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You want to
hear about our Scotland trip? Pull up a
seat; this is going to take a while.
Monday, July
15, 2019.
Devon
gave me a blessing at the beginning of the trip and one thing that he said that
stuck out to me was that I would have “patience and understanding.” I made a
mental note that was probably divine code for “Some crazy stuff is going to
happen, so prepare for adventure.” I remember just hoping that didn’t mean one
of our flights was horribly delayed.
It
was a bit tricky figuring out what to wear this morning, considering we would
be starting out at 80-90 degrees in Phoenix and go to places with a temperature
range of 70 at the highs and 50 at the lowest. I can hear the stewardess now:
“Ma’am, why did you bring your winter coat on the plane?”
It
better be time for vacation; our fridge is pretty bare and we won’t be buying
groceries until we’re back.
2:45am
is not the ideal time to start a trip. But when your flight leaves at 6am
and the shuttle to the airport wants to pick you up at 3:40am, that is what
happens. Happily, the shuttle picked us up at the time appointed.
Now,
why there should be tons of crazy people already on the highways at this
ungodly hour, I don’t know. (Oh wait, we’re some of them.)
The
sparkles on my back pockets set off the airport security alarm, so I earned an
enhanced screening and a chemical screening of my hands. Joy.
I
had to defend Devon’s seat at the gate from two different men who wanted to sit
there. (“Sorry, this is my husband’s spot!”)
The
airplane from Phoenix to Newark has back-of-the-seat TVs, and the safety
reminder video features the usual demonstrations interspersed with Spider-Man
chasing and catching criminals, which was both jarring and amusing at the same
time.
There
was much excitement in the Stephens family when the inflight snack included the
possibility of a stroopwaffle. (Also, autocorrect hates them.) Devon has liked
stroopwaffels ever since Sister Chatwin introduced them for a pack meeting
snack. Stroooooopwaffellls...Mmmmmm....
Spider-Man
napkins accompanied the snack. You can smell the advertising partnership with
movie industry from a mile away.
Very
bouncy-jouncy landing into Newark, New Jersey. We were bobbing up and down on
the approach so much it felt like a roller coaster ride and we hit hard enough that I (and the passengers nearby) braced for impact. It felt like we were
going to skid out of control, but we got to a stop safe and sound. Yayyy!
Apparently
Newark airport is just across the river from New York City. No wonder the airport tourist shops were
selling shirts saying “I [heart] NY.” Sometimes I am slow on the uptake. But
when one’s gate looks right out onto a crowd of skyscrapers, eventually the
light dawns and realization sets in. Or maybe when we had to pay $27 for a
sandwich and a salad we should have known. (Note to self: Pack a big lunch when
flying through this place to avoid the highway robbery that passes for
restaurant food...)
I’m
glad Devon checks the flight monitors to discover gate changes, otherwise we
would be headed for Dusseldorf, instead of Edinburgh.
I
observe a big trailer named “Flying Food Group” is disgorging food carts onto
the plane we are to take. “Flying Food Group” sounds like what you’d get if you
were to corporatize food fights. I think I’ll start that as a business. It will
be a great team-building exercise for large cap companies and raise employee
morale, thus raising profits everywhere. Or how about “Flying Food Solutions”
or “Food Fight Incorporated”?
Super-long
flight to Stockholm. I napped a little bit, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
I
tried the meditation-entertainment, which was supposed to give an hour of
meditation. I found the visualization exercises too boring. It wanted me to
land on the moon and hop around on it, while looking at the dark infinity of space
and stars, when my mind had already wandered off and started adding atmosphere, water, plants, animals, and what have you. Why merely look
around the moon when I could terraform and populate it?
From
the air, Stockholm appears very green in the summer. Lots of forests and
meadows and houses spread out from each other.
Our
flight overwhelmed the Swedish airport passport control. We spent 45 minutes
standing in line, and a Swedish lady in front of us didn’t know why it was so
many people all at once. She said she had flown into Stockholm many times and
she’s never seen it this crowded.
I
put Devon in charge of our day in Stockholm, and he got us bus tickets to go to
the city center.
I
found a map at the information counter, but as I was examining it on the bus, I
discovered I couldn’t understand any of it (which happens when one is in a
foreign country...) so we downloaded maps onto our phones to use offline.
As
we drive through the countryside to get to Stockholm, I observe it would be
really easy to think we were just driving through northwest Illinois if it
weren’t for the Swedish signs and the fact that highway cuts through cliffs
show granite instead of sandstone.
Stockholm
buildings in the downtown area are about 6 stories high and seem to be mixed
use. The bottom story is retail space, and higher stories seem to be residential.
This seems efficient to me.
Once
there, we hiked via bridge to one of their little islands to explore, then up a
little stairway, and we saw this rock that had a little black metal door in the
side. It turned out it was marking the location of the Ordinance Datem, which
marks the zero level, or average, of the water level as around the year 1900.
What’s peculiar is that it is not at the same level as the water around
Stockholm. I’d say it’s about 50 feet above.
We
hiked to the Nobel Museum that has stuff about the Nobel Prize. One crazy thing
we learned was that Hitler had actually been nominated for the peace prize, but
only out of irony to make a political statement. However, we also found out
Mussolini and Stalin has also been nominated too, and I don’t know if those
were ironic or not.
Also
near the Nobel museum was the Wooden Horse Museum, which sounded interesting.
This turned out to be a shop selling all manner of carved wooden horses of
various sizes, painted all kinds of interesting colors and patterns. Supposedly
this is a traditional art form (which shows you people have loved knickknacks
in all ages of the world. ) If I were to have gotten one, it would have been
the size of a dog, to put outside my door at home. I say, go big or go home.
(This shows I am not immune to said love of knickknacks, but I tend to be
extremely choosey.)
For
lunch, we decided to get two orders of meatballs so we could say we’d eaten
Swedish meatballs in Sweden. Probably everybody wants to do that, but that
doesn’t stop us from wanting to do it too. They were good meatballs. They also
came with gray, extra creamy potatoes, loganberries, and bean plants (as in
stems and leaves).
I
noticed the bus taking us back to the Stockholm airport was playing an ABBA
song. I like ABBA. I have deep-seated childhood memories of hearing it. My mom
has told me she would play ABBA while driving young women to church youth
activities with me in the car when I was two or three. I rediscovered ABBA
again when I was a teen and couldn’t understand why I connected so closely with
their music until mom told me about my very early exposure to it. Moral of the
story—play the good stuff for your kids over and over.
I
got a blessed bit of doze on the bus before we got to the airport.
I
told Devon I thought I might be dehydrated. He got us 2 bottled waters and we
discovered they were carbonated. (There was mild-mannered chagrin in the
Stephens family.) Devon said he should have known, since the French like their
carbonated mineral water. We may have to carefully inspect any water before
buying in non-English-speaking countries.
We
also got some Swedish cheese and chocolate. The cheese was pretty strong. It
had an almost nutty aftertaste to it, though, which was sort of fun. It reminded
me of the Wyfe-of-Bath cheese we got in London back in 2017.
When
we got our passports checked on the outgoing Swedish end, the officer wasn’t
sure how many were in our party because the middle eastern family behind us had
snuck up close instead of staying behind the yellow line where they were
supposed to be. He (the officer) got pretty irate at them and refused to work
on our stuff until they were back where they should be. I suppose the officers have to
make sure no one sneaks past them.
It
feels like we’ve been traveling for days. We have 28 hours of flights and
layovers. We keep trying to nap whenever we can, and at this point, the thing
we both look forward to the most is sleeping prone on a real bed. Ah, bed, how
I miss thee with the passion of a thousand suns!
Stockholm’s
airport has a lovely feature about their gate benches—they don’t have an
armrest between them, so you can actually lie down on them if you want. And I
did, and got some sleep, but it didn’t seem nearly long enough.
Finally,
we got onto the plane to Edinburgh. For some reason that flight seemed
particularly long, but I suppose it was only the fact that we were sleep
deprived and a possible time zone change that had us arriving only an hour
after the flight began.
After
deplaning, we found the place we could get a SIM card for my phone and found
the right tram to the city center and Devon found some snack food for us while
we rode.
Impressions
of Edinburgh: Once again, it is green and rolling- another nice approximation to
northwest Illinois. One of the things we noticed pretty quick when we got to
Edinburgh was that it was a lot warmer than Stockholm. In Stockholm I had my sweater
and it was not quite enough; I had to steal Devon’s raincoat (with his
permission of course.) (Only later did I find out that he had been cold too, but
had sacrificed his comfort for me. Awwwwwww.)
It
was peculiar that half of the stops between the Edinburgh airport and city
center were in what looked like the middle of the country, and yet there were
some people that got off or got on there!
I’m
not quite sure how to pronounce Edinburgh. The way I hear people say it sounds
like “Edinburuh,” like there’s an extra syllable at the end that nobody working
on the maps knew about. Of course, this could just be one of the vagaries of
English language, especially considering we have “through,” “thorough,” “though,”
“rough,” and “thought,” none of which actually rhyme with each other. (Seriously,
will someone please inject some
sanity into the above word list so we can spell them “thru” “thur-o,” “tho,” “ruff,”
and “thot,” like they should be?)
It
was pretty exciting to see the Edinburgh castle come into view at the top of
promontory and know that if things went well, we would tour it the next day.
One
of the interesting things that we saw on the way was a few Scottish thistles
which grew above our heads in some places. I’d heard about the Scottish thistle,
but I didn’t realize it could get so big. Concerning this thistle: When your country is
cursed with some big weeds, you have two choices. You can fight a losing battle
trying to eradicate them, or you can declare them the national plant and
decorate everything with them. The Scots took the second choice.
I
would’ve noticed more things, but it was hard for me to see with just my
glasses. (Contacts give me a wider field of view, so it’s easier to see more
things.)
As
we were walking through the park surrounding the castle, we could hear bagpipes
playing in the background somewhere, which was pretty cool. This is how you
know that you have gotten to Scotland—bagpipes are playing on grassy knolls.
And everyone is wearing kilts. (Not really, but we like to think so.)
Unfortunately,
Google maps hadn’t registered that several routes were closed due to
construction, so we had a merry jaunt, but ultimately we arrived.
When
we got to our Airbnb, we found it was one of those apartments where there is a bank
of buttons in the door jamb on the front step and you have to push the right
one to get buzzed in. I had a bad moment while trying to figure out which
button to push. Only two had readable labels. All others had vague numbers
associated with them, which were not the 5 we were looking for. Fortunately, I
remembered the text our host, had sent us, and sure enough, it told us to press
the one labeled Coventry. Once we identified ourselves to the voice on the
other end, we were admitted into the fold and told to walk two floors up.
Our
Airbnb is essentially home to a group of bachelors that have a spare room for
visitors. Naturally, things are a little bit wonky, and thus we had explained
to us the tricks that will make the electricity, the oven, the lights, the
curtains, and the exterior door locks work for us and what to do should the
metered electricity suddenly run out on us.
But it has a lovely view out on a backyard garden.
But it has a lovely view out on a backyard garden.
