For Auld Lang Syne...

A strange thing happened tonight...

I missed home a little more than I usually do. Yeah, I usually miss my family and friends...as well as curries, chippies and the legal right to drink...

But tonight I actually missed Scotland a little.

I spent the night at a restaurant in Warsaw, NC where one of my girlfriends teachers goes annually for a Burns supper ran by the wee Scottish lady that runs the place. Naturally i expected to turn up at a little building filled totally with tartan, Saltires and Americans in Kilts talking about how their Great, Great, Great, Great Grand dad was a member of the MacDonald Clan.

To my surprise however, we were greeted by a wee old lady called Iris, who immediately approached Sarah and I. On opening her mouth I couldn't help but smile a little, when I heard a familiar Ayrshire accent.

"Where ye from?"

Her little eyes lit up immediately when Sarah said Ayr. As we talked back in forth, Sarahs teacher and his wife watched with bemused smiles, probably at how little of what these people with funny accents conversation they could understand. We discovered that Iris's brother-in-law actually lives on Sarahs street!!! And her brother who was there that night lived for a while in Troon, where he worked for Dodds of Troon bus company! Completely baffled by the apparently tiny world it is that we're wandering about, we entered the dinner room where 5 long tables covered in cutlery and wine and beer awaited. The night ensued with us sitting next to the senator for North Carolina, laughing at the toast to the lassies and the reply from the guys mother, hearing poems, a pipe band and stuffing ourselves with a much missed steak pie, haggis and trifle.

It's so odd to be sitting so far from home, in a country that is generally so terrible at understanding other countries and their cultures, but feeling so at home. I had a good night...

would have been better with a beer though...