Less Cava, More Whisky

Is it possible to be addicted to a place?

The Hub and I have been to the Canary Islands a lot recently.

We just got back on Friday from a brief jaunt there where we did crazy luxurious things like sit by the pool reading and play late-afternoon golf as lizards scuttled along beside us hiding in the shelter of enormous succulent plants.

A four-hour plane ride from London, I am in love with the ease, luxury and heat we have been enjoying on these small warm islands which jut out of the Atlantic and provide Europeans with year-round sun and temperatures ranging from about 20 to 29 degrees Celsius (that's 68 to 84 Fahrenheit for you Americans).

I can't remember if I had even heard of the Canaries before I lived in the U.K. And when I mention them to fellow Americans there's always a pause, and sometimes a question of, "And those are... where exactly?" Some people I know in the U.K. have been going to Tenerife or Lanzarote since they were kids, which makes me think that for Brits and Europeans they are equivalent to a cross between Florida and the Caribbean.

But for me, they are incredibly exotic, as rising volcanic outcroppings in the middle of the expansive Atlantic Ocean (although not too far from Africa). The sand traps are black with volcanic ash and the landscape looks to me a little like the moon might if it was hot and dusty. We once sat on a rooftop in Fuertaventura staring at the inky sky covered in stars and a bright shiny moon and I couldn't have felt further away from civilization.

I guess exotic is always relative.

But the saying is true: you can have too much of a good thing.

One night at dinner we decided that this summer we must go to Scotland on that trip we've been planning to do for ages. We know it will be beautiful and haunting, with summer evenings that stretch on forever. It will also be culturally dense, and require proper walks up hills and of course, much warmer clothes.

I suppose we've enjoyed our recent passionate fling with the Canaries, but we're on a break now. For the rest of the summer, it will be the spotty sun of England and then eventually the slightly bracing, invigorating summer of Scotland. Less cava, more whisky.