Our
room was a charming place. It had three large wardrobes that had been placed around
the door so as to form a little foyer. Then it had a queen-sized bed placed next
to the floor-to-ceiling window, which had a number of large plants in pots
growing there. The walls had colorful art and pictures hung here and there, and
there was a large origami pendant light hung from the middle of the ceiling. For
a decorative medallion around the base of the light, a large cloth portrait of Buddha
nailed to the ceiling, with the light cord sprouting out of his stomach, in the
most comfortable visual ever. It was an artsy, colorful, interesting room. We
got relaxed at once.
It
appears that our merry jaunt did some violence to Devon’s suitcase. When we got
to the Airbnb, we found that one of his wheels was partially torn off and the
plastic shell was ripped open a bit around it. I wonder which type of pavement
did this to it? Was it the cobblestones? Was it the concrete? Was it the large
flat flagstones? Was it the stairs? I think we’ve only used these suitcases
about 3-4 times.
There
is a seagull that lives on the roof somewhere, and it makes peculiar noises.
Sometimes it sounds like a person cackling loud and long. Other times it sounds
respectably seagull-like. Sometimes it sounds like a cross between a penguin
and a Canada goose. But it is loud. And I hear it outside at 3am (since that is
when I have awakened).
I
don’t think it is quite fair that I felt more awake at 4am than I do at 7am.
Someone explain that to me! (Editor: one word—time zones.)
I
have a hard time flushing the toilet in this apartment. Devon seems to
understand the secret method to it. He told me you have to prime it and then
push it down and hold it. I tried that, and it blooshed, and then I did it again and it blooshed some more, and I held it down, and it dumped a bunch of
water in, but the “stuff” didn’t seem to go anywhere. I had to leave it until
Devon woke up, so I lived in worry that one of our flat mates would discover
the messy business in the early hours of the day and think we were a bunch of
yahoos.
Also,
there is nothing quite like the terror of coming to stay in a flat with 3-4 men
and finding that the bathroom only has ONE half-used roll of toilet paper and
no more in sight. Likewise, you can probably imagine my glee to eventually
discover another toilet paper roll on the kitchen table and two more hidden on
a shelf near our bed. (However, the peculiar locations of said toilet paper
make one think it is a resource that is carefully hoarded in this household.)(Until
the last day when they stocked up and suddenly we were rolling in the stuff.)
Just
as I was about to plug in my hair appliance, Devon informed me that he had
forgotten to bring the electrical adapter for it. My chagrin was great, but
short-lived for his sake. At least he told me before I accidentally started
some kind of electrical fire.
As
we were walking up the stairway to Edinburg castle Devon observed that the wall
was ancient as he pointed to a cement stone in it that said A.D 2001.
Edinburgh castle is built on a large promontory
that looks down on everything in the city. The castle it has different levels
to it that are accessed in a rough upward spiral. Lowest is the gatehouse and Argyl’s
tower. Then comes the military buildings (since the castle still houses a
military garrison for ceremonial and administrative purposes), then at a higher
level are St. Margaret’s chapel (the only medieval building left, and the oldest
building in Edinburgh), the half-moon battery and David’s tower, and then at
the very tippy top are is Crown Square, which consists of an open square, the
sides of which are formed by the Royal Palace, the Great Hall, the Queen Anne
Building, and the Scottish National War Monument building. Wikipedia has some
interesting facts about this castle: “Research undertaken in 2014
identified 26 sieges in its 1100-year-old history, giving it a claim to having
been ‘the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in
the world’.”
That’s pretty extraordinary.
You
walk up the spiral on a cobblestone street, that has another little mini-street
in the middle made of tiny cobblestones. We were told that the mini-street was
made so as to give horses better traction when dragging up cartloads of
provisions up the hill on wet or icy days. It is also a reassuringly secure surface
for tourists (such as ourselves) to walk up during a drizzly rain.
First
we rented some audio-tour devices. Anyplace we went in the castle we could find
some plaque with a number on it. If we punched the number into our audio-tour
device, we’d be able to hear some kind of explanation of that location and its
use, its history, and any lurid stories connected with it. ;-) Interestingly, just as soon as we rented
these devices, Devon saw a tour guide gathering a group and decided it would be
fun to listen to what the man had to say. So we followed the guide and got his info and then listened to our tour devices.
I
think the first building we actually went into was the war memorial building in
Crown Square. We weren’t supposed to take pictures in it, so all I have are of
the exterior. But there is nothing saying you can’t draw things inside, so that’s
what I did. The war memorial building is very cathedral-like on the inside. It
has stained glass windows and a high ceiling. There are regimental flags along
the walls, along with plaques in gilt letters saying things like, “In
remembrance of the brave men and women who gave their lives for God, king, and
country.” There were also books of names of those who died, which books
visitors could open and read the names of. I think it is appropriate to
recognize these kinds of sacrifices in a cathedral-like atmosphere.
There
was an interesting arrangement of weapons on the walls that I found intriguing,
so I sketched
it in my pad of paper. It’s very rough.
Next,
we stood in line for about half an hour to see the “Scottish Honors,” which
consist of the Scottish crown jewels—the crown, the scepter, and the sword.
These were accessed by way of a tight spiral staircase into a dark-paneled safe
room with red carpet. Supposedly they are very old and they were lost for a
while when the English put down the Jacobite rebellions, and then later found
by Sir Walter Scott in an old trunk (!!!!) Fancy finding crown jewels in an old
trunk!
(Now,
if we had just been patient, we could have just waited until 4pm or so and the
line to see the Scottish Honors would have disappeared, and then we could have seen it in about five minutes.)
Next,
we saw the tiny darkwood-paneled room in which Mary Queen of Scots delivered her son
James the VI (the one who became James I of England). She had him a few months
after her secretary had been killed practically in front of her by her husband
Lord Darnley, so she felt very unsafe at the time, and according to the tour
info, the smallness of the room helped her feel secure. (It’s quite likely she suffered
PTSD from her experience.) How small was the room? It couldn’t have been more
than eight feet in every direction. Plus a fireplace, and a little diamond-paned
window two or three times wider than an arrow slit. But it had an amazing plastered
ceiling moldings that were elaborately painted. Which would make sense, since
she’d lie in a bed staring at the ceiling.
We
also watched the one o’clock gun shot off. This is a daily tradition at
Edinburgh castle that was begun as a way to help ships in the harbor set their clocks
to the same time. There is also a big black ball on the top of the Nelson Monument
on Calton hill that would raise and then fall at one o’clock, but in the fog
and mist, often ships could not see that, so firing the gun was to help with
that. Another interesting fact is that other places would do this sort of thing
(firing the gun) at noon, but the Scots are a thrifty people, so they decided
to do it at 1pm instead because they would only need to use one charge of gunpowder
instead of twelve, and thereby save a significant amount of money.
The
gun itself wasn’t an old-timey cannon. It was a pretty modern-looking artillery
piece, so while the tradition is old, the equipment is not so.
So
anyway, it was fascinating to see what a crowd of people gathered to watch this
shooting of a big gun. (Of course, we
were just as curious as everyone else.) Everyone was holding up their phones, straining
to take pictures. I had to climb up on one of the other cannons to get a good
view, with so many others on their tiptoes. (Apologies to all the people who
were behind me and also trying to see.) The soldier marches out, loads the
cannon, and at a call of “Fire!” the gun went off. WHOA. And everyone else around me went, “Whoa!” too
when it shot off. I don’t any of us expected it to be so loud. You know, after something like that I have to
laugh at myself because it should have been obvious
it was going to be loud, since that was the gun’s purpose. But real life is always so startling, more vivid than
theory or expectation.
Next,
we went through the war museum. This was a mixed experience because on one
hand, there were interesting objects on display, with interesting pictures, and
cards explaining all of it with interesting captions, but the lights used in the display were very badly
aimed so it was very hard to see about 30% of the displays. Which was a real
shame. If I could make any suggestion to Edinburgh Castle people, I’d ask for
those lights to be fixed/better aim/replaced/improved/whatever. The Scots take such pride in their fighting
history, it is a tragedy that anyone would have to strain their eyes to learn
about it.
Now,
there are a few people highlighted in the war museum that I want to point out.
Scottish Admiral Adam Duncan seems pretty awesome. He blockaded the Dutch and
when all of his fleet mutinied except for one other ship, he stayed on the
blockade and sent flag signals with
orders to imaginary ships. This made the French think there was a fleet just
over the horizon waiting for him and they didn’t try to sneak past.
Ralph
Abercrombey – This enlightened man was in sympathy with the American side
during the Revolutionary War, and stayed in Ireland in order to avoid fighting
them. From 1797-1798 he was in charge of the military in Ireland, and did his utmost
to restore discipline and maintain civil order without using force unless absolutely
necessary. However, he wasn’t appreciated by Irish civil authority, so he resigned,
and his exit led to all the disaster that he had anticipated and had tried to
avoid.
Sir
Thomas Graham—This guy was both a very loving husband and a very courageous
soldier. There is a story about him riding 90 miles in a day by stages to
retrieve some jewelry for his wife to wear for a ball the same day. There is
also a story of him attempting to help break the French siege of Cadiz, Spain
in along with an army of Spanish troops. As he and his British troops were
trying to flank the French, the Spanish troops started to retreat. He made a
split-second decision to attack vigorously and succeeded in routing the French
forces. It wasn’t enough to break the siege, but it was enough to prevent their
whole army from falling after the ignominious Spanish retreat.
There’s
a story about a Campbell general who foresaw his own deaths at Ticonderoga. (I didn’t
get his name, sorry.) He had a vision of his dead foster brother who told him
“Farewell until Ticondaroga” He didn’t know what that name was. When he was
actually there, his officers tried to keep the name from him and when he found
out, he got irate and said “You have deceived me! I will die today.” And he
did.
Other interesting people to learn about
include: Sir David Baird, Admiral William Carnegie, Sir Frederick Maitland, Sir
Hugh Rose, Sir Colin Campbell, Alexander
Leslie, and Sir Hector Macdonald.
Apparently
the Scots who lost in the Jacobean rebellion joined the highland regiments of
the English army to regain status. They got sent to fight in America and a lot
of them died in the Revolutionary war.
Edinburgh castle held both POW prisons
and military prisons, which we toured. The conditions of the POW prisons reminded
me a bit of the dismal nature of Liberty Jail endured by Joseph Smith in 1838
(dark, cold, depressing, filthy, crowded), with the exception of the hammocks,
which were a rather surprising feature. The
military prisons, on the other hand, were individual whitewashed cells in an organized
cell block, and compared to the POW prisons, were practically the lap of
luxury. (individual toilets, sinks, shelves, beds, bright space, etc.
We learned that POWs occupied
themselves with making prison crafts, and we saw such specimens as jewelry boxes
elaborately decorated with pieces of straw. The subtle variations of color created
by the individual pieces of straw made them very beautiful. I was not surprised
to learn that these crafts had been sold in Edinburgh and that eventually Edinburgh
craftsman complained that their own custom was being eroded by the prison
crafts.
The other notable prison craft was
carving soup bones to make printer plates for forging banknotes. They would
forge the larger details of print, and then draw in the smaller details by pen.
Who would have thought that soup bones could be so employed? Hmmmm, actually, considering what I learned
about inmate creativity when ministering to a prison inmate, I shouldn’t have
been so surprised.
We
finished with Edinburgh castle and headed down the Royal Mile, which has tons
of touristy shops along it, most with shops to buy kilts and plaid products.
