"Remember, you are representing Americans"

Me: I'm really glad we're having this talk. I actually had kind of a bad experience in England so I want to make sure that I'll be working 30 hours a week, like we agreed in the emails.
Sonny: Whoa whoa, that's a bad attitude! You shouldn't be asking what's the minimum you can work, you should be asking what's the MAXIMUM you can work. As in 'how many hours a day can I work for you, Sonny?' Remember, we took a chance on you, despite you being American. You ARE representing your country, you know.

I'm sitting at a kitchen table in Ireland, discussing expectations with my new hosts Sonny and Mary. 

Sonny: Also, we do have internet, but we don't like people to use it much in their free time. You know, blogging and that Twitter thing. It bugs us. So just don't do it.
 
I explain that I will need to email with my family and friends, as well as apply for jobs. They stare at me, and repeat that they don't like it when people use the internet a lot.

So when the next few days went by with no problems, I started to think they were all bark and no bite, or at least all bark and mild nibbling, until day three. I ask Mary if I can use the computer to get back to some companies about jobs, she peers at me over her tea and declares, "I think you've had enough time on the computer for the week." We went back and forth for a while, me offering money or more work in exchange for the internet, Mary insisting it wasn't about the money, she simply isn't convinced I need to use it. Images of staying on my parents couch without a job start floating through my mind as the conversation escalates into an argument. Finally Mary accuses me of knowing nothing about beekeeping (if I had a dollar for every time I've been accused of that...) and angrily goes into the living room to watch her soap opera.

In the end, Sonny talks to Mary and reports back that she won't be able to forgive me. I get in touch with friends of a friend who live in Dublin who agree to take me in and offer to pick me up that night. It was a good thing too, because at that point Mary isn't speaking to me and Sonny is explaining that since I'm young, I'm always wrong. Oh and now they really don't like Americans. (Sorry...everyone.)

Iris and Claas (German, so of course they rock) took me back to their beautiful flat in Dublin, overlooking the Liffey River. And I am once again, blown away by how many times good people have stepped up when I've been in a bind. I stayed with them for almost a week and they took me to beaches, pubs, coffee shops, and Google, where Iris works. Fun fact: Google believes that a person should never be more than 100 meters from chocolate and food. Thus, there are kitchens everywhere, full of FREE food and cooks to make your breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

The only picture I took of my WWOOFING hosts, but its a good one. Sonny offing some wasps.

Good Samaritans: the lovely Claas and Iris :)

At Claas and Iris' flat, the view outside my bedroom window.

Viking tours outside our windows!

Its Google tour time! Their breakrooms resemble pubs around Dublin.

Fresh squeezed orange juice, nbd.

Massage and relaxation area.

Free coffee with all the fixin's.

Ireland is beautiful.

Us tourists, we love to feed seals.

Oh hey there Scotland, I like ya mountains.

Excited and mapless, ready to hike Slioch

Slioch, on a day we should have climbed it

Waterfalls everywhere! Eventually we lost the trails and just hiked up creeks

Steep, so so steep

Kelly looking cute while we tried to figure out where Slioch went.

The path went straight up, it is at this point Kelly (she's super tiny, to the right of the path) probably saw the rain cloud that tried to ruin everything.

So we stayed in the cloud, crouched under a rock for an hour and a half, but it was worth it when we reached the summit! Beautiful five second views when the clouds parted :)

Baaa-aaa-aad ass

I'm already missin these

On my last day we went to a lighthouse!

We had been joined by Jes (left) the bubbliest, brightest ray of sunshine I've ever met!

What happiness looks like

Chinese lantern full of wishes for my birthday!

Why yes, he is wearing a kilt for my last night in Scotland

We hike mountains after work.

Exactly one week after my birthday I was in Scotland, toasting and eating wonderful food in a cozy log cabin with a group of new friends. Half of the group spoke mainly German so we exchanged the few words we knew, ate Haribou gummy bears, and ended the evening watching My Best Friends Wedding. We were re-celebrating my birthday, since they learned I didn't have a party and would hear nothing of it.

