"Love of my life," "Husband," "Sonic soul mate" — over the years, I've called John Vanderslice a lot of things. That's why, when I saw that he was scheduled to play Sneaky Pete's in Edinburgh on Nov 5, I instantly booked a ticket.

The past three times I've seen him, he's performed in crowded venues in New York and Austin. To my surprise, only about twenty people were in attendance Thursday night, allowing for a really special and intimate performance from Vanderslice.

Here's a video I took at the end of his set (video to come shortly...)

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Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, is essentially Great Britain's response to Halloween. That said, the two traditions couldn't be more different. On Halloween, children and adults don costumes, attend parties, and destroy the enamel on their teeth. On Guy Fawkes Night, which takes place five days after Halloween, children construct an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic conspirator involved in a 17th century plot to burn the House of Parliament, beg for money on the street, and later burn "the Guy" in a bonfire. A lot more morbid than our pagan holiday, I think.

Technically, Guy Fawkes Night was last Thursday but the celebrations spilled over into the weekend, including a fireworks display in the town of Gourock. Our friend Natalie has a home there and was nice enough to invite us out to the festivities on Saturday night.

Thanks to Alissa and Chris for the photos.

We got the "party" started right with a 90's dance megamix before heading out for the fireworks.



The display was actually in the neighboring town of Greenock, in Battery Park.



Here I am with Natalie and Chris, singing the Scottish version of "Con Te Partiro."
Alissa said that it included a line about Inverclyde.



Back at the house, Nick requests Jethro Tull and brings the "party" down a bit with "Aqualung."



I just stuff my face with shoestring crisps.



Natalie found a pair of bread slippers online and decided to try and eat them.



The next day, we had to head to the train station early in order to make it back to Glasgow by noon.



We were showing my room to potential occupants, in anticipation for my move back to the States in a month.



On the train, Nick and I were up to our normal shenanigans.



I'm not sure which of the two of us is "hammier"

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The week before Halloween was a mad dash to finish our costumes, buy decorations for the party, decide on spooky-themed treats, and actually pull the whole thing off. Well, we did it and we've got pictures to prove that people actually showed up. In fact, quite a few people showed up and the last one didn't leave until 5 o'clock in the morning.

Thanks to Alissa and Chris Fyvie for the photo documentation.

I was the national drink of Scotland: IRN BRU.



This is Chris Fyvie.
He's... "the 70's"



My flatmate Chris was the Mad Hatter.



John, Robin, and Robin's boyfriend Brad hover near the snack table.



Nick dressed as Scotland's favorite treat: A Cadbury Freddo.
People ADORED this costume.



Our friend Nick Green didn't have a costume so we gave him the sandwich board cards in our closet.



Alissa was a dinosaur and even sewed the tail and spikes on herself!



Nick was so dedicated to his costume, even though it inhibited many of his senses.



Someone was playing my song.

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After slaving over my costume for the past week-and-a-half, tonight I will see my vision realized!

Stay tuned for photos from what is sure to be the best Halloween ever! Yes, even better than last year's Halloween under the same prelude...
 

werewolf bar mitzvah

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A couple Saturdays ago, while on the lawn bowling courts at Kelvingrove Park, I had the odd and utterly awesome privilege of playing beside Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch and his wife. Although I recognized him, I was unable to place his face, even after one of their balls rolled into our court, it was not until I went home and Googled who I thought he was that I indeed discovered it was Stuart Murdoch.

Two weeks later, that's yesterday, I was working the regular Saturday night shift at my job and guess who sits down at a table in the back? None other than Stuart Murdoch and his wife. We ended up chatting about Glasgow for a while, my master's degree, and the state of the journalism industry! He even suggested that I write a novel to curb the economical impact of the recession!

Star-worship aside, the music nerd in me thinks that this is probably one of the coolest Glasgow experiences that I've have. After all, we are talking about the genius behind Dog On Wheels, Tigermilk, If You're Feeling Sinister, and The Boy With the Arab Strap!

Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Belle and Sebastian

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On our last day, we hiked in the Cuillin Mountains outside Glen Brittle.
Fortunately, the first part of the hike gave decent weather.

The second half, not pictured, gave lots of fog, gusty winds, and rain.
We even lost the trail and had to come down a bit early.
Here's the last photo of the trip, a waterfall on our long journey home.

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We spent our first night in Skye camping in Portree, at the start of the Trotternish Ridge.
When we woke up, it was Nick's birthday!

We spent most of the day hiking into the rugged landslips of the Trotternish Ridge.

This is one of the more famous of the area, the rock formations that make up the Old Man of Storr.
It is thought that the protruding pinnacle of the rock resembles the nose of an old man.

Another view of the landslips and vandalized sign advising hikers that
"[we] are advised (not) to go beyond this point"

After climbing along some of the steeper cliffs, amidst 40-to-50 mph wind gusts,
I decided that the mountaineering life is not for someone prone to vertigo.
Here I am defeated and humbled.



Hiking down we found a little pond carved into the side of the mountain.

We drove up the coast and found Kilt Rock (not pictured) and this epic waterfall.

Skye is littered with this out-of-sort British telephone booths.

Here I am trying to do a David Lee Roth in front of one.

Phone booths and sheep.
Two things you can find everywhere on Skye.

