02x02 - Scotland: My Mother's Country

[bunniefuu]

[intercom chiming]

[Eugene Levy]

They say to travel is to live.

Well, maybe, if a day at the airport

doesn't suck the life out of you first.

I mean, where else would you be told

to arrive two hours early

- [metal detector beeping]

- only to become dangerously close

to being two hours late?

Still, I think my travels last year

were good for me.

They seemed to broaden my outlook.

To a degree.

So now, I'm taking on

what is apparently a must-do

for any respectable traveler.

[intercom chiming]

I'm doing Europe.

All right. Where are we, exactly?

I'm going all continental

from the very top to the very bottom.

I'm heading off the beaten track

to discover some real hidden gems

Are you getting this?

and embrace

this budding spirit for adventure.

Look at me. No hands.

Oh.

They're right here. What is this, the bow?

I'll be educating my taste buds

- [laughs]

- Wow, that was so good.

[whistles] Grapes are ready.

- and trying to live like a local.

- [dancers singing, cheering]

- Welcome to my village.

- [laughs]

- [Levy] This is insane.

- [sheep bleating]

I just saved your life. Remember me.

I'm packing any worries in my luggage

[imitates moose call]

Here they come. Here they come.

You never know what the body's gonna do

when it's in abject terror.

I don't think I've done anything

quite like this since I was a kid.

- [cheering]

- and I'm about to utter three words

I've never said before.

Ready for takeoff.

If Sweden taught me more than I thought

I'd ever know about mosquitoes

[lowing]

I'm hoping this next stop

on my European travels

can teach me even more about me.

Scotland is my mother country,

or should I say my mother's country.

My mother was born in Scotland

and lived here till she was 13.

This is my very first trip.

And it's not just my family

with close connections to Scotland.

The family that's been coming back here

time and time again is the Windsors.

The British royals.

From Queen Victoria

to Queen Elizabeth II and now Eugene I.

[horn honks]

Thank you very much.

They say it's better late than never

and at the age of 76, I'm living proof,

as I've traveled nearly

a thousand miles from Sweden

to the far North of Great Britain to

touch my family tree in bonnie Scotland.

My journey of self-discovery starts in

the place where the late Queen Elizabeth

chose to spend her final days.

The Highlands.

I can kind of see why this would be a

place for them to escape to.

Quite beautiful.

And vast.

The Highlands is home to roughly

10,000 square miles of stunning,

if somewhat rugged scenery.

[laughs] All right. Where are we, exactly?

If I'm staying in a tent in Scotland,

this could be the last episode.

My mum grew up in Glasgow.

You know, there was a difference

in lifestyles, I think,

between my mum's Scotland

and, uh, the, uh,

Scotland of the Windsors.

[drumming, skirling]

I'm planning a pilgrimage back to Glasgow,

but here in the Highlands,

I'll be staying in a pad that looks

[chuckles]

and sounds fit for a king.

[chuckles]

[chuckles]

Welcome to Scotland. I'm Lynne.

I'm the owner of Candacraig House.

Well, thank you.

This is what I call a welcome.

[Lynne chuckles] Can I show you inside?

- [Levy] I would love to see inside.

- [Lynne] Okay.

[Levy] Yes.

Candacraig is a luxury Highland estate

dating back to the 17th century,

which makes it

around 200 years older than Canada.

But today, this whole place and its

12 bedrooms can be yours for a steal,

if your steals start at $12,000 a night.

Oh, very nice.

[Lynne] This house is actually designed

by the same architect as Balmoral Castle,

where the royal family are.

- How close are we to Balmoral Castle?

- Yeah, about half an hour away.

Wow, so literally, your neighbors.

- [Lynne chuckles] Absolutely, yes.

- And they've they've been in here?

- [Lynne] They have.

- Okay.

The current king

and queen have been guests.

[Levy] I guess when

you already own a castle,

you kinda wanna nose

around in everyone else's.

- In here?

- [Lynne] Yes.

[Levy] But it's not just the royals

who like it here.

[Lynne] This is our dining room.

Oh. Well, you know you're in Scotland.

[Lynne] Many of your Hollywood colleagues

have been in here over the years.

- Okay. Who was here?

- Steve Martin.

Robin Williams.

Sean Connery.

