TRAVEL MEMOIR

Stumbling Into Love in a Scottish Kitchen

Or as my friends know it — the “Twin in Berlin” story

Picture by the author of some friends on another trip through the UK.

When I finished my mandatory military service in Finland, I wanted to leave the country as fast as possible. Finland and I have made our peace today, but back then our relationship was a bit rocky.

I had a flight booked to Brazil (I’m Brazilian-Finnish) for a month later, but decided to travel a bit in order to not just sit around counting the days.

I spent a few days in London and then took the afternoon train headed to Edinburgh. It was a Friday and the train was an experience in itself. The first three hours you can barely hear a sound inside the car, and you see a few people reading and others wrapping up some work. Then when it hits Newcastle, a bunch of drunk people get on drinking and screaming on their way to a night out in Scotland. It’s beautiful.

My days in Edinburgh were a bit unusual. On my last night, I ended up at an end-of-season party for an underwater hockey team — a sport I never knew existed — and watched them repeatedly proclaim their collective love for garlic bread. We also played some strange games, and I woke up the next morning wondering if I’d just had a weird dream as I headed to Stirling, a small university town, to pay a quick visit…