T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
Julie 
After following the northern coast of eastern Scotland, our route turned inland towards Loch Kinord, where we stayed for a night. This area is known as Royal Deeside, due to its proximity to the River Dee and to Balmoral Castle, the queen’s famed vacation home.
From Banff we spent an afternoon driving along Scotland’s northeastern coast, enjoying the views and popping in and out of a string of tiny fishing villages.
Read moreEastern Scotland: lighthouses and small coastal towns
One of my favorite parts of driving around the Scottish Highlands is hairy coo spotting. As you drive along, you’ll catch sight of a couple cows grazing in a pasture far up the road.
We hadn’t specifically set out to visit any distilleries on this last trip to the Highlands, but somehow we managed to find ourselves driving the Malt Whisky Trail through Speyside one afternoon. Clearly we were meant to tour a distillery right then. We were spoiled for choice with such a large cluster of distilleries at our feet; not knowing which to choose, we trusted our guidebook’s recommendation of Glenfiddich.
On our last morning in Nairn, we couldn’t resist taking one more stroll along the beach.
Read moreEastern Scotland: from Nairn to Speyside (or beaches to casks)
To start out our recent trip to the Highlands, we based ourselves in the seaside town of Nairn for two nights (and we would have happily stayed another night or two). We spent our second day exploring the Moray Firth (a firth is basically the Scottish equivalent of a fjord) on both sides of Inverness.
We’re finally getting the chance to get out and see some of the wonderful other parts of Scotland that we’ve been hearing so much about. Not knowing where to start, we chose a direction and hopped in the car. We ended up covering a good bit of northeast Scotland on our first five-day excursion, getting just enough of a taste of its rolling hills, castles, beaches, distilleries, and hairy coos to know we definitely want to go back for more.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether to write this post. It was tempting to leave it out, to keep this website as some kind of imaginary version of our adventures as travel-happy expats, where life was going on as usual. But for the past seven years this blog has been a chronicle of our actual lives, and omitting something so significant seems strange. We’ve been weighing the discomfort of sharing this story publicly against the discomfort of leaving it out; looks like the scales have tipped towards telling it. Here goes.
Back in May we were finally starting to settle into life in Edinburgh after a long, drawn-out move from Munich (a move which involved detours to Italy, the US, and Japan). We were excited about our new city in a new country. We were figuring out which neighborhood grocery stores we like best (Waitrose for the win) and trying very hard to remove the word “pants” from our vocabulary. We were just starting to meet people, taking the first steps towards having a local social circle.
Also in May, Scott’s foot started to hurt a little.
So much to see, so little time. The Fringe is exhausting us with its entertainment possibilities. What will life be like when there aren’t hundreds of live shows to choose from each day? Here’s what we’ve seen in the past week:
Tig Notaro ***** Tig was probably the performer we were looking forward to the most, and she did not disappoint. Tears of laughter.
Janeane Garofalo **** Somehow I managed to not even notice her on the Fringe schedule until last week, but luckily tickets were still available. Well worth it.
Rich Hall **** Until recently, the name Rich Hall reminded me only of Sniglets.
Have we mentioned how much we’re enjoying our first Fringe? I already predict some serious festival withdrawal at the beginning of September. Here’s what we’ve seen in the past week:
Zoe Lyons **** An entertaining, well-polished show about nothing in particular. She had the audience laughing in the first minute and kept the pace up for the entire show. (Scott gives her a full five stars.)
Bridget Christie – A Bic for Her **** Made me laugh and despair at the evils of the world all at the same time.