Aloof, humorless Brits; dingy gray cities and streets choked with tourists – that’s what I expected to find in the UK. But by the time I had toured Edinburgh, Scotland and visited lovely Newcastle, England, it was obvious how ridiculous those stereotypes were; not only had I found warm, welcoming people, the cities were filled … Read more
No visit to England is complete without a stop in a traditional English pub and in Newcastle the most famous of them all is the Crown Posada. My friend Val, who has lived in Newcastle all her life, dragged me in the front door and introduced me as a travel writer to the bartender, who immediately … Read more
I met Valerie Jamieson almost a year ago, during a visit to Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. Serendipitously, we had booked weekend safaris at the same lodge and ended up on the same bus back to Pokhara, where she was volunteering at an orphanage and elementary school. We bonded immediately and started meeting every … Read more
From the moment I arrived in Scotland I was fascinated by kilts. My assumption that they were an ethnic costume worn only for historic reenactments or cultural shows could not have been more wrong. Ordinary men walked about the streets of Edinburgh in full kilt regalia and members of the Scottish Guard wear kilts. At … Read more
When my friends, Dorothy and Ricky, invited me to visit them in Edinburgh, Scotland, on my way back from Laos and Thailand, I jumped at the chance. I am, after all, part Scottish. My mother was a MacDonald, a lineage that hearkens back to the days of the famed MacDonald-Campbell feud. The clash between these … Read more