As
we were exploring, I happened to see a sign for Scottish genealogy that promised
free research help. I hadn’t planned on spending time on genealogy, but this
looked promising, so I went to talk to them. I wasn’t prepared (didn’t have
data listed out easy) but I did have access to my Family Tree app, so we used
data on that.
The
nice lady found an entry on my family name of McKnight that shows variations of
it that can be expected in the records. She also told me about the main kinds
of documents Scotland has and the range of dates they are available in. That
should help with future research. Also she told me about a research
organization that people from Scotland (and people with Scottish ancestry) can
belong to.
After
this, we went for fish and chips at a restaurant. I noticed haggis on the menu,
so I ordered haggis along with our fish and chips, since trying it was one of
our culinary goals for the trip. The haggis was the size of a chipotle burrito
and deep-fried. The inner texture is creamy. Spicy, kind of like a sausage.
Very savory. I like it a lot. Robert Burns wasn’t kidding when he called haggis
“the king of the puddings,” though I’m not sure what pudding has to do with it,
unless he was talking about texture. (Maybe he meant “pudding” in the way that UK
usually refers to dessert, but if so, haggis doesn’t seem like a dessert; it
seems like a very filling main course.)(Consulting Wikipedia on the subject of “pudding”
reveals that the word can also mean a savory, non-sweet dish that is part of
the main meal. Which explains a lot.) But basically, he was saying “Haggis is
awesome, and everybody should try it at least once in their lives.”  |
| Edinburgh buildings can be quite dignified when you study them closely. |
I was reading
my scriptures and I ran across a verse in Alma 26:36 that says, “Yea, blessed
is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of
the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yay, I
say, Blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a
strange land.”
This
verse felt special because here we are, traveling in a strange, foreign land,
and it reminded me that God is thinking of us too. I’ve seen small tender
mercies the Lord has given to show that He is thinking of us. Those things are
hard to articulate to other people, because they probably wouldn’t make much
sense, but they mean much to me as an individual, and I’ve seen them.
Devon
and I had a long discussion of what to do about our vacation schedule.
Yesterday we had three other things planned besides Edinburgh castle, and we
only got to the castle. We had to figure out where to put those other things,
or whether to do them at all. Eventually, we decided to hang them on the
margins and fit them in where we could. We also wanted to adjust our schedule
to group things together that were in the same area. (Trying to be strategic,
you see.) This is where our prayers that
we would cooperate together are tested and answered.
We
looked in more Scottish tourist traps for gifts for family. A lot of the stores
had much the same stuff in them—kilts, plaid scarfs and shawls, Scottish
bonnets, sporrans, kilt pins, and then the usual keychains, pencils, etc.
We
walked to Calton Hill, which is one of the sites to see in Edinburgh. It has an
observatory on it, little museum, a partly finished replica of the Parthenon as
a war memorial (which was never finished), a tall tower called the Nelson
Memorial, and is generally a neat place go. It is also very windy up there, but
at least it is sunny right now.
There
are bagpipers busking everywhere. So far today we’ve seen them outside the
Edinburgh castle, at two or three places on the Royal mile, and on Calton Hill.
We
didn’t really go into any of the
things on Calton Hill today; we just sort of wandered around it exploring
things, seeing what we could see. Devon really wanted to see the ball drop on
the Nelson monument and hear the gun from Edinburgh castle to see what kind of delay
the sound had. So we sat around on a strategically located park bench on the
side of the hill, waiting the 20 minutes for 1pm to roll around. When the ball dropped, and the gun went off,
it was strangely gratifying to hear the delay was something like 1.5 to 2
seconds. (Physics has been validated in Scotland!)
The 20 minutes we waited was eased by listening
to the bagpiper playing on the hill, accompanied by a guitarist. This cooperation
was something out of the ordinary; you usually don’t see two musicians playing
together while busking. It felt like they needed someone to dance too, so I
went and danced to the music for a while. (I think it’s the performer in me…) I
have no idea how it looked, but it was fun, and someone’s small child decided
to dance too.
After that, we walked to the Palace of
Holyroodhouse. We didn’t actually plan
to go there today; we were just exploring the different paths that led down
from off Calton Hill and discovered a pretty one that led us quite close. So we made an executive decision to go. (And
we also found that the Scottish Parliament building is right across the street
from the palace too, so if we had wanted to go there, we would have gotten two
for one.)
Okay, so Holyrood Palace. In our
discussions of the place, Devon nicknamed it “Hollyhock,” because it feels more
comfortable to say. “Holyrood” seems odd because we don’t know what a “rood” is
and why it might be considered holy. Until we know this, to say “holy-rude”
sounds like an oxymoron.
Later: We have learned that “rood” is the cross.
King David (a Scottish king in the medieval period) was hunting and saw a stag
with a cross in its antlers and was inspired to build an abbey there. Later
kings liked the abbey and attached their palace to it, sort of like Siamese
twins, but with buildings instead. The join between the abbey and the palace is
very peculiar looking.
The palace has lasted, but the abbey was partially destroyed in the Jacobite Rebellion. (Devon made the observation about the Holyrood Abbey that it is interesting how it can look like something is built to last practically forever and then it doesn’t.)
 |
| Abbey on the left, Holyrood Palace on the right. |
The palace has lasted, but the abbey was partially destroyed in the Jacobite Rebellion. (Devon made the observation about the Holyrood Abbey that it is interesting how it can look like something is built to last practically forever and then it doesn’t.)
Supposedly
this palace is smaller than all the others and has a “wonderfully intimate feel
to it.” Since it is built down in the valley, it was considered much more comfortable
than Edinburgh castle up on the hill, which is much more gusty and exposed. (But
if danger threatened, then royalty would resort to Edinburgh castle.)
Holyrood is built around a quadrangle (or square, if you want speak plainly), so someone could theoretically run around on the inside to get exercise in the winter.
Holyrood is built around a quadrangle (or square, if you want speak plainly), so someone could theoretically run around on the inside to get exercise in the winter.
The
dining room’s audio tour said the silver plating helps retain the heat of the
food for the guests but I’d heard it was exactly the opposite—that silver
service loses heat quickly. Maybe what I’d heard was wrong. (Later: I did some research and silver has a
high heat conductivity, which means it transfers heat quickly. High
conductivity is why we use metal pots to boil water because heat transfers
quickly from the burner to the food inside, but that also means heat can just
as easily be lost. Therefore, silver does not
retain food’s heat; it transfers it away quickly and it would be better if
the palace served food on porcelain instead of silver. (But palace cooks are not likely
to switch because tradition and status.)
The
palace has a series of rooms that people would move through called “the
processional” and the final destination was the king’s bedroom. Not sure why that should be the destination
of choice. You were special if you were given the favor of getting to see the
king get dressed in the morning. (Michaela shakes her head) Yes, I know it was
a way for the king to show he was special friends with someone and it also
likely a way to show he was healthy (public relations), but it just sounds
wrong.
In
the Great Gallery are something like 96 portraits. When I saw them, my first
thought was that they were all of the same person, since so many of them are
posed in the same position. But it turns out they were of the previous kings of
Scotland. According to the tour, they were all done by the same artist, who
gave them all the Charles II nose in order to emphasize the monarch’s right to
the throne. Actually, I think the artist gave them more than the nose; I think
he made them all look like Charles II. It
just looks like he wanted 96 pictures of himself collected in a room.
There’s
a whole room devoted to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Apparently the Scottish still
yearn for freedom from the oppressive tyrants of England. They show no shame
over the failure of Bonny Prince Charlie to win the kingdom, but rather pleasure
that he got as far as he did.
What
the heck is the ceremony of “touching for the kings evil”? [Consults Google] Well that’s interesting—apparently
there was the belief that the king’s touch could cure certain diseases, and
Bonny Prince Charlie revived the practice.
The
painting of the battle of Culloden where Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated
seems to have been painted from the English perspective. The Scottish warriors
are a frizzy-haired, plaid-wearing, mad mob of ruffians, while the English
troops look disciplined and calm, except for one English soldier who looks
positively terrified.
In
the room next to Mary Queen of Scots’ bedroom is the place where her secretary
was brutally stabbed more than 50 times and left lying in his gore. There’s a
pink stain in the tan oak floor from it. Annnnnd, someone just stepped on it
unknowingly. (Eye-roll)
That
room has a very old, creaky wood floor. With all the people walking on it right
now, it actually sounds like a pond of frogs ribbiting. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t call it ‘old’; it’s historic.
Also
at the palace was an exhibition of different parts of the wedding of Prince
Harry and his wife. There are pictures of her dress and his dress uniform and
her tiara and veil and various parts of the wedding regalia. We actually blew
through that pretty quickly, which surprised Devon. It was a bit more
interesting to hear the audio from the wedding dress designer and Prince Harry
about why they chose what they chose.
This might sound strange, but the
bathrooms at the Queens cafe at Holyroodhouse are actually very beautiful.
White wood, fascinating floor tile, large cream trough sinks, and the blow hand
dryer was hidden behind the mirror so cleverly. I wanted to take a picture, but
I felt that would be uncouth, even if there was no one else in there at the
time. Anyway, it seemed like a place designed with a woman’s touch; simple and
elegant.
After
Holyroodhouse, we eyed the Scottish Parliament building a bit. It’s very strange looking. There are sticks against the
windows and… Well, it’s very hard to describe, because it’s contemporary and
dramatic and artistic. But it generally elicits one of two reactions from
people. Either they hate it, or they think it’s very interesting. When I look
at it, it says to me “The Struggle.” It is the struggle to go from past to
future with the limited resources of today. That’s my art critic assessment. (And actually, with art, everything is “the
struggle.” You just have to figure out who was struggling against what.)
Next
to the Parliament building are some gardens and calf-deep pools. They looked quite
ornamental, but we saw some children playing in them, getting all wet and such,
suggesting they were functional as well. I would have jumped in too, but it was
a bit chilly and rainy. But I am jealous for Arizona’s sake. If any place needs
nifty fountain-like pools to play in outside government buildings, it’s
Arizona. Governor Ducey, please make it so!
Walking
back to our Airbnb…
At
one point on the Royal
Mile (the main touristy street), we saw a teeny little door about three feet
high next to the Tollbooth Close. Seeing it reminded me of a dream I had some years ago of
going into small doorways in a place called Sutherland.
Oh,
I have to explain what a “close” is. Old Town Edinburgh (the medieval part) has
all these little covered passageways/alleys that branch off the Royal Mile and
snake through buildings. They are called Closes and Wynds. They are fun to
explore, and they all have names. They are about 20% of what makes Old Town
Edinburgh such a joy to explore. Wikipedia has a list of 83 of them.
I
found canned haggis. I’m going to take a can of it home with me and open it for
my family when they come to Arizona for Christmas. Then they can decide if they
love haggis too or not, and they won’t have a huge amount to deal with if they
hate it.
In
our wanderings, we headed to Princes Street gardens, which was the park we
previously had dragged our suitcases through to get to our Airbnb.
Princes
Street gardens has a big flower clock , and a little wooden house set on a post nearby. When clock
strikes the hour and half-hour, a little cuckoo pops out of a little house and
“cuckoos” through loudspeakers. Devon missed seeing the bird popping out during
the hour strike and wants to stay the half hour to see it.
