This isn't Lonely fucking Planet.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew to Glasgow for a friend's wedding, and also "accidentally" stopped in Dublin for a few days on the way there because my wife is actually made out of awesome incarnate. And probably also because we paid the airline to bring us there. But mostly the first one. Anyway, we went and it was fantastic and we both found amazing jobs and never came back because we live there now. Except for the parts of that that didn't happen.

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE RETURNING FROM AWESOME TRIPS:
Nobody wants to hear about your trip actually, even if they directly ask you "how was your trip?" because it always sounds like you're being a braggadouche, and they just start talking about jelly for some reason and then I have to go make some toast. Nobody wins here. Except me, because now I have toast.

Anyway, the whole trip was seriously full of win, but I'll skip a lot of it because I know that your inverse schadenfreude doesn't want to hear about it, and this isn't Lonely fucking Planet. This is a way more fucked-up kind of guidebook. With chapters.

CHAPTER 1

ADVICE FOR AMERICANS TRAVELING TO NOT AMERICA:
You don't have to learn the whole fucking language every time you go to another country, but you should at the very least learn one fucking phrase: "Do you speak English?" This will get you much farther than either slaughtering foreign verbs or shouting things in English will. However, you will also find it extremely useful to know what the primary language is in the first fucking place. Otherwise, you'll probably end up being the dipshit who says this:

Bartender With Mild Dublin Accent: What'll it be?
Dipshit At The Table Next To Us: Uh, English, please.
Incredulous Bartender (louder, and very slowly): Do. You. Want. Anything. To. Eat?

We were actually embarrassed for this douchetard. Actually, that's not true. What we were really embarrassed by was the possibility that we might somehow accidentally be associated with him. Although, on the plane to Dublin, a flight attendant mistook us for Dubliners because we saved our coffee cups and reused them the next time they came around with the beverages. Implications abound. Us: 1. Other Americans: 0.

When you are in Dublin, mostly you will drink a lot of Guinness and see a lot of castles and libraries and Oscar Wilde and other things that are awesome. Also, this:

This place was everyfuckingwhere. It's like the Starbucks of Dublin. No, seriously:

For people in America, Burma/Myanmar, and Liberia, 1 km = roughly half a
mile. Also, learn the fucking metric system. You're embarrassing yourselves.

In a wonderful stroke of irony, they all close at like 7 PM. Insomnia: You're doing it wrong.

Also, you know how, in America, all the soda companies are always giving shit away "under the cap?" Apparently they do that in Ireland and the UK, too, except instead of an Xbox or something, you can win pants. I kind of love them for this:

In UK English, "pants" = "underwear."

CHAPTER 2

Aer Lingus kind of sounds like another way to join the Mile High Club, but actually it's the national airline of Ireland. It's really cheap to fly Aer Lingus from Dublin to Glasgow, so people use them all the time if they can't find a trebuchet and don't have time to swim there.

When you take a flight like this, you don't do the whole walk-down-a-ramp-directly-onto-the-plane thing. You get in a fucking bus, and you sit there for like ten minutes before they tell you that they had accidentally scheduled you on a giant bottle rocket instead of a plane, so you'll have to wait inside for half an hour while they see if they can find something that won't kill everyone inside once it gets into the sky. Eventually, you get back on the bus,which takes all nine of you directly up to the plane, and you just get on. Then you wait another half an hour while they call somebody with a fucking screwdriver an engineer to come and fix the "dodgy locker" that won't close. Once that's done, you drive in a big circle all the way around the airport at about two miles an hour and park in the exact spot you started from while the captain explains that he's just noticed that the engine is full of explode and you'll have to get on a different plane. Once that happens, it's really just another forty-five minutes or so before you take off.

It's pretty much exactly like this:

CHAPTER 3

In America, almost everyone who reads my name for the first time calls me Mr. Glasgow. In Scotland, this did not happen even one time, but they must have known I was coming, because when we got there, THEY THREW US A FUCKING PARADE.

Somehow, they misspelled our names as "H.M. Queen Elizabeth II."

And then I put on a kilt, which is possibly the greatest piece of clothing ever designed. You're probably not familiar with all the parts required to transform yourself into a walking representation of awesome, so I've compiled a guide to help you.

INSERT: GUIDE TO KILTS FOR AMERICANS

1. Kilt
Known to Americans as a "plaid skirt," but better described as "30 pounds of awesome." Actually, it weighs as much as a suit of armor, and wraps around you FOUR HUNDRED TIMES! FACT: It is physically impossible for a man not to look good while wearing a kilt.

