Read more: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/spunkycaligirl/1/1274481420/tpod.html#ixzz1CCVOqUqK