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On Wednesday, Casey and I set foot – for the first time – in a foreign country. It was, at least for me, a surreal experience.

Think about it – for 22 years I’ve walked, biked, driven, flown and used a myriad of other forms of public transportation to get me all around the United States. But I had never gone through customs, used my passport, or experienced another culture.

Admittedly, I didn’t think much of it when we set foot in the Coppenhagen airport on our layover. I mean, at some point, an airport is an airport. There’s a check-in counter, lots of people, gates, terminals, planes, a baggage claim, etc.

And believe it or not, everything in the airport was translated into English and every person we spoke to as we navigated the airport spoke English, so nothing (except some cool futuristic toilets) felt particularly foreign about our three-hour stop there.

But when we started our decent into Edinburgh and peered out the tiny plane window at the rolling hills of neatly-kept farmlands and sprinkled trees, I started to think about just how remarkable it is that in 26 hours of travel, we could make it to an entire new land – and we get to live here for a whole year!

I’ll confess that my first experience with Scotland was less-than-exciting. Something about stepping on the tarmac, packing into a bus and traipsing to the border was rather unsettling. Trudging through the mile-long lines of nationals from every country in a low-ceilinged, dark and dungey room made me feel criminal. Border patrol was nice enough – she smiled – but I couldn’t help but feel like Jason Bourne hoping that my contacts with the government could help waive me through the system.

And we were so hungry that we didn’t care about eating an authentic meal. We grabbed paninis and a latte at the only airport restaurant on the “free” side of customs.

Thankfully, our taxi driver was amazing and everything I imagined a Scottsman being. We talked everything – countryside, Edinburgh, Boston, weather, traffic, Brexit and of course, Donald Trump – and he gave us some helpful advice: Pay in cash, Celebrate New Year’s in Edinburgh, and don’t bother with Edinburgh castle – there are better things to see.

And once we got off the highway and started winding through backroads and tiny town centers to get to a traditional 13th century castle tucked into the countryside that had a bed for us that evening, we finally got a tangible grasp of Scotland. And it only got better from there.

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