- Really?

- So I think you're in good company.

[imitating Sean Connery]

Gentlemen, the answer is simple.

[normal voice] Sean Connery,

he was sitting in one of these chairs.

Tartan, we've seen it in kilts.

I've never seen it on the walls and

on the ceiling, and on the lampshades.

Tartan city.

But an excess of tartan isn't

the only thing on my mind.

I've arranged to meet Michael,

a Scottish expert in Jewish ancestry

- [Michael] It's good to meet you.

- How are you? Nice to meet you.

who's been unearthing the family history

of my mum, Rebecca "Betty" Kudlatz.

Listen, it's a little scary.

You never wanna uncover the kind of

information that's gonna be embarrassing.

"Your great-grandparents

were murdering thieves,

unfortunately doing

a lot of plundering and pillaging."

[stammers] "Really?

Really? [stammers] Okay."

[Michael] First of all, we have

an extended family tree

and these are your great-grandparents,

Samuel and Nellie.

Um, I have never seen

these pictures before.

[Michael] So these are Louis's

your grandfather's parents.

They came from a small

town called Nasielsk,

which is about 25 to 30 miles north,

northwest of Warsaw.

And it was 1891 that

the family came to Glasgow.

- [stammers] What was that name of the

- Nasielsk.

Nasielsk.

Did your mother ever say why did

they go to Glasgow in the first place

and then why did they decide

to go to Canada?

[Levy inhales sharply]

Well, people at the turn of the century

were kind of coming to America, right?

Yeah.

But I don't know necessarily

why they chose Scotland. Do you?

Um, at that time,

it was actually quite rare

to get boats which went from mainland

Europe all the way to North America.

It was very expensive

and these were very poor families.

So most families would do

the journey in two steps

- Right.

- to pay for the

- for the journey.

- Okay.

[stammers] And they came to Glasgow,

and that must've been a bit of a shock

because they went to live in the Gorbals,

which was a very poor area.

- Right.

- Although they stayed there for 30 years.

Yeah.

[Michael] And here's

a photograph of the family.

Your mother is I think

she's one of the youngest.

- Is that her?

- I think that might be her.

[Levy] Yeah, that's my mum.

Yikes.

I'm actually proud that I,

you know, had relatives

who wanted a better life for their family.

And to think what they had

to go through at the time,

you know, that's pretty major stuff.

If my mum had stayed in Scotland,

of course, I [stammers] you know,

I don't know who you'd

be interviewing right now.

I-I-I certainly wouldn't be here, I mean,

because she met my dad in Canada.

It's extraordinary to consider

these sliding door moments in life.

And while I've never been

to this beautiful country,

it clearly shaped my mother's childhood.

Now I'm finally here,

I want to embrace everything.

So I've accepted an invitation

from one of the locals

to what I'm told is

a do-not-miss national pastime.

- Robert.

- [Robert] Hello. How lovely to see you.

[Levy] I'm assuming

it can't be as unnerving

as moose hunting in Sweden.

Or can it?

What are we up to? Where are we going?

Well, we're gonna do

something nice and traditional today.

We're gonna take you down

to the River Dee in Royal Deeside

to do some salmon fishing.

- Salmon fishing.

- Yes.

Okay.

Why is salmon fishing

so popular here in Scotland?

Well, Eugene, we've got really lovely

rivers, with some amazing salmon in them.

You know, they're a very energetic fish.

So, as tiny, little fish,

they sail down this freshwater rivers,

they then will sail

right across the Atlantic Ocean,

and that fish will then turn

and go right back to

the same river it came from.

It's coming back to spawn,

it's not coming back to get caught.

[Robert laughs]

[Levy] The salmon's migration

back to Scotland

sounds considerably

more hazardous than my own,

but these prized fish draw

anglers here from all over the world.

And landing one isn't

quite as easy as you'd think,

so Robert's enlisted

the help of an expert.

- [Levy] John.

- Eugene.

- Pleased to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Welcome to Royal Deeside.

- Thank you.

Excited to be here.

John is a gillie,

a Gaelic word for attendant.

I guess a kind of Highland guide.

There's nothing he doesn't know about

fishing, except for how bad I am at it.

Although, he'll soon find out.

Right. Got something nice for you to wear.