I've been in Scotland for nine days but its only taken two to fall in love with it. Our cabin is on a loch and surrounded by dozens of beautiful mountains. I work alongside two sweet girls, Kelly from Tennessee and Paulina from Berlin. There is no weeding (legal or otherwise), 19 hours of sunlight, and a half dozen rickety old boats we can use at any time. Did I mention there are NINETEEN hours of daylight?! Imagine that there are enough hours in a day to do everything you want. Now add mountains and boats. BOOM.

During the day we are elbows deep in grime and mouse poop, working to restore this beautiful old hotel after 42 pipes burst this last winter, destroying almost everything. The work is hard and we've all gotten to see our fair share of dead mice and ticks but its so rewarding to see the place get cleaned up. The program I'm here with, called WorkAway, is just like WWOOFING except isn't limited to just farming. Nick, our host, is a 50 something bachelor from England who can't. sit. still. and we've been razzing each other since I arrived. He's new to Scotland and getting a tour from him is a lot like following a little boy around his playroom while he shows you all his new legos and transformers. You would be the same way though, this place is like Harry Potter land on steroids.

Loch Maree, where we live!

My girls! Kelly on the left, Paulina on the right.

Kelly is awesome.

We stopped for tea on our roadtrip, overlooking this.

Hippies everywhere

Obsessed with mountains

Generalization: Polish hippies love roadtripping in Scotland

Castle in Inverness (Loch Ness Monster land)

Giving a boat tour. That mountain will (hopefully) be climbed tomorrow!

Smiling, because we have no idea how lost we will get

We found the trail (but we lose it again later)

At the Highland Games kids sit on logs and clobber each other with pillows!

Then, kilted Scottish men throw the logs

At the beach, happy to see the Atlantic!

Kelly and I shipwrecked our boat, so poor Nick had to rescue us!

Hiking with Kelly, in the highlands

That little sliver of gold is the Atlantic

Whirling Dervishes and getting over myself in England

My days WWOOFING in England started long before my hosts woke up and while I worked, Emily stayed inside cheering for 'what you Americans call white-trash' on Judge Judy. At lunchtime I would learn how much I didn't know when they would talk about Whirling Dervishes (who?) and John Paul Getty. They would end stories with things like, "Oh and were they ever hoisted by their own petard!" I would deliver my best I-know-what-that-means-and-why-its-funny laugh, but they always saw right through it and would make me say why it was so funny. When they learned I hadn't read the book 'Rebecca' (as famous as the Bible!) they discussed, half serious, if I had actually grown up under a rock. A fun discussion for all.

This was a far cry from the British dream I imagined from her description in her emails to me before I arrived. The Peter and Emily I would be working for lived a mile or two off of the beautiful English coastline. I'd be working the standard five hours a day in exchange for tasty, organic goodness. The work would be gardening, looking after the chickens, cleaning, oh, and do I know anything about decorating?

The Peter and Emily I actually worked for neglected to mention that the Royal Air Force used their coastline to test aircraft during the week so I couldn't actually get to the sea without getting dive bombed. She also saved up a month of weeding for me, so my first week was spent on my butt, digging weeds out.

By the end of that week, her English accent wasn't quite so adorable and I missed the hippies. I finally brought it up over lunch one day, mentioned my sore back, and asked about the decorating she mentioned in her emails. She looked at me and laughed, "We've already done all the decorating, lovey! We DO have more weeding, mind you. Right then, why don't you paint the hallway?"

And that was that. She kept my long hours, but varied the jobs. I learned that traveling isn't always beautiful or glamorous. And people aren't always what I hoped for. But that's okay, because I'm learning that I can get over myself, count my blessings and still be happy to be having this experience.

Peter, on our morning walk

Emily introducing me to tea and crumpets

My first Cannelloni, all ingredients home grown!