The Wind was feeling antsy

This morning, I felt like I was in the children's book Gilberto and the Wind, where the wind is like a friend that he chases through the meadows and that helps lift his kite and a whole bunch of other cute things. Today, the Wind here must be really, really angry about something. Or else just restless.

The second I woke up, I could tell from the noise that it'd feel like a tornado outside. During my run, the Wind alternated between blowing at my front so hard that I was sprinting in place (Really. I was running my hardest but barely moving!), and blowing at my back so hard that I had to sprint not to fall over. It was actually pretty amusing. Unsurprisingly, very fewer other runners were out this morning. But I can't see how you can take a day off from exercise every time the weather's bad in Scotland; you wouldn't exercise much...


Dad was asking if we stand out as Americans just by the way we look, and I said not usually. We're only distinguishable by our nasal-y accents and the fact that we say "trash can" instead of "bin" and "to-go" instead of "take-away". But I realized today that there is one place where I can almost always spot Americans, at least girls: the gym.

Girls wear old, free T-shirts when they work out-- it's a universal truth. But girls from the US have old shirts from their middle school or high school graduation classes (they don't call it "middle school" here, and Brits don't "graduate" high school- they just "leave"), from charity walks sponsored by Wells Fargo or Bank of America (obviously non-existent here), from summer camps in Pennsylvania and upstate New York, and from high school and college sports teams and clubs (the names are dead give-aways, and only visiting Americans wear gear from their home school in the states).

So, there you go. We look different sometimes.