Upon
more closely examining the plants in the flower clock, I discovered that half
the plants in it are succulents! Could it be that Scotland is jealous of our
Arizona cacti? Nah, they used them because they grow so slow they don’t have to
worry about them needing a trim every few days.
 |
| It's always classy to have lions barfing your banisters. |
Here
are some of the other things we saw in Princes Street garden: a giant brass
painted elephant, a fountain, lots more thistles (Don’t worry they have a lot
of other beautiful flowering plants), a big geodesic dome with little
trampolines, a castle-shaped playground, a band stage, and statues
commemorating various war heroes. | |
| Giant Scottish Thistle |
When we got home, I discovered we had walked about 18k steps today, about 8 miles. Yesterday we walked 14k. In connection with this, it is interesting to think that the pioneers usually walked about 11 miles a day. We’re not yet to that level, but we might be by the time our vacation ends.
Friend
Flow started up today and I paced myself carefully all day, kept myself
hydrated, and so far it has been okay. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Friday, July
19, 2019
The weather
today was nice and sunny in the morning, during which we went to the Royal Botanic
Gardens, and then it turned drizzly-rainy, and we did the royal yacht Britannia then. This worked out very
well. Royal Botanic Gardens required a
bus ride up north a few miles.
The
gardens were started at the Holyrood Palace, as a source for making medicinal
cures, but they gradually outgrew that space and had to be moved elsewhere. People
imported lots of plants from other places to plant in these gardens and in
their own too. They had agents scouring the world for new and interesting
plants, and it was a point of pride among the nobility to show to one’s
neighbors a new plant or serve a new fruit, such as a banana or a pineapple.
Then the gardens outgrew that space and were moved to their current location.
Our
garden tour guide informs us that the sentence, “Long may your lum reek” can be
translated as “Long may your chimney smoke,” a phrase expressing good
wishes. It expresses the hope that
someone will prosper enough to have money for coal to heat the house all
winter.
They
have a number of different kinds of gardens here, but we didn’t have time to
visit them all. Still what we saw was lovely.
Devon particularly was impressed by the beechwood hedge. This hedge has been growing for over a 100 years, and is trimmed yearly by a crew with a cherry-picker. Before cherry-pickers, little boys with big shears had to lay on their stomachs across very tall ladders to do the job.
Devon particularly was impressed by the beechwood hedge. This hedge has been growing for over a 100 years, and is trimmed yearly by a crew with a cherry-picker. Before cherry-pickers, little boys with big shears had to lay on their stomachs across very tall ladders to do the job.
There
was an agricultural section that had some things we hadn’t seen before. Fruit trees grown at 45-degree angles, and apple
trees growing and bearing at knee height. Apparently growing a tree at a 45
degree angle inhibits the height of growth so more trees can be grown. And the
knee-high apple trees are called “step-over” apple trees. I think I want one.
 |
| Step-over apple trees |
We also saw a bed of pitcher plants.
These are the kinds that trap and digest insects for extra protein.
And the alpine garden had little
plants in stone planters that looked soo cute! 
After
the gardens, we walked to another bus stop, and on the way were treated to the
sight of two shirtless guys sparring with boxing gloves outside a fitness
studio. Public exhibitionism is alive in Scotland, apparently.
Cobblestone
streets look quaint, but are crazy to ride over. The bus rattled like it is
about to shake apart. I suspect that’s why macadamization spread to all parts.
Next
we visited the Royal Yacht Britannia.
The
Britannia has a large mall built next
to its docking place, no doubt designed to take advantage of all the tourist
traffic that comes.
A
sign in the yacht’s foyers says that orders to the crew were not shouted, but
given by hand signal to keep it tranquil for the queen.
 |
| This fancy-looking thing holds the ships compass. Because royalty. |
They
gave us audio-tour devices that look like long black batons. They are probably
meant to be awkward-looking in case someone tries to steal them as a souvenir. You
could seriously club someone over the head with them. If any scurvy pirates
come on board during our tour, I know exactly what to defend myself with.
 |
| On the bridge, keeping a sharp lookout for pirates, iceburgs, and rabid seagulls. |
Near the bridge, I found a poster showing signal flags and their meanings, some of which have interesting messages associated with them. For one intriguing instance: “I am on fire and have dangerous cargo on board. Keep well clear of me.” (I am not making this up.) The first question that comes to mind upon reading it is, did this happen often? And further, did this happen often on the Britannia? The imaginative mind fairly goes wild considering the possible scenarios. 1) Did the queen often deliver explosive ordnance via her private royal yacht? Like nitro glycerin? Was she so deeply involved in the war effort? Or… 2) were parties held on board the Britannia wilder than anyone has previously considered? Or… 3) did one of the royal household have a penchant for explosive chemistry experiments that had to be isolated from on-land royal residences and were best dealt with among a support staff of British Naval officers? Eh… it is far more likely that it was a traditional navy emergency flag that could be grabbed in the heat of the moment—no apologies for the pun—to warn people if they had to.
There’s
also a philosophical-psychological perspective to that signal flag. I wonder,
if we really knew what was going on in the lives of people around us it might seem like a large number of them would like to wave that flag around. “I
am on fire and have dangerous cargo on board. Keep well clear of me.”
There’s
a picture of a tug shooting water as the Britannia
passes, and the caption says it is “in salute to the royal yacht Britannia.” I never thought spraying
water could be a salute. We must follow this to its logical conclusion. This means that theoretically a squirt gun fight is the ultimate in mutual
respect. (Awesome!) I’m perfectly willing to give that kind of respect to all comers. I’m sure these mutual shows
of respect could bring peace and harmony to many war-torn areas of our planet.
We
are told the queen would bring five tons of luggage with her on the yacht.
Something tells me that was more than clothes, but I don’t know what else that
could be. Maybe everyone’s luggage was lumped together and blamed on the queen?
I imagine size of retinue and luggage would be a boasting point among royalty
at one time.
We
are told that the duke (the queen’s husband) had to specifically request that
he not have lace on his sheets. Poor man. (Grin)
In the ward room officer’s quarters, there was
a wooden
monkey doll that wasn’t supposed to be touched, but it would be
mysteriously found in random places. (They were playing a variation of Elf on
the Shelf at least 50 years ago.)
There’s
an enormous silver salt cellar from Czar Nicolas, shaped like a frigate in full
rigged sail. I wonder where the salt is supposed to come out of? If it is the
boat deck, then that is a salt cellar like a water sprinkler. We can hope it
had more precision by coming out of the mast instead...otherwise you could
really get a-salted. (Yes, pun intended.)
We
are told that the wardroom officers took turns saying grace at meals in rhyme.
(That would make anyone nervous about praying.) Also the youngest one had to
entertain the rest with a witty speech of some sort.
I
have to wonder how they kept things from rolling around on the table in rough
seas. Maybe they scuttled for port in a high wind, though. Can’t have the royal
stomach getting seasick.
On
the wall in the state dining room there are a number of displays:
- There is a claymore sword on the wall, presumably for cutting the butter when all the silver got too dirty. (Just kidding. Actually, it was presented by the Norwegian navy and is just for show.) With all the weaponry on the walls the ship could probably have a tolerable bloodbath if some psycho went crazy.
- And they kept a whale’s rib that Prince Philip picked up on a beach.
- There’s feather money. Feather money? I didn’t know that was a thing. Some of it was given to the royal family. Tribute perhaps?
The petty
officer’s mess was described as a “notoriously friendly place.” I’m a little
dubious about that word “notorious.” It sounds like a polite way of saying
“rip-roaringly rowdy.” But it might be better than being “infamously friendly.”
(Perhaps this is the reason for the warning signal flag about being on fire
and carrying dangerous cargo.)
There’s
a picture of a waving Prince Charles and Princess Diana on the wall. It is clear they like Diana better than Charles, since it
is quite shocking how Charles’s face is halfway covered up by his waving arm.
Either that or no better photos were available. (But I doubt that.)
The
Britannia has a fudge shop on board
that sort of ambushes you from around the corner from the junior officer’s
mess. (Cool!) And free samples! Just
the sort of thing you’d expect to be on a royal yacht...
I’ve
just come across a sign on the wall that says “Condition Y” on it . It puts me in my own condition of “Why?” Is this where
they put curious seamen that are too nosy? Or is it for people in a BYU state
of mind?
In
the medical sick bay, there is a picture of “An emergency operation on the wardroom
wombat.”[DS-C11] Probably this was memorialized because it sounds
ridiculous. I notice in one of the pictures the assistant is wiping the surgeon’s
forehead as he is stressed, with eyes crossing.
The
engine room. It’s
a shiny place of chrome, copper, mirror-sheen black boilers and spotless white
paint. It looks like a big fancy coffee maker. General Scwartzkoff
reportedly called it a “museum piece” and wanted to know where the real engine
was kept. (I’m sure he was being facetious.) I see they have conveniently
labeled the engine parts so as to save staff from endless engineering
questions.
At
the sailing exhibition display, there is a quote from Princess Anne: “Sailing
on a sunny day is the nearest thing to heaven anyone will ever get on this
earth...” Au contraire, Princess; it is the temple. But you can be forgiven
for thinking that.
A
sign at the display mentions the Gulf of Corryvreckan is the world’s third
largest whirlpool. Now I’m curious about the others.
Looking
at a map of the islands of west Scotland, one is struck by the fact that the
only pretty sounding name of the bunch is Skye. But I’m sure the others are
very pretty places to make up for their names.
We
bussed home through another drizzly early evening.
As
we are preparing for the next day’s activities, which require bus fare with
exact change, we are faced with the problem of how to get change in ₤1 coins.
People don’t like to give out change here because, as one shopkeeper told me,
“We’re always struggling for ₤1 coins.” And we need exact change to ride the bus. If the
buses gave change automatically, this wouldn’t be a problem. Oh, I know where
all the ₤1
coins go; the buses have them all!
(Later: I learned the buses accept Applepay, so if I had wanted to set
that up on my phone, the change issue would never have come up.)
Saturday, July
20, 2019
It is
drizzling when we awake, and it turns to a legitimate rain by the time we are
ready to go. It is hard to tell what sort of rain-measures to take. We haven’t
been in a rainy place long enough to learn the difference just by looking as to
whether an umbrella will be sufficient, a raincoat, or whether a full-on rain
suit is called for. Plus, the intensity of the rain can change every 30 minutes
or so. So I take all the things.
I
must note that nobody minds when you put on rain pants, but stripping them off
can be awkward to do in public because you don’t want to freak people out that you’re
doing it with nothing on underneath.
Today
we are bussing to Craigmillar Castle, which is about 2 miles south of Edinburgh
city center. The castle has the dubious distinction of being a place that Mary Queen
of Scots was depressed at following the murder of her secretary by Lord Darnley
and company.
Incidentally,
I notice that every time they talk about Mary, they always append that “Queen
of Scots” at the end instead of an identifying number or calling her “Queen of
Scotland.” (Later: I found out that when loyalty was key, she would be queen
over a people, but not necessary queen over a land.)
Craigmillar
castle is a medieval ruin. But it’s nifty. (And the ticket has a bathroom code on it.