[Levy] The whole thing

is not to offend the gillie.

Okay, lads, if we just get the braces up.

I'm gonna be the good student.

I'm gonna be the-the good pupil.

I'm gonna be really enthusiastic.

I don't wanna ruin his day.

[Robert] Look at you.

Looking the part, Eugene.

- [speaks Scottish Gaelic]

- [laughs]

[John] The cast I'm gonna

teach you is the Circle C.

Round.

And the second part of the cast,

the actual coming round,

is lift a tray of drinks.

And it's whisky, and it's my whisky.

I don't want you spilling any of it.

[Levy] If John

thinks I'll be able to do that,

he must've raided

the drinks cabinet already.

Right. Easy enough.

But I guess the best

thing to do is just give it a go.

[John] Sweep it right round.

- Yeah, there you go.

- [Robert] Ah, look at that. Well done.

- Spot-on.

- [Robert] That's good.

- Huh?

- [John] Give it another go.

Perfect.

- [Robert] Ah. Well done again.

- [John] Superb.

How's that?

All we need to do is catch our salmon now.

All right.

This could be my whole new thing,

you know?

Give up golf, pick up salmon fishing.

I get why people might find this

the most relaxing thing in the world,

because it is quite

it is quite beautiful out here.

How you doing over there?

[Robert] Well, I haven't caught anything.

How you feeling about it all?

Thi This is now nosing its

way up as my number-one sport.

[Robert chuckles] You look very happy.

[Levy] I've heard that the royals

enjoy a spot of fishing here too.

This river runs right

through their estate.

And I hope they're

having more luck than me,

because after an hour in the water,

I haven't had so much as a nibble.

Hey, Eugene, any bites?

Uh, nothing yet,

but I think I had a few close calls.

You wanna call it a day?

- All right. Let's do it.

- [John] Okay.

[Levy] The salmon may be off the hook,

but it seems that drowning your

sorrows is all part of the experience.

Would you like a wee dram?

[Levy] Time for my first hit

of the hard stuff.

I don't I don't care for whisky.

[stammers] It's a It's a tough drink,

but, uh, the guys that I was fishing with,

I think they were both delightful, uh,

Scots, you know?

It's kind of the bunch of guys just going

[chuckles] "Good fish on you." You know?

It made for a good afternoon.

And what better way to round off a good

day than by channeling a previous guest,

Sir Sean Connery,

and ordering a vodka martini?

I'm kind of liking Scotland

and this is, like, one day in.

There's a charm to it.

My mum and that side

of the family is just

right at the forefront of my mind.

You know, it's something I never

thought I would hit me this way.

Tomorrow, I'm determined to discover

more about my family history here.

Let's hope those bagpipes

don't start too early.

After a majestic night's sleep,

I'm beginning to enjoy being

the king of my very own castle.

This is quite magnificent, isn't it?

But today I'm leaving the Highlands behind

and heading to Glasgow to learn

more about my mum's childhood.

My mum only talked about family stories.

It wasn't so much about her life in the

Gorbals, so I'm actually excited about it.

It's over a hundred miles to Glasgow,

and I've been told about

a pit stop en route I can't miss.

One of the few remaining artisan

craftsmen who does everything by hand.

I'm halfway there to have earned

the right to wear a kilt

because half my family was Scottish.

For family events,

they would put the kilt on

and just kind of, you know,

have a great time.

There'd be a lot of laughs.

And if they can do all

that without wearing any underwear,

then this is a family tradition

I have a duty to explore, nervously.

- [kilt maker] Hi, Eugene. How are you?

- You must be Bill.

I am so.

Uh-huh.

The key to a kilt is the tartan,

and there are over 9,000

recorded patterns,

nearly half of which symbolize

a different family or clan.

I don't know whether, uh,

my family has a

- Yeah.

- [Levy] A tartan.

I don't remember my family

talking about their particular tartan.

[Bill] Okay.

We got to try and find something

that would relate more to yourself,

to be more personal.

Well, my line of work is comedy,

so is there a co

is there a comedy tartan?

- Well

- [Levy] Uh

Depends how comical you want it to be.

[Levy chuckles]

What about this one?

It's known as the kosher tartan,

and it's a Jewish tartan.

Well, that sounds like

it's right on the nose, doesn't it?

