I interrupt this cheerful and informative travel blog to bring you some snarky thoughts about my fellow travelers...I'm sure you've been wondering when I would include these thoughts, you didn't think I'd left my snark behind in Seattle, did you?
On the ferry to Islay, as we attempted to relax in the ferry bar lounge, we noticed a large group of about eight middle-aged white guys, being rather jovial and noisy, and judging by their alcohol intake the situation only promised to get noisier and more obnoxious. Not the mention the really pleasant habit several of them had of breaking into a loud, wet hacking cough following each laughing fit. The gabbered away to each other, apparently telling some of funniest stories ever told on a ferry EVER. At first Matt thought they might just have really thick unintelligible Scottish accents or even be speaking Gaelic, but as I listened closer, I realized with a sinking feeling that they were Dutch. (Sorry, Danae, you are awesome and I'm sure they are NO relation to you). Now, the Dutch in general are fairly benign and of course we all claim to love Amsterdam and its "entertainment," canals are charming, and we all adore Anne Frank. Since they lost control of world domination via the spice trade routes in the 15th century no one has had much to say about them. I mean, apparently we grow all their tulips in Mount Vernon and then ship them over there. But on Jodi's and my cruise down the Nile last October, a very large and obnoxious and tour group dominated the ship...and they were Dutch. So it's fair to say my impression of these boisterous Dutch dudes was colored by that experience. But as I like to remind people, stereotypes are simply time-savers. Anyway, they drank more and more during the 2.5 hour ride and got louder and even funnier (to each other, of course) and we just cringed and I tried to reassure Matt that our hotel probably wasn't big enough for all these Dutch. Fortunately, they stayed somewhere in Bowmore and the only other time we saw them on the island was when their van left Bruichladdich distillery just as we were entering...can you say "phew!?" We spotted them again on the ferry back to the mainland on Friday morning but avoided them in the cafe and just hoped they were all hungover enough to behave themselves. One of the distillery tour guides explained that the Scandinavians, Icelanders, and Dutch apparently just LOVE the peaty/smoky whisky from Islay, and some intrepid fellows have tried starting similar distilleries in their home countries. However, Islay won't export its precious peat ANYWHERE...so they resorted to breaking down old Islay scotch casks and burning those to malt the barley in order to get whatever "smoky" taste they could from it. Interesting.
We thought we were in the clear at Bruichladdich, but as we waited for our tour in the gift shop we couldn't help but notice a woman loudly chatting with the shopkeeper about how she' d love to get her hands on a few of those "really cool special tumblers" to complete her collection. The shopkeeper said he'd go check in the storeroom for her, and she replied, "Okay! Well, I'll be waiting right here! You can't miss me, I'm the American in the bright yellow raincoat!" Ah, restating the obvious. You can't blame Americans for doing what they're best at. Then she chuckled. Loudly. I would have noted that you can't miss her because she's the only one on the island wearing tight spandex cycling pants, but whatever. She also bore a striking resemblance to my arch nemesis and neighbor Lydia, so I'm going to call her East Coast Lydia from now on. She and her husband cheerfully announced that they were from Philadelphia, and as the tour went on we strained to learn more about the distillation process of whisky but somehow we learned more about how Mr. and Mrs. ECL. They had embarked on a bicycling tour around Scotland, but found biking in Scotland to be "trickier" that they had planned on. I'm not sure what's tricky about trying to bike on narrow one, maybe two-, lane roads with no shoulders or guardrails, and competing with huge logging lorries and coach buses for share of the road, but whatever. Apparently centuries ago when these roads emerged through the highlands planners failed in include bike lanes. Go figure, I'd have been shocked too. So Mr. and Mrs. ECL "cheated" (their words) by hiring a car to drive part of the way, and their disappointment in not getting a Subaru was palpable. They eventually cornered a poor unsuspecting fellow from California at the tasting part of the tour, and we could hear them telling him at length about their absolutely amazing bikes and their biking histories. I have found that a consistent trait of these biking/hiking/outdoorsy enthusiasts is that they usually have nothing else to talk about besides biking/hiking/outdoorsiness. Case in point, Mr. and Mrs. ECL find themselves on a gorgeous remote Scottish island drinking rare expensive whisky but all they can find to talk about are their pedals and spokes and elevation climbs and other items of various self-importance. We spotted them again on our ferry Friday morning, but at least this time they had both deigned to dress in actual clothing for the journey rather than grace us with their spandex glory.
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Another cycling enthusiast observation (call it unscientific observation): those people with bike racks (w or w/o attached cycles) are the absolute shittiest drivers on the planet. Hands down, anywhere. They have the worst disregard for the bike lanes that have been so graciously painted in the middle of the roadway for their cycling ease. So cyclists: when decrying the assholes in cars, remember, they are YOU when not on the bike. /rant
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