Somehow that strikes me as extra fun.) The curtain walls are really close to
the tower keep and this gives the whole thing a feeling of compactness.
 |
| Inner court. Gate to outer court is under the tree. |
The castle has three main entrances. First is the outer gate entrance which brings us into a big grassy yard. Second is the gate to the inner wall, which brings us into a smaller yard. (And there are two nice trees that have grown up just inside this door, which gives a welcome bit of greenery to what would otherwise be rather gray and forbidding.) And then there is an inner-inner door that gets you into the tower itself. This seems really small for a castle. The inner tower couldn’t be much more than 2000-3000 square feet.
This
castle also has tight spiral staircases! And it is really fun to explore; not
audio tours; just a few signs here and there. If you see a doorway, you must go
through it to what is beyond. If you see a spiral staircase, of course you must
go both up it and down it to see what can be found. 
The
doorways are also really short. Devon bonked his head about three times in
various places, poor guy.
The
castle had a drawing room, where the family would ‘withdraw’ after meals. One
of the mysteries of philology has just been revealed. And here I had thought
people pursued artistic endeavors in the drawing room.
After
more exploring, I discover that even wine cellars have arrow skits through
which to defend the lord’s liquor.
The
castle had a place where we could make our own coat of arms. I made a shield
uniting the houses of Stephens and Walker with red-orange pianos and green-blue
circuit boards rampant amongst twining streamers of colored ribbons. May these
two houses never be divided! (Insert cheers from our numerous retinue)
There
is a P-shaped depression in the landscape below the castle, which is the remains
of an ornamental pond that was built in the 1500s. I’d been speculating that it
was a ritual site frequented by druids on the full moon at which there was
dancing, revelry, and human sacrifices, but ornamental ponds are much
friendlier. (Grin)
After having seen all there is to see
at Craigmillar Castle, we head for a bus back to our next destination. At the
bus stop, I saw a familiar plant. Fancy seeing shepherd’s purse here! I picked
a sprig and ate it.
So
far today it has drizzled three times, rained twice, and been sunny twice. All
before 2pm.
While
we waited, Devon noticed a nearby barbershop sign that said it serves “GENTS,
LADIES, CHILDREN, AND AFRICANS.” I know it means they can deal with the unique
needs of the black people’s hair, and apparently not all barbers can, but…that
sign just sounds racist. (insert sound of Michaela cringing) The thing is, when
you try to think of a better way to phrase it to communicate their skills, it
is hard to think of a better alternative that would have the same brevity.
We
also saw advertisement signs for an AFC (Alberta Fried Chicken), a BFC (Best
Fried Chicken from Bangladesh), a CFC (California Fried Chicken, which is
actually Indonesian), and a GFC (global fried chicken). I have to say, I really want to see QFC and
XFC and ZFC.
Still
waiting for the bus… Whoops, I almost flagged down an ambulance. They probably
wouldn’t take my day-trip ticket anyway. (Grin)
Our
next destination was a place called “Camera Obscura.” This is a place of
optical illusions—six floors of them—and it has been a tourist destination
since the mid-1800s.
The
“Camera Obscura” for which the whole attraction is named, is a series of
mirrors on the top of the building that collect an image of Edinburgh and
project it into a sort of large steel bowl in a dark room on the 6th
floor. In the 1800s, this device was the main draw, and it let people spy on
who was walking up the street. About 20 people at a time are let into the room
to see how this works and play with the interesting effects that can be created
with it. It is possible to pretend to pick people up or splat them with a piece
of paper. They get lots of splatting.
The sixth
floor also has a number of binoculars for people to look at the surrounding
city and to continue furtively watching the crowds of people below.
I
just saw someone dressed in a full black chicken suit advertising Nanda
restaurant. A little later I saw someone dressed like Mario, the video game
character. Since the Camera Obscura building is high enough on the hill—almost
to the Edinburgh Castle itself—it commands a view of nearly everything around
it.
Other
interesting parts of the Camera Obscura attraction include:
- A mirror maze, which was fun. They have you put on gloves so that while
you are feeling your way through the maze you don’t get fingerprints everywhere
and ruin it for people who come afterward.
- A vortex tunnel. This consists of a walkway through a rolling, light-embedded tunnel. I poked my head in and right away I could see that if I went through it, I was going to get dizzy and probably throw up on someone afterward. So I refrained. (We all must know our limits, and that is one of mine.)
- A series of funhouse mirrors that visually contorted the shape of our bodies. (Hmm, kind of like the media environment around us…)
- A series of elaborate automatons that played music. For instance, three rats singing a nice round of “Three blind mice.”
- · Spying cameras. (This is my best attempt at naming this interactive exhibit.) These were video cameras that film things from a bird’s eye view, and kids can point them in every direction and zoom in to watch people outside on the street. I watched some quite blatantly looking for individuals picking their noses. I heard one kid ask, “Is this legal?” Apparently it is, when it is part of a public tourist attraction. This turns public surveillance into general entertainment. (But really, don’t we all like to watch people in public places?) When I played with them, I actually found some cute things. 1) A little kid scampering along with a college-aged male guide at the head of a tour group, asking questions and apparently being kindly answered. 2) A feeble old lady crossing the street and getting helped up the curb by two or three other people.
- Thermal camera booth. In this exhibit, an infrared camera films people in a small area and projects it on a screen in wild colors that show how much heat is being given off. Devon has a cool temperature and I am colder still. It could also be that my rain gear is holding in a lot of infrared radiation.
- An exhibit of hologram pictures. These are not your little postcard sized holograms, but large pictures, some of which can be wall-sized. Like the one of the tarantula crawling toward the viewer. (There was actually a sign warning people of that one, in case anyone was afraid of spiders.) At the end was a monster-themed series of holograms—one with a vampire awakening and attacking, one with a werewolf changing and roaring, and one of Frankenstein going so interestingly berserk.
- A colored shadowmaker. In this exhibit booth, you pose in some odd position in front of a screen, someone pushes a button, and then the screen shows your shadow frozen in that position. (This brings back fun memories of when I was young and a similar display in Rockford Illinois Discovery Center. I think we played on that Shadowmaker for a long time anytime we went there.) Devon and I tried to do a “kiss” shadow, but it merged with a previous one of me faking a strange storkish pose, so it looked like a vengeful ghost was interrupting our romantic interlude.
- Escher-style pictures that do wacky things with perspective. These are pretty classic. Water flows uphill, a river flooding a town turns into a bunch of tiles carried over people’s heads, and puffy clouds become fully-rigged ships sailing toward you. Always fun.
- Transformation camera. There was a camera connected to a software program that was supposed to take a picture of you and then show you what you’d look like as the opposite gender or old or a baby or as a chimpanzee. I tried “old” and I don’t feel like I changed much. I tried “baby,” and I looked impossibly infantile and nowhere near my old baby pictures. I also tried “male” and… ended up looking male, but there was something not quite “me” about the eyes, so I have a quarrel with the results.
-
- A kaleidoscope drawing interactive program. This would allow as many as three people at a time to create their own kaleidoscopic picture to be projected on a screen. They could subdivide the screen in halves, quarters, sixths, eights, and then all one’s squiggles and scribbles across one sub division would nicely be mirrored across the others, creating perfectly symmetrical designs. SO fun. To my artsy, creative mind, that one was particularly engrossing. I could have played with it all day, but other people needed a chance on it too.
- Aside: I notice there is a live concert by the Proclaimers going on at the amphitheater attached to the edinburgh castle right now.
- A swapping heads booth. This is a screen of slitted one-way mirrors that can make it seem like you are swapping heads with a friend. Or you can see if you can merge faces. It was very disconcerting/intriguing to suddenly see my brown eyes in Devon’s face.
- Bowl mirror display. [DS-C17] When you have a mirror concaved into a large bowl, apparently it creates some fascinating optical effects. If you reach your hand inward, a ghostly projection of your hand suddenly appears to be reaching out to meet yours. It is surprising and alarming when you first do it, but then it is incredibly fascinating.
-
- Plasma balls and plasma tubes. You put your hands on them and it looks like lightning is shooting up to zap you. It’s like you are a wizard accessing forbidden powers from the magic orb that has been lost for centuries and now you are about to change the world forever! (I have good memories playing with those at a Radio Shack store when I was a kid.)
- Oddly, there was a line of three chairs that make farting noises when you sit down on them. Devon sat down hard on one and made it toot like a horn. It scared everyone away who was standing nearby. Then others came and thought it was interesting and were trying to recreate his spectacular performance, but couldn’t do it. Their disappointment was visible.
All in all,
this is a very fun place. Totally worth it to go.
Camera Obscura
gift shop: Devon stopped me from getting some candy just because I was hungry.
Instead we headed out to find a nice Indian restaurant to try out butter
chicken.
It
turns out the concert we heard earlier was practice. When we came out of the Camera
Obscura, there was a big crowd of people filling the street before the real
concert was to begin.
On
butter chicken—Karl Baker had told me the butter chicken (Indian food) was
amazing in Scotland. I was skeptical, but in the final evaluation, I think he
was absolutely right. Hands down, it is awesome. (Devon got something
different, and we both agreed it wasn’t as good.) Butter chicken has a mild
heat of spices, and swimming down underneath is just a hint of sweetness. Sooo scrumptious. I had to make a very conscious
decision to NOT overeat.
We
got groceries for Sunday and then after we were finished and walking home, we realized
we were still short a pound coin for our bus fare to church, and since stores
don’t like to give change unless you buy something, Devon decided that I was “in
desperate need of a Crunchie candy bar” and that he would “appease my loud and
incessant demands.” He kept repeating this as we were walking back to the
grocery store, saying, “Okay, Michaela, we’ll get you your Crunchie bar. I know
how much you want one.” Let the larger
record show that I am not the sugar-fiend that he was making me out to be. ;-)
Sunday, July
21, 2019
The trip to
church went without a hitch. Yay!
The
church building has some interesting features I haven’t seen anywhere else. One
of the foyers had lots of windows like a sun room. I also noticed that one of
the classrooms had a couch in it! A big poofy leather-looking one. That is highly unusual. There’s probably
a special reason for it that we don’t know about.
(I’m
going to write on my pad of paper now, since it is less distracting to others
around me than typing on my phone.)
I
had a discussion with an older missionary sister, Sister Smith. She told me the
missionaries are having transfers, which is why there were about twelve
missionaries walking about. Also, the mission home is right next door to the
church, which makes it extra convenient.
Sister
Smith has family in Scottsdale, and she has visited a few times in
February/March, which is of course the best time. She says the number of
visitors to the Edinburgh ward is supposedly much greater next month (August)
for the Fringe festival.
During
the meeting, a new member received his confirmation, which is wonderful. His
name is Brother Richmond.
I
think this ward is very welcoming and good at meeting visitors and taking them
to their hearts. There was a lovely feeling during the confirmation and during
the sacrament.
It
is always interesting hearing speakers in different wards, so I’m going to take
notes on them.
The
first speaker was a young woman from Eastern Europe. Her accent was thick, but
you could still feel her devotion to the gospel. She talked about keeping the
commandments. I loved her quotation of D&C 88:77-78: “Teach ye
diligently and my grace shall attend you,
that you may be instructed more perfectly in
theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that
pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand.” She
also quoted D&C 11:13: “I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which
shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy.” Her
testimony was that coming to church makes her better, and this is the true
church of Christ.
