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As someone who lived there for many years, I would dare to contradict you. There is beauty in the many shades of grey.

When people ask me what it's like to live in Scotland, I tell them: The sky is gray, the buildings are gray, the people are gray. But if you go about 10 minutes in any direction you'll come across nature and it's just green.

At least Edinburgh is brown.

But seriously, my main problem with Aberdeen is psychological. It feels so far from everywhere else. In Glasgow and Edinburgh, you're much closer to the rest of the UK and even the population centres in Scotland.

There is a reason we call it the central belt for Glasgow and Edinburgh. Everything else is either lowlands or highlands and a bit of a trek.

As someone who moved to the UK from abroad, it was crazy for me to see how unequal the UK is geographically. The main one is obviously the divide between London/everywhere else, but the general lack of infrastructure between places is wild.

On the other hand, the whole HS2 debacle is a great way to explain this to my friends outside the UK. Bizarre to think it was promised as a way to connect the north of England (and Scotland) to London and the SE...

There are certainly worse places, and the Shire is gorgeous. But it really doesn't help that it's so far from everwhere else (and I don't just mean London).

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