Okay. Now I need to take

some special measurements.

- How do you mean?

- Well, I need your waist,

- your bum and your length.

- Oh.

Yes. Okay.

I need top of your hip bone

down to the center of your knee.

[Levy] Apparently, Bill's

made more kilts than I've had bagels.

Although, I'd have laid off them

if I'd known he was coming at me

with a tape measure.

All right.

Keep in mind I just had lunch.

[Bill] All right.

Now, there we go.

97 centimeters.

I don't know metric.

It would be around about a 38.

Oh, it's not a 38. I'm not a 38.

I'm a 34. Yeah.

The tape measure doesn't lie, Eugene.

[Levy sighs]

I think I'm gonna be

in very safe hands with Bill.

Well, I'll not tell

you the sizes for here.

- I'll keep it all to myself, will I?

- [Levy chuckles] Okay.

[Bill] Yeah.

I think the detail that goes

into his work is quite intricate.

There we go.

- Okay. Whatever that is.

- Huge.

- [laughs]

- Thank you.

I sewed a button on a shirt once,

and it was exhausting.

[Bill] Can I offer you a small libation?

I can't honestly say

I'm a I'm a scotch drinker.

- Whoa, Nelly.

- [Bill] Really?

That's good.

Uh, well, here's to you, Bill.

- [Bill] And to you, Eugene.

- Here's to you and here's to your craft.

Your very good health, sir.

[Levy] Two drams in 24 hours

and I'm still a hesitant whisky drinker.

[Bill] Now, if I don't get going,

you're not gonna get a kilt.

[both laughing]

But for me, dressing in a kilt

will always feel like wearing a costume

unless I'm able to more

profoundly understand my Scottish roots.

If anything tells you I'm truly a

reluctant traveler, it's that only now,

a hundred years after my mum left these

shores, I'm finally visiting Glasgow

the city where she was born.

This is about as different

from the Highlands as you can get.

I mean, it really does look

like a working-class town.

And I'm kind of glad I'm here.

When my great-grandparents

arrived from Poland,

they and thousands of

other immigrant workers

settled in the Gorbals, a housing district

on the south bank of the River Clyde.

This is the Gorbals.

This is it.

It's an odd feeling.

And I've had plenty of

odd feelings in my life,

but this is this is a good odd feeling.

The building that my mum lived in

until she was 13 was demolished

when the Gorbals was redeveloped.

But genealogy expert, Michael,

offered to show me around

a time capsule that does still exist.

So, this has been frozen in time.

This is pretty much kept

as a tenement in Glasgow looked like

in the early 20th century.

So, this is the best we can do to

give you a flavor of what life was like.

- Okay? So, you ready for it?

- [Levy] Okay. Let's take a look.

[Michael] Okay, let's go.

[Levy] With 60,000 people

crammed into an area

about half the size of Coney Island,

living conditions in the Gorbals tenements

were said to be

amongst the worst in Europe.

[Michael] And here we are.

So, this was the heart of the apartment.

The kitchen.

- This is where everything took place.

- Wow.

- [Michael] A multipurpose room.

- Wow.

[Michael]

They would cook around this table.

- They would eat around this table.

- [Levy] Okay.

And you may have noticed,

um, something in the corner.

- Bed.

- Yeah.

That's called the bed recess because,

um, people actually slept in here as well.

You couldn't afford to have a

kitchen room not being used as a bedroom.

Not when you have a large family.

Also, underneath the bed,

you may have the bath,

which you would pull out

to, um, fill up with water for the kids.

Oh, my.

[Michael] Um, your your mum and siblings

probably had a bath once a week.

If you were lucky,

you were the first kid to have the bath.

And if you were unlucky,

you were the last kid

to have the bath in the same water.

Wow.

[Michael]

Um, this is the the 1921 census.

Um, your great-grandparents

had passed away but, um,

we have your grandparents,

Louie and Flora,

eight children and the boarder

in the same number of rooms,

but not as nice as this one.

- Not as a nice as this one.

- [Michael] Yeah.

Um, originally, when your family

arrived there would be shared toilets.

So, you were probably sharing

a toilet with maybe 25 or 30 others.

- Outside?

- Outside.

Possibly with a door. Possibly not.