The
second speaker talked about works and faith. He quoted James 2:14-17 to show
how faith doesn’t profit without works. He made an interesting point that if
you have high expectations of yourself, but can’t feel the Lord’s love, it will
drive you further from Him. He also told the story of a Catholic man who was
baptized to get married, but he coasted along doing the minimum. Then in the third
year of marriage, his wife told him she wanted a divorce unless he could step
up and really live it. He chose to step up. He read the Book of Mormon, and
started changing himself. He became more faithful and ended up serving well in
some important leadership callings.
After
this, we had a clarinet solo of the first verse of “If You Could Hie to Kolob”
with interesting variations and which transitioned into “Come, Come, Ye
Saints.” For me this song-juxtaposition expressed a sense of the grand view and
cosmology of the Plan of Salvation and our place in eternity and how it helps
us deal better with the challenges of the day-to-day.
The
third speaker began with a story of a difficult period in his life. He’d been
hit by a lorry, and he woke up in the hospital. Two priesthood brethren woke
him to give him a blessing. He’d broken his back, but he was able to move his
feet, so he was optimistic about his prospects for recovery. However, he then
had six years in court trying to get compensation from the driver who’d hit him.
It was very frustrating for him and so many nights he would go into the garage
and scream at the wall. (Which was definitely to be preferred over screaming at
people.) After the court case was over, it then took him one year to find out
from his lawyers whether he would get any money. During that frustrating time, he
wanted a roadmap of what to expect. Roadmaps are a big part of his job, since
for his work he’s a consultant who helps companies get a roadmap for change to
adjust for the future.
From
this, the third speaker asked us, “What is the roadmap for us to return to
God?” He told how both the apostle Peter and Jospeh Smith got personal time
with Christ to learn this. Peter saw Christ transfigured on the mount, and
Joseph Smith saw Christ glorified in the sacred grove. Both Peter and Joseph
Smith were told many things. They both were instructed by Elijah. They both
were given the Plan of Salvation.
Then
the third speaker focused in on 2 Peter 1:5-8, 10-11 for what Peter says about what the road map
is for us to return to God. It’s about adding these different virtues to our
lives and making our calling and election sure.
He discussed each of the virtues in 2 Peter 1:5-8 and how they help us.
We’re to add faith (trusting God), virtue (avoiding lust, staying faithful),
knowledge (know truth and act on it), temperance (no over-indulging), patience
(tolerating hard times with grace), godliness (understanding and having
reverence for God), brotherly kindness (loving people as we love ourselves),
and charity (wanting good for others, forgiving). Then D&C 4 adds humility and diligence to
that list. The blessings of this is that
at some point, Christ will visit us and tell us we are accepted, and that’s
what we work toward.
After
sacrament meeting, I tried to welcome the new member who’d been so recently
baptized and confirmed, but I accidently went for the wrong guy. He was dressed
the same, and actually looked very similar.
Interestingly enough, this other guy said he had gotten baptized earlier
in the year, so I gave him a late congratulations, and he was very gracious
about my earlier mistake. My effort to be welcoming failed, and embarrassed me
a bit, but at least I tried.
Sunday
school had a good discussion over Acts 10-15. We spent lots of time on the
story of Cornelius and the qualities that prepared him to receive revelation
and the gospel, as well as Peter’s revelation about taking the gospel to the
Gentiles. Some interesting points were brought up. 1) We need to listen for revelation
and be prepared to receive it. Sometimes we have to wait for an answer, and
looking for an answer for a long time is part of the listening process. 2) Sometimes
when we’re looking for answers, we get one and we don’t like it, and then we
want to rationalize or think we haven’t received it. 3) Sometimes the Lord asks us to do something before He gives us what we
want. The task He gives us may put us in the way to receive the answer we are
looking for. 4) Line-upon-line learning from the Lord makes difficult tasks
possible. 5) We may think we know a lot, but we still have much to learn. We’re
still children in the Lord’s eyes, so humility is important at every age.
After church I was talking to the third
speaker and he told me he’d driven a Harley on a 1000-mile road trip through 15
states in the US and had gone through Phoenix, Miami and St. Louis and Utah. Pretty
ambitious.
After
church, we went back to our rooms, changed, and went to hike Salisbury Crag.
We hope we can
get this done before the rain starts. (Weather info says rain starts at 4pm.)
Also near Salisbury Crag is Arthur’s Seat, a high hill on which Parley P Pratt
dedicated Scotland for the preaching of the gospel. But we’re not going to hike
that one.
Salisbury is locally pronounced
“salsbury.” It’s always interesting to hear local pronunciations of names. It
reminds me of Austin, Texas, where a major road named “Guadalupe” is pronounced
“Gwadaloop.”
It
is 2:44pm and the drizzling has started. It’s a bit overeager to get on with
its raining.
But as soon as
I put my rain pants on, it stopped drizzling. (I suppose if I keep my rain
pants on, the weather will remain fine out of sheer contrariness. [Later: It
did.])
This
Salisbury Crag is a very steep hill; it goes up at a sharp angle like a ramp to
the top. I think cub scouts could do it if they were determined to not
wimp-out. (I still think of hikes in terms of whether I would take cub scouts
on them.)
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| Top edge of Salisbury Crag |
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| Add caption |
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| View of Arthur's Seat from Salisbury Crag |
Once
you get to the top of this thing, you can sit on the rocky crags near the edge
cliff and contemplate the city (and the long drop without any guard rails)
before you. It’s very blowsy up here. If I had a flying squirrel suit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRqnTODwvEA]
(and knew how to use it without killing myself), this could be a fun thing.
After
having come down off Salisbury Crag a different way than we went up…
We
were walking through Holyrood Park and noticed a sign that said
which sounds surprisingly close to “innocent psychopath” (which is a
fascinating oxymoron.) What imparts innocence to a cycle path? Inquiring minds
want to know!
So, we went down the Innocent Cycle Path to see what we could see.
Beautiful trees covering the way, a quaint house down a road. Nice scenery, though not exactly innocent of human manipulation. Then we saw a sign that said
So, we went down the Innocent Cycle Path to see what we could see.
Beautiful trees covering the way, a quaint house down a road. Nice scenery, though not exactly innocent of human manipulation. Then we saw a sign that said
Innocent of what? (More curiosity!) We must press on and see if we can find more
innocence! (Ah, if only the world
could be as easily innocent as applying a label is.)
Saw raspberries along the path, which is fun. Also thorny. (And not innocent at all. They are decidedly cynical and world-worn raspberry bushes.)
Saw raspberries along the path, which is fun. Also thorny. (And not innocent at all. They are decidedly cynical and world-worn raspberry bushes.)
We
finally discovered that the Innocent Railway was so called because it was the
first instance of railroad in Scotland, and it was drawn by horse, thus making
it “innocent” of steam engines because the people who put it in thought the
public would think use of steam engines was evil. (This is a case of using
marketing to pre-empt prejudice.) And I
suppose that since the railbed was turned into a bike path, the “Innocent” name
stuck.
After
this, we decided to take a bus to the Meadows Park, since it was near our
Airbnb and it is a nice nature place to walk before the zero hour we want to be
back to our Airbnb by. Most of the Meadows consists of large open grassy area
that has been subdivided by lines of trees. These seems different than many US
parks that don’t subdivide their grassy areas at all.
The
park has some interesting playground equipment that I’ve never seen before.
Must inspect! (I am a connoisseur of playground equipment.)
We
were trying to figure out the fastest way through the fence into the playground
and there was a wide metal tube that led horizontally through the fence. This
looked crawl-able, so I crawled accordingly. But I had a bit of a problem
getting out and back on my feet. I think I ended up rolling on my back and
hanging off the top while extracting one leg at a time. Meanwhile, Devon
discovered a spring-loaded gate and nonchalantly met me on the other side.
Smart man.
So
what playground equipment do we have here…?
They
have a zip line! Holy cow! That’s something I bet the US city lawyers would
shiver at including in American parks. But so fun!!!
There’s
a piece of steel
equipment that uses an Archimedes screw to raise up water (or sand) and then sends it through
some channels and down a waterwheel.
There are various teeter-totter bouncy apparatuses and various jungle-gym-monkey-bars-slide combinations with rope webs, climbing walls, and such.
There are various teeter-totter bouncy apparatuses and various jungle-gym-monkey-bars-slide combinations with rope webs, climbing walls, and such.
The
Meadows also has some public fitness equipment. Devon has to try it. There’s
pull-up bars with an assist side and a do-the-real-thing-without-mechanical-assist
side. And there is a recumbent stationary bike.
We approve this stuff and think it should be imported into the US.
We approve this stuff and think it should be imported into the US.
Monday, July
22, 2019.
Today was our
bus tour to Inverness and Loch Ness up north. The tour bus is leaving from a
location near the castle, so we had to hie ourselves up there before 8am.
Devon
and I couldn’t get seats together on the bus. This was not ideal, but we endured
it. I ended up next to a girl who was a transplant from India, who lived in
London and was vacationing with her cousins in Edinburgh. Devon ended up next
to a lady named Venus who was visiting from the Netherlands or Belgium.
As
we are riding toward the city outskirts, the tour guide/driver assures us that
if we are a bit shy, we can just tell people we went on a tour and everyone
will think we’re a wonderful person. Ha. I see, we have a humorist. I should
mention he is kilted out, including sporran, be-ribboned socks, shiny black
shoes, and a vest that is more “medieval courtier.”
We
are informed that Edinburgh was called “Auld Reekie” because it stank because
there was no indoor plumbing and people threw their refuse out the window,
yelling “Gardez loo” which is roughly, “Look out below!”
As
the bus is driving out of the city center I realize two things that make
Scottish houses different from American houses. 1) they have no roof overhang
and 2) they hardly ever have a porch overhang. In a place so rainy, that’s
rather surprising. You’d think they’d want the guests waiting on their
doorsteps to have some cover from the rain.
On
this trip, we will have 30 minutes in one town, one hour in another town for
lunch, and time in Inverness for boat and castle, or just castle. But we have
to decide which before we get there. (No impulsiveness for us on this
particular journey.) I’m letting Devon decide, since this jaunt was at his
request.
One
thing about this tour bus that is really nice is that midway up the aisle it
has another stairway that leads down and out that can allow the back half of
the bus get out as fast as the front half. It’s brilliant. I think airlines
should adopt the same sort of feature. They could plane and deplane people
twice as fast.
We
have been informed that there are 102 distilleries in Scotland. And apparently
whiskey sales are through the roof, particularly to America. For some reason, throughout the journey
the driver kept coming back to the topic of whiskey in his lecture of all
things Scotland. Both Devon and I wondered why, but eventually it came out that
he had worked for a whiskey distillery at one point in his working life. That
explains everything.
There
was shale oil mining here in the 1800s. That’s back in vogue in America, but
not in Scotland.
On
the hills there are a bunch of nets set up to a height of about 12 feet around
the field margins. Not sure what they are for. Catching birds? Keeping bees in?
The
driver is playing the introduction to Braveheart
movie music. He says he’s taking us on a time machine to explain the story of
William Wallace. [Insert long stories here]
We
just passed two very
large sculptures of horse heads.
They are water kelpies, but also to remember the Clydesdale horse, which was much used in these parts. The story of the mythical water kelpies is that they come to the surface as a horse and get someone to ride its back. The person gets stuck, can’t get off, and then the kelpie drags its unfortunate rider down into the water with him to drown them. (Sounds like a great metaphor for addiction to me).
