I went to Scotland for my spring break. All my friends wanted to go someplace with sun and girls baked like lays, girls laid while they’re being baked, girl bakers eating lays, etc. Somehow they didn’t see the appeal of stormy weather, near-freezing temperatures and more sheep than a Yankee fan base. Philistines.

I, however, decided to go on a journey of self-exploration and deep mental reflection. This, of course, could only be accomplished while wearing a plaid skirt thingy. Actually, it’s a kilt. And though I’ve made jokes about my Scottish heritage in the past, and now have a lot more fodder for the future, I do respect the kilt, the claymore, the highland dance and even the football fanatics. The haggis, however, is my people’s skeleton in the closet. I have no defense for it except to distract you with a joke about how the Irish drink a lot.

The Scots are a really open and friendly people. If America is a pizza, topped with the hot sausage of intolerance and fundamentalism on a bed of cheesy patriotism, Scotland is haggis: stuffed full of love with an open center and wrapped in, uh, cow’s stomach.

Why visit Scotland you might ask? Well I’m a big believer in imagery. So if most people picture their spring break revolving around sipping a fruity drink and girls with low esteem, instead I have a picture in my mind of a newswoman speaking with a warm brogue while wrapping up the evening’s “Highlander News,” her business-suited arms showing little effort as she tosses a tree trunk. Caber-tossing anchorwoman — not just a great band name, but what I envisioned Scotland to hold.

Upon arriving at the old farm, my Scottish relatives dismissed this vision. I’m a great deal Scottish and I wanted to trace the family lines. I accomplished this (thanks Jim and Liz) and I even got to see the old family tree. I’ll admit, though, I was a bit disappointed. My lineage has ties to several clans and yet I didn’t see anybody named Angus the Scourge or Caelan the Slayer King. I really was hoping for a long history of frightening warrior kings for me to emulate. Instead I got Annie Lennox. Yes, my family is made up of farmers, highlanders and gender-crossing Eurhythmic singers. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

It was interesting viewing another societal system and governing body. The Scottish government is a multi-party system. Instead of elections, parliament members kick a spheroid around a grass field to score votes. Thus, the Scots are really into politics, and their elections are broadcast daily. The general election takes about six months and the winning party is allowed to riot and ransack their constituency. Instead of donkeys and elephants to denote political affiliation, each party wears different scarves, but not the effeminate French kind. So really, J.K. Rowling’s quidditch games were a metaphor for Scottish politics: they both don’t have a point.

With all this scarf-wearing electioneering, people somehow don’t have time to own guns and the crime rate is comparatively lower. People are open and courteous, attracting foreigners from all over the world to their universities. Though there is still some religious rivalry, people are generally very tolerant of other peoples’ beliefs. They are pro-European, pro-civil unions and pro-Arctic Monkeys. I was talking with sheep farmers in rural Scotland, not radical San Francisco liberals, and I found some of the most open people in the world. They smile and with their cheery accent, everything sounds like they are talking about puppies and unicorns and fairy dust, even when they mock our sad imitation of a world leader who they adorably pronounce “boosh.” They made me feel like the U.S. is the most advanced backward country on the planet.

It should say something that if you walk around Europe right now, it’s better to wear a maple leaf. The Scots love the Canucks. They ask me routinely about the Canadians, like I was some rebellious kid brother and look how Canada was getting straight A’s and is captain of the hockey team and why can’t I be like him? They ask me what Americans think of the Canucks, and I tell them that we usually don’t. To Europeans, Canada is actually a legitimate nation, where we are right now somewhere between Disneyland and Greenland in terms of political respectability. I routinely was forced to qualify the statement “I’m an American” with “I’m from California.” They smile and they nod then and it’s like I just said the secret password. I’m confident there are signs all over Europe that has a list of American states that says “not assholes.”

For a minute there it felt nice to see the world through different eyes and breathe the Scottish air and think: there is hope for America yet. Maybe we should all learn to speak with a brogue. And toss cabers. Maybe there’s something in this haggis thing after all....

Chris would like to thank his extended family for their generosity and their good humour.