The Colors of M&M's in Europe

We are currently on a trip, vacation, holiday, or excursion in Europe.  I prefer to call it my “grand adventure” since I’ve had few adventures of this scale.  And it has been grand, for me at least.  It’s also been an adventure of self-discovery, which has not necessarily been “grand”, but rather, it has been very enlightening.  I will save the self-discovery revelations for another day.  Today, I’ll just jump into the observations I’ve made while on this “adventure”.

The language barrier:  When you go from California to France, there IS a language barrier.  Even if your hubby served an LDS mission in France 40 years ago and still speaks French, there IS a barrier.  But here’s the funny thing;  we are trying to speak French to them- their native language and, if they are able, they speak English back to you.  Whether they saw it as an opportunity to practice that language or just to make us feel more comfortable, it happened constantly in large cities and small ones.  There was my husband trying to communicate in their language and they just kept trying to speak broken English back to us! They are so considerate!

Scottish is kind of a foreign language.  The brogue can be hard to understand.  Almost more so than understanding French.  Context is key.  If you are asking where the gift shop is and it sounds like they said, “It’s a dang hot roll there”,  most likely they said something close to “It’s down that road there”.  I’m good with context and can figure things out.  My husband isn’t so good with context; he understands things in a literal way.  Consequently, he’s still wondering where the hot rolls are.  This type of thing happened many times, even in France.



Public bathrooms in Europe:  Now there’s a challenge.  First of all, they just call them “Toilets”.  After all, there aren’t any baths in public bathrooms, are there?  For your information, there are a few different types of bathrooms/toilets in Europe.  Toilets in public parks, Toilets in a visitor attraction site, bathrooms in restaurants, and paid toilets.  Toilets in public parks have zero TP, minimal privacy (doors optional) and are free.  Toilets in a visitor attraction are free but often you have to pay for TP.  Yeah.  I'm still trying to reason that one out.  Restaurant toilets are usually free and have free TP - you bought their food so it stands to reason it included toilet paper, right?  Then there are paid restrooms, where there are gates with coin slots.  You have to pay to do your basic human duty.  Really?  Paying for luxurious TP is one thing, but having to pay just to….well, you know?!  I found it is best to carry my own TP and to always be on the lookout for free restrooms before it’s too late.   Then again, there are plenty of trees in Europe.

Finding a restaurant is often harder than searching for the Holy Grail.  Holy cow! or Holy Grail!, it was our biggest challenge.  In France, most restaurants are only open from 11:30 to 1:30pm and then from 7-11pm.  And sometimes they just close cuz they don’t feel like working that day or have a private party. We like eating early in the evening so we don’t go to bed with a full stomach.  In Scotland it was similar, plus there were so few places to get a meal in the smaller towns.  Then there was the tea and alcohol component.  I lost count of the quizzical looks and shrugs of the shoulder when we would insist we didn't care for wine with our casoulet in France, or a good ale or guinness with our meat pie in Scotland.  And p.s. - never, ever refuse tea.  Just bring your own herbal blend and they can forgive that.

Black-faced sheep:  The Isle of Skye was absolutely delightful in so many ways.  Breathtaking vistas and heights and waterfalls.  But my favorite thing may well be their sheep.  Unique to these islands are black-faced sheep that have adult coats of long, flowing, 'Gandalf’s beard' wool, while their young have bright white fluffy wool with black faces and boots.  You will find them scattered here and there and everywhere on the green hills.  Being spring, we were able to see many lambs.  Cute, fluffy, bouncy lambs; they are good for hours of watching entertainment.   Somehow, it seemed, with their black faces, that they would look at us with incredible wisdom.  Or amusement.  It was hard to tell.

People:  There are many, many, many good and genuine people in this world.  Oh, I could go on and on with examples of this one.   Here are a few that stand out to me: there was the adorable white-haired, rosy cheeked woman in a Scottish ice cream shop who smilingly asked me if I needed a “nappie” in case I was a “bumbly-umpkins”, or the french people at church who were so happy to see an old missionary returned to them,  the couple at Loch Lommond who served us tea and cake, then showed us their garden. There was the woman on Harris who had lost her husband 4 weeks earlier, had come to the island to scatter his ashes  and needed a shoulder to cry on,  and there was the Indian/Chilean couple on the Isle of Skye who invited us to share their home-cooked dinner meal with them while we talked about the affairs of the world and the common good of the human race.  It was all so wonderful and amazing and endearing.  We are all truly God’s children and mostly filled with a desire to be good and kind to one another; we all want to connect with each other and feel that brotherhood.  The media wants us to believe otherwise.  I know better now.  No matter differences in religion, place of residence, culture, ethnicity or political leanings; we are all humanly connected as kindred spirits and have more in common than we realize. I love our similarities, but I find I love our differences as well. 

 And lastly, M&M’s.  Here in the UK, they have a light orange/coral color added to the M&M rainbow.  I think it tasted pretty much the same as the other colors.  I thought you would like to know that tidbit. 

Just a wee bit of Scottish info for ye.