Scotland

I have been in Scotland for a few days working at a scotch distillery on an island called Arran, off of the Scottish coast. I have yet to take a tour of the distillery, but tomorrow morning I am going to take a tour with the president. His name is James and he has a very thick Scottish accent. I have been translating English between him and my French team. We are installing the OXO 2 system for stacking barrels. Today and yesterday were not as hard as working at the cooperage, but not as interesting either. I was put in charge of placing black caps on the ends of the nuts. I also helped prepare for the next wave of racks, and that was more labor-intense then the cooperage. To put the caps on the nuts I have to climb the stacking structure that is about 35ft high; after a while it gets very tiring. After we finished work, we went to the pub to get food and play golf without clubs -- we played by throwing the ball! We would play balls, but there are too many bugs.

The Scottish countryside is very beautiful and Arran is pretty isolated. You have to take a ferry to get here, but worth it because it is very green with very picturesque mountains. Since it is summer here the sun doesn't really set until around 11:30pm, and then rises very early -- 5am. This really messes with my internal clock, but oh well. The team is very good and we are having a great time.
--Drew
photo: Martin Frojd RipperDoc