I don't think that's something

that ever came up in conversation.

Yeah.

I wish I would've actually gotten into

how did 11 people actually,

you know, get by.

She never talked

about that kind of detail.

[Michael] So, here we have the bedroom.

The mattress

is actually made of horsehair,

- and the bedding is, uh, made of straw.

- [Levy whistles]

[Michael] So, I'm not quite sure, um,

how comfortable the bed would've been,

but it-it probably was quite warm.

[Levy] She was a lot of fun,

and she had she had a great laugh.

And, um, she just enjoyed

basically enjoyed life

and always looked at the upside of things.

Eleven people in

a two-bedroom situation, you know?

- And yet, never heard a complaint.

- [Michael] Yeah.

[Levy] While this might be

the closest I'll ever get

to the home my mum grew up in,

Michael wants to take me someplace

I can walk in her actual footsteps.

[Michael] When were you

last in a synagogue?

It's been a while.

- [Michael] Yeah?

- Yeah.

The Garnethill Synagogue.

[Michael] I'm not quite sure how it

compares to the ones in Canada.

I don't think I've been

in a synagogue this old.

[Michael]

Right. The synagogue was built in 1879.

It was the first purpose-built

synagogue in Scotland,

and the Gorbals is about

one-and-a-half miles away.

So, I guess it's possible my mum's family

would've been in here at some point

- for some special occasion?

- [Michael] Yeah.

They certainly would've

been here for a wedding

or a bar mitzvah or something like that.

[inhales sharply]

Wow.

She would've been, you know,

seven, eight, nine, ten.

It's hard to think of her

as a as a little kid, but

Actually being here a hundred years later,

I'm feeling a bit of a, you know a tug.

[crew member] Do you think of her often?

Every day. Yeah.

My mum and my dad.

There's always one time in the day when

when they just kind of, you know, uh

come into mind.

I feel like I owe it to my mum to

have seen where it was it all started.

I've never quite felt the

attachment to where the family is from.

It was only an attachment through stories.

So, I'm I'm I'm

I'm glad I I'm glad I came.

I'm glad I'm here.

Um, and, uh,

I'm glad I'm kind of reconnecting.

As I wake up on my final day in Scotland,

I know that what I learned about

my mum's childhood in Glasgow

will live long in my memory.

But to finish my family story,

there's one more stop I wanna make.

I've discovered the final resting place

of two of the bravest

people I'll never know.

My great-grandparents, Samuel and Nellie.

"In loving memory of our dear mother,

Nellie Kudlatz.

Died January 1921."

And my great-grandfather.

How about that?

Patriarch, right?

Well, it's as close as you can

to touching your own family tree.

Getting Getting to

the roots of the tree.

They were looking for a better life.

They did a lot with what they had.

Spending time in Scotland

has brought me closer to my clan

and I'm surprised by how at-home I feel.

A little Northern Ontario to me.

Now we have a kind of a full-blown

rainbow peeking up right behind me.

Yeah. It's pretty, isn't it?

When I think of Scotland now, I mean,

I'm my mind's gonna

kind of run the gamut

from Candacraig which

is just the grandest place to stay

to the Gorbals, you know?

And, um And a connection that

I'm glad I was able to make

coming here.

Before I go,

to celebrate my newfound heritage,

tonight I've been invited to

a good old-fashioned Scottish shindig.

But if I wanna raise a glass

like a true Scotsman,

there's a family favorite I'm gonna

have to develop a taste for first.

My grandfather would

had a little shot of whisky,

uh, once a week, every Friday.

I've never been a scotch drinker but I've

always admired scotch drinkers, you know?

There's something very cool

about a scotch on the rocks,

but I've never been able to down one.

So, in honor of my grandfather

and to look a bit cooler,

I'm heading to a local distillery

to meet whisky expert, Gary.

Nice to meet you.

- Welcome to Loch Lomond distillery.

- Well, thanks for having me.

So, this is where

it all happens, isn't it?

Yes, very much so. The magic of whisky.

[Levy] My God,

you've got some barrels here.

We hold close to half

a million casks across all our sites.

[Levy] Okay.

Scotch whisky

can only be made in Scotland,

but most of the casks here

actually come from the United States

and were once used to hold bourbon.

