DAY SIX: Aberdeen

Today was never going to be a go-getter kind of day.  Still stinging from missing the lmassive block park (and later run on ER rooms) half of the Miners Gala, it was bound to have a Sunday kind of feeling, especially once we realized that in order to truly catalogue my father-in-law's family roots we'd have to somehow get to a church about an hour from actual Aberdeen city.  That was still a possibility, however, as of about 9:45 last night.  

We could've gone straight home.  That was the plan.  Instead, I talked my bride into a night cap.

We could've gone to any number of pubs located on the way home from the restaurant.  We decided to drop into Ma Cameron's on Little Belmont Street, navigating a warren of spaces before finding, in a small, low-ceilinged room, the bar. 

Four hours later we had new Scottish friends (shoutout Dundee Crew) and we were lurching back toward our hotel, stopping once to pick up a woman who'd tried to step down from a curb and face-planted in the middle of the street, having sampled enough of the Aberdeen night life to cross "hang out in a tiny room in a pub and say 'What?' repeatedly, every single time cracking up our new Scottish friends, who then kindly kept reminding each other that 'you've got to talk slowly'," "listen to a guy play British pop songs on a guitar" and "go clubbing for the first time since 1990" off of our bucket lists.  

Some of us also crossed "dance to a guy playing British pop songs on a guitar," "get hugged repeatedly by a random woman also dancing to the guy" and "get stalked by a creepy guy who kept staring through multiple venues, at multiple distances, long after it should've been obvious to him that his attention was creeping out the girl he'd targeted" off their lists, while others managed to cross "intimidate a creepy stalker by scowling, staring intently back, crossing his arms in a menacing fashion and then, finally, raising his beer bottle in silent salute (which actually worked)" off theirs.

It was a great night, but it led to a very slow morning, which all but vaporized our ambitions for the day.  

Which is not to say that great things were not accomplished.  They were.  They were just accomplished quietly, without much of an agenda.  Bucket list items were checked off last night not today, unless one of us had "walking through a number of cemeteries and feeling sad every time you see a family plot that includes an infant" on his.  I didn't.  It made me sad. 

There are those who would say that today was the ideal travel day for a guy like me.  I like to think that Sandra Bullock enjoyed it as well.  We did get to see a few Aberdeen attractions like Old Aberdeen (which had zero candy stores with big barrels of salt water taffy in them, surprising to one whose grandparents often took him to Old Sacramento) and the sneakily impressive and historic St. Machar's Cathedral, 500, or maybe 1,000 years old, where coins dropped in the donations box rattle around like gunshots until two elderly volunteers run over to see if anyone got hurt and then quip, "Next time, donate paper money."  

Love, reign o'er me.

And we saw the very Quadrophenia-esque beach promenade, just the right amount of gloomy and deserted, the optimum amount of paint peeling off its weather-beaten honky tonk of candy shops and carnival rides. To your right, dotted with offshore windmills and anchored ships, is the North Sea.  Beyond that is Denmark. 

Not as nearly lyrical are Aberdeen's loathesome seagulls, whose haunting cawing may inspire nostalgia in some but whose menacing, Hitchcockian diving and swooping terrifies all, and whose dangerously indiscriminate bowel movements create non-stop terror for locals and visitors alike.  

Two times (!) last night within the space of a block we almost got hit.  No warning, just a loud splat! on the pavement inches from an outraged Sandra Bullock, who then described in great detail how angry she would've been had she been nailed by the offensive bird's payload.  

After that I began to notice -- mayhem everywhere, brought on by these marauding fowl. White spots on everything -- the street, historic buildings, cars, road signs.  Further from downtown, the seagulls gathered on rooftops, threw their heads back and roared.  At what?  Each other?  The sky?  Us?  The makers of Huggies for ignoring the vast seagull market?

 This is their place, not ours, that much is clear.  We are just caretakers.

Somehow, despite walking almost 8 miles today, we never came as close to getting hit as we did last night.  They were off their game.  It's Sunday.  

Tonight will in no way resemble last night, that much I can guarantee you up front.   For one, the Dundee Crew is back in Dundee.  What are we going to do?  Find another Scotland crew?  On a Sunday?  Yes, the pubs are open, even on Sunday when lots of other stuff is not, and yes, one we passed in Old Aberdeen did have live music, which was tempting.  I stood in the doorway for five minutes watching a women with a vintage hollow body electric guitar and a drum machine make some weird pop song sound fantastic.  "Do you want to go in?" asked Sandra Bullock.

"No.  I really don't," I said. 

"Maybe if they also had tea and coffee, but I don't see any sign of that."

We we walked on.  We are staying out of the pubs today.  "Lets have a quiet night," Bullock suggested within 10 minutes of waking up this morning, which was almost this afternoon.

"Yes," I croaked. 

"Maybe we can watch a movie."

So tonight, after Turkish food, we'll come straight back to the hotel and maybe fire up the TV, where all the evidence I've seen since arriving in the U.K. suggests that at least one channel will be showing something starring Simon Pegg. Or maybe we'll gather around my iPad and watch the newest Big Little Lies, should it already by on HBO Go, and bring a little bit of familiarity and routine into our chaotic sabbatical lives.  

I'll cut this short, like a day where you don't wake up until 10:30 is short.  Yesterday I was up for 23 hours after getting only 4 hours of sleep the night before, which is pretty heroic.  Maybe I'll add that to my repertoire next time I have to intimidate a guy who won't stop staring at my wife.  "By the way, I can do this for (checks watch) 16 more hours without sleeping."

Today numbers:

5 -- cemeteries passed during a 3-hour walk.  We only entered three of them, which was plenty for me.  What was the strategy in 19th-century Scotland?  Have as many kids as you can and hope for a post-infancy survival rate over 60 percent?

3, maybe 4 if you include me -- guys in our party last night who I'd consider intimidating-looking enough to dissuade a guy from staring at one of our wives and making her uncomfortable.

2,559 -- steps recorded after midnight yesterday.

19,941 -- steps recorded today, minus the 2.559.

17 -- age of the kid at the next table at lunch talking about how every time he goes over his girlfriend's house, her mom "tries to ply (him) with drink."  Watch out, kid.

49 -- miles from the Hilton Garden Inn, Aberdeen City Center to the Fyvie Parish Church, where Patrick Cheyne was christened in 1683.  Sorry, Dick.  We should've planned better. 

20 -- baggage weight limit per passenger, in kilograms, of the Logan Air flight we are taking tomorrow to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.  It's going to be very, very close. 

Loveable scamp.

2 (est) -- age of the little kid we saw riding in a stroller on the beach promenade with one tear sliding down his cheek that just about broke our hearts.  Maybe it was the gloomy weather.  

6 (so far) -- disturbing statues scattered around Aberdeen that I've learned are part of the Oor Willie Trail to raise money for charity. All of painted different colors by different artists.  All look like Chucky. 

Time to wrap this up.  The Turkish restaurant we're trying to night is supposed to be Aberdeen's finest.

And to our Jawa, who starts his first Hollywood job tomorrow morning (PDT), good luck and knock 'em dead.  We're proud.