2. Kiltpin
This is just a giant safety pin that holds the flappy part of your kilt in place. It's also awesome because plaid + safety pin = punk rock, which was kind of born in the UK. (Everyone with a comment on this: shut up. Bitching about who was first just makes you a hipster-ass hipster.) Also, it's shaped like a sword because of The Highlander, probably.

3. Jacket and Waistcoat
This is really just a regular dress jacket and a vest, but they give every style a name like "Sherrifmuir" or "Prince Charlie" to make it sound more authentic and awesome.

4. Ruche Tie
=CRAVAT. Kind of boring, actually, but awesome by association.

5. Sporran
This is a pouch which hangs from your waist and holds stuff in exactly the same way a purse does, but which the man in the shop repeatedly referred to rather emphatically as a "pocket." It's made of material that feels like fuzzy awesome. Everyone around you will come up to you and stroke your sporran. You'll probably even stroke it a little yourself.

6. Awesome Socks
Self-explanatory, even for Americans. If you hire a kilt, you get to keep these. If you actually buy one and you don't get to keep these, you're doing it wrong.

7. Sock Flashes
These are little flags that strap on at the top of your Awesome Socks to make them even more awesome. Also, they match your kilt, so you can remember that those are your legs because you're probably not used to seeing them look this awesome.

8. Ghillie Brogues
These are shoes with 18-foot (147-meter) laces, designed to allow you to use them as weapons/grappling hooks/jump ropes look fancy. Also, they give you +1 to Awesome.

9. Knifey Thing
This is called a Sgian Dhu by people who are not American. This is an ACTUAL KNIFE that you can use to stab less awesome, non-kilt-wearing people in the face. In your mind. If you stab someone in the actual face with your actual Knifey Thing, you will probably go to an actual Scottish prison.

10. Alcohol
This is not officially part of the kilt, but it might as well be. It makes you feel awesome (until it doesn't).

CHAPTER 4

Having received some dodgy directions from the kid at the hotel, we set out for the wedding that was the whole reason we were even here in the first place. Upon discovering that our directions were shit, we asked a series of increasingly clueless people how to get to the chapel at the big-ass-university-that-we-eventually-discovered-was-practically-around-the-fucking-corner. The penultimate time we asked somebody this, we were directed to an awesome-looking man nearby who was wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. "Ask the piper. He'll know." He did. We didn't get a picture of him because we had to get to the wedding and didn't want to be the Late-Ass Americans, but he still deserves to be mentioned because this is the exactly the kind of shit that happens to us all. The fucking. Time.

CHAPTERS 5-7

These chapters have gone missing due in large part to Item 10 in the Guide to Kilts for Americans.

Not practiced here.

CHAPTER 8

When we got up the next morning afternoon, we became very good friends with the local water supply, then went out to find some really strong coffee and, y'know, Glasgow.

We found a shop where the existence of children was called into question:

There's another shop down the road for people who think they're just a myth.

Also, these signs were everywhere, which really made me wonder how they don't get vandalized more.

I didn't actually do this because I didn't have any spray paint I'm a mature adult.

At the grocery store, we learned an important lesson:

They're just called "muffins" here.

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

ACTUAL TARDIS = SO. MUCH. WIN.

We spent several years traveling through time and space, and we probably saved the universe a few times, but I promised you I wouldn't tell any stories about awesome stuff, so we totally just took some pictures and left.

EPILOGUE, OR SOMETHING

This is the part where I reveal the SURPRISE TWIST ENDING! ZOMG, IT'S A FUCKING SLED, AND BRUCE WILLIS HAS BEEN DEAD THE WHOLE TIME! Also, we got on a plane and came home. After we took off, they announced that they would be serving beverages, etc., and that beer and wine would be COMPLIMENTARY! I thought that this was the most amazing thing I had ever heard, until I actually saw what they were giving away:

This isn't even box wine. This is wine from A FUCKING CARTON!

And then I spent the entire flight reading a real, made-of-paper book, and then had to use my Kindle to write because I didn't have any paper. Or a pen. Technology: You're doing it wrong.

Please don't take this as a reflection on the quality of the book. It's actually one of the greatest, most hilarious things I've ever read. It's really more of a reflection on the quantity of items on the plane that could reasonably function as a bookmark. (P.S. Apparently "bookmarks" is a word, but "bookmark" isn't. Thanks, autocorrect. Also, it does say "feel better," which is actually an important benefit of reading the book. But not through vomiting. Through laughter. Also also, I think I'm missing a parenthesis. Clearly, it was easier to keep typing than to go back and fix it. Also also also, this may be the longest caption in the history of ever. It could almost be its own chapter. I'm going to stop now before I waste my entire battery just writing about inappropriate bookmarks and whether or not "bookmark" is a real word. Oh, and laziness. OK, I'm done now. Probably. Fuck.