Ruins, too.
Okay, phone booths, sheep and ruins.

When we made it back to Portree for dinner, a flock of seagulls massed to our parked car.
This one landed right outside the window.

Portree or Maine?

For our second night in Skye we camped beside the Sligachan Hotel (not pictured).
It was one of the windiest and rainiest camping experiences of my life.

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When we awoke in Inverness the next day, we found that someone had keyed our car.
As it turns out, we had inadvertently stepped into the middle of parking lot dispute
between the hostel and neighboring residents.

This sent Nick into a contemplative downward spiral.
At this point, he was thinking about writing a hateful note to the Slovak that keyed our car.
I think it closed with something like "you're a horrible, horrible person."

I tell you, we barely made it out of Inverness alive.
 At Johnny Foxes, I found a piece of steel wool in my Guinness pie and, on the way back to our car,
a stranger accidentally punched me in the stomach.
Then, we confronted the suspected vandal and I thought Nick was going to get punched out.

Things started looking up for us once we got to Loch Ness.
For one, we found this giant Nessy statue.

For two, we found Urquart Castle and another rainbow!
Proves there's always a rainbow after 18 hours of very strange (and intermittently painful) dark clouds.

Add a caption

"Into the ice!"

My favorite Medieval contraption and modern-day font: Trebuchet!



Nick looking very dad-like again.
Urquart rhymes with...

At the top, with my own Loch Ness monster.

Eilean Donan, on the shores of Loch Duich, originally built in the 13th century as a defense against Vikings.

Between 1919 and 1932, the castle was restored to its original splendor.

Across the Loch, I found a patch of blackberries.
I always get so excited when I find edibles in the wild!



They were mostly good.

After Eilean Donan, we crossed over to the Isle of Skye and into the Inner Hebrides
and onto to our campsite in Portree, at the base of the Trotternish Ridge.

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Our trusted steed at a rest stop in Kirkcaldy.
Nick said it was like driving a roller skate.

Making Parma and Manchego baguettes outside of St. Andrews.
Snobs!

The ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral,
built in 1158 and destroyed by Protestants during the Reformation.



Still exploring the St. Andrews cemetery.
Nick looks like a dad in every picture of this trip.

Most of these tombstones predate the United States and some of the occupants
died in other areas of the world, as part of historic American exploration efforts,
and were shipped back for proper burial in Scotland.



Everyone loves a good Scottish ghost story, right?
The Haunted Tower is part of the fortified Abbey Wall around the St. Andrews Cathedral,
used to bury bodies during the plague of 1605 and sealed until 1868.
This is home to "The White Lady of the Haunted Tower."



St. Andrews Castle, the former Bishops' Palace prior to the Reformation.

Golf fans, eat your hearts out!
This is the home of the British Open, the best green in the world.



Famous golfer such as Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods regard this course to be the best in the world.

RRS Discovery, the first ship to sail to Antarctica, docked permanently in Dundee.

The expedition launched in 1901 and brought five years worth of provisions, a flock of 45 sheep, and 19 sleigh dogs.

Nick has always been fascinated by Antarctica and it's a personal goal of his to make it to the continent some day.
As an early birthday present, I gave Nick an Antarctica patch on the decks of the Discovery.

Exploring the sleeping quarters aboard the Discovery.
Can you spot me?


In every other bunk there were creepy wax figures of the men from the crew.
I swear I must have jumped at the sight of these things at least three times.

Ernest Shackleton's sleeping quarters.
Nick was OBSESSED.

Yet another great example of a "dad" photo.
All you need to do is Photoshop a six-year-old child beside him.



"Into the ice, men!"



After leaving Dundee, we made our way up the rural two-laned A92 toward Inverbervie.

The coastline at Inverbervie, a quaint little town that came to us at the sparkling recommendation of my coworker Amy.

She told us that we just had to visit the Bervie Chipper, voted best chippy in Scotland in 1998!


It's name and flavors precede it.
Nick got the fish and chips, a noble selection.

The famous grouse!
Sadly, there was no whiskey in sight.

Just south of Stonehaven and about ten minutes north of Inverbervie, we found Dunnottar Castle.
This was the site of many murders, including William Wallaces victory over the English in 1286
and a Covenanters torture and massacre in 1639.

Here I am at the mouth of a cave by Dunnottar
with the North Sea in the background.

This castle was even the setting for Mel Gibson's "Hamlet."
Totally not Denmark!

This place, with its mossy cliffs, wind-torned walls, and "grizzly" past, was by far my favorite of the trip.

When we hiked up from the coast, the weather turned on us,
yielding high winds, rain and a gradient of colors in the sky.

In true Scottish fashion, it lasted all of ten minutes.
The cows were unfazed by the weather, the landscape, or even the rainbow overhead.

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I've lived in Scotland for just over a year and I've seen only a small fraction of the dramatic mountains, crumbling castles, crystalline lochs, and mythic biology that attracts so many to this ancient land. For this reason (and for someone's approaching 29th birthday), Nick and I are renting a car and setting off into the Scottish countryside for a four-day tour that will take us along the eastern seaboard, swinging left to Loch Ness, over the Eilean Ban, and onto a surely idyllic hike on the Isle of Skye.

Here's a map of our route, along with some of the anticipated highlights. Are you jealous yet?
 

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