They are water kelpies, but also to remember the Clydesdale horse, which was much used in these parts. The story of the mythical water kelpies is that they come to the surface as a horse and get someone to ride its back. The person gets stuck, can’t get off, and then the kelpie drags its unfortunate rider down into the water with him to drown them. (Sounds like a great metaphor for addiction to me).
We’re
told more about William Wallace.
Our
bus driver just showed us where Monty Python filmed a movie. The driver got
hired as an extra for a week and charged down a hill and fell, along with
others, but that scene he was in never made it into the movie.
Origin
of the expression “armed to the teeth”-- people had to leave their weapons at
the river Teith so that they wouldn’t get in fights or get hurt on a Saturday
at the market. Interesting. I never knew
that expression had a Scottish beginning. (Later: The internet disagrees with
this story, but eh… whatever. [shrug])
Origin
of the word “earmarked” — It was the practice to punish those who had cheated
at market by nailing their ear to a board fixed to the ground. They were then
left there, and they would have get themselves loose themselves, which meant
they had to walk off the nail and mangle their ear. (Yuck. Pretty barbaric, if
you ask me.)
We
stopped in some village for a 30 minute break, and it probably would have been
more satisfactory if there hadn’t been six other large tour buses already
there. In these kinds of cases, the best one can do is go to the toilet and
wander a bit. Lesson: Anyone who goes on
a bus tour would be wise to pack meals for the whole trip so that they aren’t
at the mercy of lines, high prices, or lack of time at whatever location the
bus stops for lunch.
I
must note here that at many of the tourist traps we’d poked our noses into at
Edinburgh there were goods for sale with the image of a particularly kind of
hairy cow on them. It seemed like an odd thing to sell to people. I didn’t
understand the significance of the cow.
But here I learn what it is.
It is a specimen of highland cattle, endemic to Scotland. (I shouldn’t say ‘endemic’ because those cattle are not a disease, but that’s the best word I can come up with right now.) Anyway, we got to see the hairy highland cattle, penned up near the stopping point. Those cows are probably stuffed from being fed countless times by countless children.
It is a specimen of highland cattle, endemic to Scotland. (I shouldn’t say ‘endemic’ because those cattle are not a disease, but that’s the best word I can come up with right now.) Anyway, we got to see the hairy highland cattle, penned up near the stopping point. Those cows are probably stuffed from being fed countless times by countless children.
Back
on the bus. Several vents on the bus are
leaking water on some people. It just drops down from the crack between the
ceiling and the window. The driver’s solution is to give big black plastic bags
to people to cover their clothes. One lady behind me got irate at the driver
for this difficulty, but there wasn’t much he could do. I offered to change
places with her, but she didn’t want to do that.
We
drive down a winding road in the rain, next to a misty lake, through “McGregor clan
country” whatever that means. I have no idea what reputation the McGregor clan
had. Should I be impressed? Relieved? Cautious?
Uh-oh.
Someone forgot their purse at the previous stop.
Our
driver likes to start lots of stories and then pause in the middle and start a
new story, leaving us hanging. I’m still waiting to find out what England’s
response was to William Wallace becoming Guardian of Scotland.
Now
we’re hearing about Rob Roy, who only stole cattle from the lairds who could
afford it. (So charitable of him. [snide face]) But it’ll get him in the end,
it will. Oh, and he ran a protection
racket too. (“Give me money, and your cattle will be alright.”) He’s a regular
gangster, he is. His compadre McDonald went off with a Ł1000 payment and never
was seen again. No honor among thieves, y’see.
We
are winding through the highlands now and…….I just saw someone had a helicopter
in their backyard. (No doubt it is the Traditional Helicopter of the Highlands,
of which the bards and poets write and sing with such nostalgic enthusiasm. I
wonder if the tourist traps sell any in plaid... Devon has been begging me for a helicopter
for years.)
“So,
what are the highlands?” I hear you asking. They are high green hills with
black lochs (lakes) at the base. The scenery calls up words like “grand” and
“sweeping” and “dramatic” and “ever-changing “ and “emerald” and “wild” and
“untamed” and suchlike.
Just
now we’re driving by some conifer tree farm. Part was harvested and part of it is
growing little trees. The harvested land just looks devastated. Stumps and
branches strewn everywhere in the saddest way.
Coming
to the highland Faultline, whatever that is.
Discussion
of Munro-baggers (people who try to climb as many Munro-sizes mountains [over
3,000 ft] as possible). They have Munro-bagging clubs. One is called “The Ultimate
Challenge.” They keep track of people climbing and rescue them if they aren’t
heard of for a day. That sounds smart.
Discussion
of Glencoe massacre. Jacobites didn’t like the ascension of King William to
England’s throne, so there were a number of uprisings. Here’s where Bonnie
Prince Charlie comes out of the woodwork.
Story
about someone running out of gas while boating on a loch and pouring whiskey
into their tank to start it back up, which gets them back to land again. (If
you ask me, that’s what whiskey should
be used for—engine fuel.)
There
are high green hills that have little streams running down them in near
straight lines. No meandering; they go from the top to the bottom quite
directly.
The
driver likes to play music from time to time to punctuate his commentary or
history lecture. So far we’ve heard a Beatles song when we went through a town
they performed at, he played the Monty Python Flying Circus theme when telling about
their movie. He played a folk tune that mocked General Cook’s defeat at some
battle. General Cook “lead his troops across the border” but who supposedly only
led from behind. And then when the defeat of the Scottish forces came up, we
heard little to nothing about that. (It must hurt to talk about.) 1746 was
Glencoe and they are still mourning that defeat. Now the driver is playing more
Braveheart music. (I only know that’s what it is from hearing it on Pandora.) Oh,
he’s playing it because we’re driving through some especially tall and dramatic
hills. If it wasn’t so rainy and misty we might could see them better...
The
driver just played “Skyfall” while we drive over the Skyfall bridge.
It sounds very James Bond-ish. (Later I find out that it was indeed a song for
a James Bond movie.)
It
has been my practice to say “Scenery check!” any time fabulous scenery can be
seen. In this area, I’d be saying it around every corner, and likely disturb my
fellow tourists.
We
are now in “McDonald territory.” Many hamburger restaurants here. No, just
kidding. Actually, I mean it’s the
McDonald clan territory. Now we get the
story of how the McDonald clan gave the Campbell clan hospitality for a week
and then the Campbells slaughtered the McDonalds, on order of the government. Such
blatant infractions on the rules of hospitality are serious matters. As they
should be. And to this day some stores have signs saying, “No Campbells welcome
here.” Cease yeer bludthirrrrsty ways, ye
murtherers!
Another
rendition of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”
(slight naughty language warning), which has some nihilistic comforting
statements at the end, like, “You’ve come from nothing and you go back to
nothing! What have you go to lose! Nothing!”
(The Plan of Salvation has a lot more to offer. Eternal life sounds a
lot better than “nothing.”)
We
stopped in a town for lunch and had fish and chips and cheesy chips. I was a
little concerned about the girl who forgot her purse and gave her my fig bars
for a bit of food to make sure she didn’t go completely hungry.
It
is now raining inside the bus in other places too. And the grid over the aisle
is starting to drip too. Annnnnd, another person has just gotten irate with the
driver over the leaks. But really, what can he do that won’t disrupt the trip
that we’ve all paid for?
On
the road again. The windshield wipers are whacking the side and the boy across
the aisle from me asks his dad, “Why are the windshield wipers being so
aggressive?” This makes me giggle silently.
The
lady behind me (the one who previously got irate) asked me where I was from,
and I told her the US. She told me where she was from, buses have two drivers,
especially for long trips like this. She felt it was unsafe for one driver to
go twelve hours at a stretch. I agreed, but there wasn’t much we could do. I
told her we could pray for the driver (which I did).
We’re
going through a thick forest on a winding road. It is raining a bit, but not
very hard. Still hard to see through the mist though. I think I would enjoy
this even more if I were the one driving. Still, the scenery is nice, what we
can see of it.
According
to the driver, Scotland’s forests were depleted down to 10% after the war, so
they started the forestry program to plant more. They are also concerned about
tree diseases. (I can see this concern, considering that back on the day when
we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, their entrance had a squishy soap mat
everyone had to step on to wash of the bottoms of our shoes so that we didn’t
bring plant diseases in with us.)
And
now we’re listening to Scottish folk-rock with lots of bagpipes. It feels like
there should be a dance party in the aisles while we drive, but that would be
against the seatbelt laws.
We
just went by some locks that were built in the 1700s to create canals by which
to move sheep from one side of the country to the other. They are rather
impressive looking.
Continuing
the saga of William Wallace invading England. Long story made short, he didn’t
succeed; he was captured, and executed. (And there was much mourning throughout
Scotland.)
And
now on to Robert the Bruce. He wanted freedom, his buddy didn’t and was going
to tattle on him, so he killed the guy. (Yeah, that’ll make you an outlaw
pretty quick. So why not fight for Scottish independence while you’re at
it?) R-the-B got forgiveness from the
church for it, and got himself crowned King of Scotland, albeit in exile. On
his deathbed he told a friend he had always wanted to go on a Crusade, but
never got to, so after his death, his heart was taken out of his heart and
taken on a Crusade in a metal casket. And in some battle, his friend urged
people forward by waving said casket and shouting, “Forward, Braveheart!” Or so
says our bus driver. And so, according to him, it is not William Wallace who is
Braveheart, but Robert the Bruce. (Later: It’s so fun to read what Wikipedia
says about Robert the Bruce versus the bus driver….)
The
weather has cleared up a bit.
We
have arrived at Urquhart
Castle (pronounced "Urk-hart") , on the banks of Loch Ness, and we are watching a movie
about the castle. After an adventurous story of how the castle switched hands
from clan to clan, we saw how it was destroyed, the screen went up, and then
the curtains in back opened to reveal the castle ruins. It was quite dramatic.
The whole audience said, “OooOOOooohhh,” in the most impressed way. It was kind
of gratifying, even as I was saying “OooOOOooh” along with them.
On
the castle grounds there is an old trebuchet sitting by, but the signs say
there is no record of trebuchets being used against that castle. (Then why is
it here?!)
My
impression is that Urquhart wasn’t a very secure castle, built in the low land
like it is. The fact that it changed hands a lot is another indication of this
fact. Now, it they’d built up the hill, it might have defied its besiegers more.
After
a short run over the castle, we lined up with about 4 or 5 other buses worth of
people to go on a boat on Loch Ness. There are comfortable seating accommodations
inside, which is nice, considering the weather is still grey and drizzly.
I noticed the lady next to me having troubles with her broken nail. Broken nails are obnoxious on long tours; they catch on everything. I offered her the use of my nail clippers.
Loch
Ness is a very long lake and very deep. On one bank are lower hills and on the
other side is are steeper cliffs with pine trees on them. We churn through the
water, our spray thrown up into the air. People drift in and out of the cabin,
sometimes going up top.
We
disembarked at the hotel at which we are to meet to get back on the bus. Oh, look,
There’s a skull of Nessy in the lobby ! Must take picture.
 |
| When you live around Loch Ness and have a few extra nuts and bolts laying around and some extra time, this is what results. |
Devon
bought a post card of Bonnie Prince Charlie for Andrew (his coworker) who
wanted some sort of “Free Scotland!” souvenir.