What is it about the casks

that are so critical

to the actual production of the whisky?

It'll bring in more flavor,

um, and it also adds the color.

So, the spirit that comes

from the still is actually clear,

but once it's in the cask,

that's where that gets that

wonderful golden, caramel, amber color.

Comes from the cask as well.

Welcome to the warehouse.

In here, we can store

up to around 8,000 casks.

Before we try the actual scotch,

uh, I've also brought

a sample of the new make spirit.

So, this is the spirit

that comes off the stills.

It's a clear liquid with all th

all that color coming from the casks.

You can give it

a wee swirl around the glass.

Just bring it up to the nose.

[Levy sniffs, sighs]

- [groans] It smells

- [chuckles] Sorry.

I-I shou I should mention

it's a this is at 63% alcohol, so

- I was gonna say. Yeah.

- Yeah.

'Cause that just cleared my sinuses

right you know, that that was,

uh that was I wouldn't

say it was a healthy sniff.

[Gary laughs]

Ow.

So, you'll get every bit of

sixty-three-and-a-half percent.

Wow. [sniffles]

Um [clears throat] so [clears throat]

I'll be with you in a second, Gary.

[coughs]

Mama.

[chuckles] It took That just stripped

a few layers of skin off the esophagus.

That was tough.

So, why don't we

move on to the whiskies then?

[Levy] But apparently

some kind of alchemy happens

once that jet fuel

is left to mature in an old cask.

[Gary] This is 18 years old.

It's been in a bourbon cask

for all that time.

So, can you see straightaway, there's a

there's a difference in the color,

- and that's come from the wood.

- Yeah.

So, you should hopefully get more of

- more of that fruit character, I guess.

- That smells better.

Yes. So, it's mellowed out.

Right.

[sniffs] So, if you wanna give it a try.

Here's looking up your kilt,

- as they say.

- [laughs]

That's wonderful.

[Levy] This is actually

- a very good-tasting drink.

- Yeah. Super.

It's almost like a stewed apple character.

I'm getting an almost-drunk sensation.

That was better than

I thought it would be.

I was surprised actually.

You pick up any flavors on it?

- Nope.

- [laughs]

[Levy] Back at my castle,

it's time to celebrate

before my journey continues.

And I finally feel ready to

proudly wear my kosher kilt.

- [all] Wow.

- Well, well, well.

Well, well, well.

Do you feel comfortable?

[Levy] Yes, I feel very comfortable.

My own very own tartan. Huh?

- [music playing]

- [rhythmic clapping]

Tonight, the best of Scotland

is on the menu.

Good whisky

- Cheers.

- Here we go.

Cheers.

[Levy] which I

can now genuinely appreciate.

Haggis, Scotland's national dish

- Quite good.

- [all laughing]

which might take me

a little longer to get on board with.

And a wee Highland fling.

Well, I grew up

not really feeling Scottish,

and somehow,

it has seeped into me in a few days,

that connection to

my mum's side of the family.

And that surprised me in a good way.

There's kind of an attitude

that my mum had, and her family.

They were a very fun-loving people.

Everybody that I've met seemed to

reflect that high-spirited affability.

[all cheering]

I was hoping for some adventures

on my European journey,

but what I wasn't expecting was

a new perspective on my own life.

I came to Scotland

feeling like a stranger,

but I leave here knowing that

this country is part of who I am.

And I think my mum would be proud.

[all cheering, applauding]

- Well done, Eugene.

- [Levy groans]

- [Bill laughs]

- Good.

- That's a workout.

- [all laughing]

[pants] Luckily,

I've got air-conditioning.

[all laughing]

[all cheering, applauding]

Next time

My European journey brings me to

the most visited country in the world.

Let's do the French kiss.

You're in France.

Full speed ahead, driver.

You know you're in France

when a car was designed

- for two farmers and a sack of potatoes.

- [Sonia laughs]

Feel like one of the Backstreet Boys.

That doesn't seem like a good idea.

I don't think they like me.

I try to have a joie de vivre every day.

- [friend 2] This is pretty good.

- [friend 1] Whoo!

- See that?

- I see that.

- [Sonia] Left, left, left. [laughs]

- [Levy] Uh-oh.

- [Levy chuckles]

- He's late.

I don't usually wait for men.