From my early childhood, I loved mountains. When I was taken to the Yellowstone National Park by my parents for the first time, I was literally shocked by the greatness of nature and the amazing feeling of freedom and height. Since that time, I kept on visiting Yellowstone annually; I have also traveled to several mountainous regions of the US and Europe. Every time I was walking up or standing on the top of a mountain, I wondered: do people living in such places have the same problems as city dwellers? Can a person, who can witness the enormous misty mountain silhouettes in their window each morning really be miserable and petty?
“Mountains—that is where I need to live,” I said to myself, and kept on looking on intuition.
I was making my decision for a couple more months. During this period, I made solid efforts to recall the most pleasant memories about places I have been to, and to realize my needs concerning a way of life, occupation, communication, geographical location, and so on. I would stop on a certain variant as the final one, and the next day I would totally reconsider it. Among the places I thought of were Italy, Norway, Peru, and even exotic countries for a westerner to live in, such as China and Nepal. But, after a period of intense consideration, I had finally stopped searching and chose Scotland—Aberdeenshire, in particular. It looked exactly like what I needed: mountainous region, nice people, suitable climate (well, suitable for me, since Scottish climate is rather fickle), the English language being spoken, and both modern civilization and countless opportunities for seclusion and resort.
“Well, seems like I’ve found a perfect place for myself to live,” I said to myself, and started to arrange the formalities. But that is a completely different story.