As I am counting - after one year - my last days in Scotland, all kinds of memories and feelings pass through me.

I'm trying slowly to detach myself. I'm again about to move on to a new phase, and the change usually doesn't happen in a day. I need time to shift my focus.

The first part of this shifting is letting go - of places, people, habits. The invisible threads that link me to the life here need to get "loose" so that I can really leave. Not loose in the sense that I don't care about these things anymore, no. I still keep them close, but at the same time I'm creating a distance, and then this distance empowers them with a special meaning.

A year in the Highlands has made me, in a way, "tough" - or at least tougher than before. Working with Scots is a toughening experience, and don't take me wrong, please. One has to earn their friendship. They can measure you, ignore you, ridicule you, but they can also let you in their hearts and look at you as their equal. They are a bit of a "wild" people - maybe it has to do with the climate: they had to adjust to the rough weather, the harsh winds, the rain, the clouds. The reason I feel this way is perhaps that I came from the other extreme: the people in Portugal were so gentle, with their hearts "outside" and with the question in their eyes: how can I help you? This gentleness was one of the reasons I felt so much at home there.

The Scottish don't pamper you. In a way they make you scramble to your feet and you just do what you should be doing.

It's getting obvious that I've got mixed feelings about Scotland. It is a very beautiful country with interesting people. I'll never forget the sight of the green and brown hills all around, the grazing sheep, the loud cries of those huge seagulls as well as of the bagpipes, and the fresh "transparency" of the air. Still, I didn't feel at home. I was often thinking if I could live here on long term, and I reached the conclusion that perhaps Edinburgh would be the only place...

Up in the Highlands the weather is too cold for me. Yet I have to admit that my allergy not even once bothered me here!

And there are a few things which I wouldn't know had I not spent this past year here. Things that have become important and inspiring.

I owe to Scotland that I've got to know the books of the British writer, Salley Vickers. I borrowed them one by one from the local library. Reading them was a special experience. Her books - although they are very much different from one another - fuse the areas of art, religion, literature and psychology in an enchantingly subtle way. Publishers in Hungary should know about her!

I also owe to Scotland that I've discovered the music of Salsa Celtica. They are a dominantly Scottish band, playing an invigorating mixture of Celtic and Latin American music. Someone commented while listening to them that it is as if there were two different CDs palying at the same time. Well, I think they've got the perfect mixture, and I certainly wouldn't have survived the cold Scottish winter months without them.

And as a fresh "delicatesse", I'm just getting to know another Scottish band's music - they're called Lau. Guitar, fiddle and accordion. It carries you away, it's powerful, it's emotional, and you start to stamp your feet automatically.

Last but not least, I also owe to Scotland the newly found appreciation for my hometown and that the links which tie me to my family and friends have grown much stronger and more emotional.

It is in Scotland that I've learned to embrace the unpredictable turns of life. Making plans doesn't mean you'll be able to turn them to reality. It is perhaps here that I've learned that one should trust the unknown. Go with faith to the place where one feels one must go, even if not sure about what will be waiting there...