Saturday -- Edinburgh

Woke up to more amazing sunshine in normally cloudy Scotland. Without the wind, it was a perfectly warm day, but then that arctic wind blast would hit you and remind you that you're in Scotland, not Florida. Today was our last day of vacation, and the day we set aside to go into Edinburgh. We hopped on the bus and made our way to the city center. The tourists were already pouring into Edinburgh Castle, and I was very glad Nate and I had advance tickets so we didn't have to wait in the very long ticket line. Dad was planning on hanging out at the castle coffee shop while Nate and I took the tour. Mom and dad have been to the castle many many times, and I'm sure they're pretty burned out on it. It was only my second time there, but I was still enjoying it, because it's such a well maintained place and rich with history. But then we made our way to the line to see the Scottish Crown Jewels. I don't know if it's because we were there on a holiday weekend or what, but the line was all the way to the door, and snaked around numerous hallways and stairs. It was hot inside, and my temper was boiling over as more and more people started cutting in line and pushing their way into any small gap in the line they could find. I tried the whole “tongue clicking” thing, and made comments about people being very rude, and it didn't phase any of them. It was really ridiculous... we're all tourists, we're all here to see one thing and one thing only... cutting in line (or in the queue, as they say over here) is the ultimate “there's no one in the world but me” mentality that I think is the root of all evil in the world. I was getting so mad I was literally shaking at one point. Nate and I agreed whatever we do after this.... no more queuing for anything for awhile.


We did finally see the Scottish crown jewels, which was very interesting. The story is really pretty funny, after England and Scotland were united, the Scottish coronation jewels were no longer needed, so someone put them away, and literally forgot about them for hundreds of years. Who forgets about the crown jewels, I mean really? I think it was Sir Walter Scott who did some research and figured out the jewels were hidden in a castle basement and “rediscovered” them. The display also included the Stone of Scone, known also as the stone of destiny, which was captured from the Scottish Kings centuries ago, and English Kings and Queens sat on it for their coronations since then. I guess back in the 90s, the Scottish asked nicely if they could have their stone back, and the Queen said yes, it could be displayed in Edinburgh, but they had to agree that all future Kings and Queens would still get to sit on the stone for coronation, so an agreement was reached. We also walked through the royal apartments, where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to her son James, who many years later would be crowned King of England (and he's the one who later builds the chapel for his mother at Westminster, to honor her death at the hands of her enemy Elizabeth I.)


We wandered around Edinburgh Castle some more, checking out displays about the castle prisons, and the Great Hall (where we sat in the fake throwns to be King and Queen like good tourists, and then a guard said to me “you don't want to sit there....” and then made the motion of a single finger across his throat.... ah yes, because Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded... yikes.) We also went into the bookshop where they were doing some Whiskey tasting, and I couldn't pass that up. But it was after noon at this point and the castle was getting insanely busy, so we decided to move on. As we left, the line to get tickets to enter the castle was about a hour wait, and I was very glad we were leaving.


The guidebook suggested a restaurant called Amber, above the Whiskey Experience store, but the book promised it wasn't touristy at all, but in fact quite nice. So we decided to try it out because we were pretty hungry. The food was excellent and Nate even tried some of mom's Haggis with whiskey sauce, and he even admitted it was good. So there you go, Nate's now had his Haggis, tatties and neeps (potatoes and turnips.)


We walked a little more of the Royal Mile, but then we decided to slip down to the Grassmarket, where all the public executions took place, and also home to many of the oldest pubs in town. We had a pint at a place called The Last Drop (with a hangman's noose on the sign.) Then we winded our way back up towards the Royal Mile. We were hoping to go inside the Mary King's Close, but the tours were sold out all day! Popular spot I guess... book in advance next time. The close in Edinburgh is like an alley between buildings, because the city was basically built up kind of around itself. As you walk around you see all these things that look like parts of bridges, and that's exactly what they are. The town built up around the bridges, creating an underground labyrinth, which would have been neat to see. Mary King's Close is supposedly haunted because a bunch of people got sick with the plague and so they walled them up in a building and closed it off until they all starved to death.


We did some shopping, although I couldn't convince Nate to purchase a kilt. He did buy a pin with his Cameron clan symbol on it. I looked for some gifts and bought a few small things, but the shops were mostly pretty touristy, and I was not looking for a beach towel made to look like a kilt. We walked down to the “End of the World” pub, so named because the castle walls used to be there, and the only entrance into the walled city was there at that corner, so anything beyond was indeed considered the end of the world. Then next street up was called “New Street.” We made our way back up the Royal Mile because we had dinner reservations at a place called the tower, but first we took in a pint at a place called Frankenstein. Dad said “all the kids like it” and so we were hoping to see what it was all about. I guess it was opened in 1818, about the time Mary Shelley's book came out, so people were into marketing even back then. So the place was packed with younger folks and it was really loud, so we had our pint and then pushed on to our dinner location. The Tower is a very limited menu, very classy upscale restaurant. And you can't beat the view.. all tables sit near the window with an amazing view of Edinburgh Castle. We all enjoyed our food and then walked back to the bus stop to make our way back to Dalkeith. We needed to call it an early night since we had a lot of packing to do, to figure out how to get all our whiskey and other trinkets packed away in our bags. After we finished with that, we toasted a few more glasses of wine with mom and dad, and started to feel a little sad about leaving Scotland in the morning. Nate and I shot some night time video of the Palace, hoping to catch some ghosts on film, but all we ran into was some college kids getting a late night snack in the kitchen, and wondering who the hell we were.



Sunday – Back Home


For the last time, Nate and I trucked down the one flight of stairs to the shower and wrestled with the hot water and then finished packing up everything. Luckily it all fit. Mom and dad took Nate and I to the airport, and we got checked in with no problems. We shared a final breakfast, and we we went towards the security check point I remembered that I hadn't removed my Swiss Army Knife from my backpack. Thank goodness I remembered since that's the knife I bought in Switzerland like at least 15 years ago and it has my name engraved on it... I would have been very upset with myself had I been forced to give that up. Mom took it for me and we said our final good byes. We had to fly an hour East to Amsterdam to catch our flight back west to Minneapolis (as Nate pointed out, flying right over Edinburgh again) and now we're on the long journey home. It's been a nice trip and so good to see family and friends. Hoping it won't be too long before we can visit again!!