The
bus driver has popped open the hatch that is almost over my head, presumably
for extra air. If we get much rain through it, I may end up wearing my rain
suit inside the bus. We’ll see.
Our
bus driver just said, “If you’re not here, put your hand up.” I and one other
equal cheeky person raised our hands.
I
saw one passenger deal with the leaky windows by rigging the bus curtains into
a sort of funnel away from their seat. Another person has just tied their
curtains in a knot.
There
was someone that the bus driver was supposed to let off at Inverness, but when
we got there, she was nowhere to be found. Very strange. The driver speculated
the Loch Ness monster got her.
Weather
has turned sunny on the way back. Maybe we’ll get a wee bit more scenery.
In
the music playing right now, the singers are singing, “What is right and what
is wrong; I don’t know, I don’t know.” Surely they do know; they’ve just
forgotten. Or maybe they wrote that song while in a moral dilemma. Good thing the song “Amazing Grace” follows.
That’s a good antidote. Something in the air just seems to sing along with it.
Our
bus driver has changed to playing bagpipe music.
We
just drove by a place that had buildings that were burned down by the Jacobites.
It sounds like there was essentially civil war for a time. We are informed that the Scottish periodically hold re-enactments of Jacobite battles, much like Americans have re-enactments of Civil War and Revolutionary War battles. I wonder what battles other countries re-enact?
It sounds like there was essentially civil war for a time. We are informed that the Scottish periodically hold re-enactments of Jacobite battles, much like Americans have re-enactments of Civil War and Revolutionary War battles. I wonder what battles other countries re-enact?
We’re
going through some country with heather on the hills. The heather patches are
gray right now, but the driver tells us in August it turns purple. A bit further
on, I see some purple heather and it’s gorgeous. And that is why people have named their daughters “Heather.” Driving
through these hills you really get a sense of why they are so beloved and why
people love to hike around. Just looking at them, I get the urge to climb them
too.
The
tricky thing about taking pictures in a bus is that the scenery passes so fast
that the view gets covered by trees right about when I get my phone ready to
take a picture. If we were on a little day trip, I’d probably want to stop here
and there and take some time with my framing, but it’s not possible on a bus.
We
stopped in Pitlochrey for food. We spent too much time for something good and
had to stop at a chippy shop before all the time ran away from us. We got a
haggis and chips and Devon’s seatmate generously shared her fish and chips with
us while our food cooked, and we shared our haggis with her, so she could see
how it tasted. This particular haggis tastes different. It wasn’t as creamy or
spicy, but it did have different textures of meat in it. I still like it. (I
also think I burned my tongue on it.)
The
driver told a story about working for the whiskey industry and they had a drive
to bring in boys off the street, promise them tea, and give them whiskey
instead. I think I am rather shocked by that. That is blatantly trying to get
children to develop a taste for alcohol.
We’ve
been listening to this Scottish music for some time, and suddenly the driver
plays the theme from The Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly, which is just plain funny, first, because it has musically
transported us out of Scotland into the American west, and second, because
Devon and I have running jokes about this song, revolving around his unique way
of singing it. [Devon turns around in his chair at the front of the bus, and he
sees me laughing.]
Okay,
now I’ve head everything. I’ve just heard the song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”
rendered by bagpipes.
The
next song is just as peculiar—it is someone singing about their “Pretty Fraulein,”
but it is in the style of a walking country-style ballad, with a slight music
hall flavor. I’m scratching my head over who this song is meant to appeal to.
Said Fraulein isn’t going to feel flattered unless she can speak English, but
then why call her a “Fraulein” and not “German Girl”? Or why call her
“Fraulein” and then sing the rest of it in English? It doesn’t go far enough in
reaching out to her language and culture. And fellow English-speakers will
wonder why the singer is telling them he had to go out of the country to find
love.
Oh,
heck, I’m clearly overthinking it.
The
Queen’s Ferry Crossing bridge is really big and amazing. But we’re not going
over it. We’re going over the one that is next to it. Why, I don’t know.
There
are actually three bridges here, going
over the Forth (river). When they go forth to build a fourth bridge over the river
Forth, there will be much confusion. (“I’m taking the Forth Bridge.” “Which
one?” “The fourth!” “I know that’s the
river; which bridge?” “The fourth!
Not the third; the fourth!” “Oh.”)
And,
we’re back at the Airbnb.
We
just had an amiable ecological and political discussion with our host. He is
studying ecology in hopes of helping improve Scotland’s degraded environment,
especially its forests. Then we discussed our respective country’s heads of state
and the polarization of the media.
Tuesday, July
23, 2019.
Today we first
packed up, in preparation for leaving for our 7pm flight.
The
weather is actually sunny and warm today after a whole week of drizzle and rain
and wind. But if it changes in 10 minutes, I still have my rain jacket and rain
pants umbrella, ‘cause I am PREPARED.
Today
was the day we fit in some of the activities that were pushed out of the
schedule by a full day at Edinburgh castle.
First
we went to the
Scott Monument. This is a very gothic-looking structure built to honor Sir
Walter Scott. It has 200 steps to climb to the top of four levels, but visitors
now only get to go to the third level.
As
we wait for our turn there, we are sitting on a park bench next to other people
sitting on benches. Devon says the nice thing about all the people sitting on
the benches is that all the bird poop will be worn away by the time we sit on
them. This is different from Arizona, where all the birds poo on the benches
and then you don’t want to sit on them.
It’s
about 90 steps up the first level of the monument. It reminded me a lot of
climbing the carillon steps at BYU.
All the tour buses crawling around look like caterpillars, with their side mirrors hanging off the side like eyes on stalks.
All the tour buses crawling around look like caterpillars, with their side mirrors hanging off the side like eyes on stalks.
We
found out that the guy who designed the monument submitted a prior design for
it, but it wasn’t accepted because he was merely a self-taught architect. So he
submitted his second design under a false name, and that was accepted. I
actually think it is good the first wasn’t accepted because that design didn’t
have nearly as harmonious proportions as the second one.
The
Scott Monument is colored black from all the soot that was in the air in the
1800s. They tried to clean the black off in the last decade or so, and found
that made the stone more susceptible to erosion, so they stopped.
The
spiral stair narrows the higher you go. It’s a beautiful view, looking down and
around. We can hear bagpipes playing the folk song we’d recognize as “If You Could
Hie to Kolob.” Devon and I look at each other and grin.
After coming down out of the Scott Monument, we wander some.
We happened to walk past the Writer's Museum and there were these interesting quotes in the sidewalk for quite a ways around it. I took pictures of my favorites.
After coming down out of the Scott Monument, we wander some.
We happened to walk past the Writer's Museum and there were these interesting quotes in the sidewalk for quite a ways around it. I took pictures of my favorites.
Next, we went to the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery.
I declare the exterior doors to the
National Portrait Gallery a “usability fail.” It had handles on the outside,
but you are not meant to pull them; you must push them to get in. But handles
make you think you should pull them.
What they need instead is some push-plates.
I wasn’t too crazy about many of the
contemporary portraits; so many of them looked cartoony or like the work of a
failed art student. However, there were a few that were
very striking. One was the portrait of three oncologists (doctors curing
cancer). They were portrayed as ghostly white figures on a black background.
The portrait explanation said the artist intended to show them as “guardian
angels of the cell."
Another striking portrait was of Adam
Thompson, who started Caledonian airways. He was shown in the foreground with this
massive factory airport hanger in the background , swarming with active workers building pieces of aircraft.
I
liked the explanatory plaque for Sir James Hope Grant’s portrait. It said his personal
maxim was “Act according to your conscience and defy the consequences.” It sounds like a restatement of some of the
lyrics of our beloved hymn “Do What Is Right,” which say, “Do what is right;
let the consequence follow.”
Mary
Somerville studied math when it was thought inappropriate and dangerous for
women. But early widowhood gave her the independence to pursue her studies and
a second marriage gave her support.
Margaret
Oliphant wrote a bunch of novels. (Must try to find)
Elizabeth
Hamilton wrote the novel “Letters of a Hindi Rajah,” which sounds interesting.
It
is fascinating that the few women who were “beauties” looked oddly plain. Maybe
they were expected to be beautiful without cosmetic help.
Okay, we’re thoroughly done with the
portrait gallery. Heading back to our rooms. Sort of.
Oh!
We found a cheese shop! They were willing to shave a few slices for us to try.
We bought some smoked cheese. That tastes pretty good.
I
didn’t get a kilt while we were here, but I’m okay with that. Maybe some other
time. Also, couldn’t find my clan tartan anywhere.
I
tried to find a kebab restaurant for Devon, but it was closed. I should have
checked the opening time before I led us this distance. So we got a big crepe
from a French food truck to share instead. It had cheese and ham. It was like a
quesadilla, but softer.
Back
at the Airbnb place. We got all packed up, dropped off our keys, and caught a
bus to the airport that didn’t require us to trek thither and yon and finish
ripping wheels off our suitcases.
Outside
the city center, the buildings are less crunched together. I know there are
people who love a compact neighborhood with high density housing, but I think
people all want a bit of space for themselves if they can get it. Plus, it is
easier to reconfigure and remodel in lower density areas without tripping over
somebody else’s toes.
At
the airport. We couldn’t do an automated check-in for Scandinavian air, but we
were told to go to Desk 19. Devon decided to verify the desk, and it turned out
to be Desk 16. We’re glad we checked; we would have been waiting and clueless
otherwise. What does this teach? Trust, but verify.
As
we go through the concourse of stores on the way to the gate we notice a store
here called “Superdrug.” I don’t know what to think about that name. Sounds
dangerous. Is it approved for release? ;-)
We
found a nice quiet place next to the “Disruption Desk.” There are no
disruptions right now, but if sudden violence breaks out, we will have a front
row seat for the airport’s response. Or maybe it handles disrupted flights.
Airport
security measures in Edinburgh’s airport are much easier to go through than in
America. 1) My back pocket sparkles did not set off the scanner. 2) I didn’t
have to take off my shoes. 3) A single security bin could hold all my
stuff. I noticed they pull out families
with small children separate from the main line to scan them. (This is
brilliantly accommodating and should be a relief to local families. It should
be adopted everywhere.)
A
flight has just been delayed for “an awful medical reason on board the
aircraft.” That sounds pretty intense. Someone must have had a heart attack or
something.
The
benches at our gate look like they were made at IKEA. They are made of many
wooden planks nailed to steel frames.
If
I were to make assessments of Swedish people based on what I’ve seen them do at
the airport before flying home, I’d have to say they like to pass the time by playing
cards and knitting. (Of course, this is
a blatant generalization, considering I’ve only seen two separate parties knitting
and two separate parties playing cards.)
The
trip to Stockholm went well. We have another twelve-hour layover in Stockholm,
and this time it is overnight from 10pm to 10am. We discovered a place called
Rest and Fly attached to the airport that lets you rent ten-hour stretches in a small room with beds or
rent by the hour. They require you to make and unmake your bed. I suppose that
means they only have to worry about doing laundry, sorting it, folding it, and
distributing it to the rooms. The furniture is also very IKEA.
Bathrooms are
communal-but-separated men’s and women’s, and thankfully Devon discovered where
there are private shower stalls.
Both
Devon and I went to sleep with bagpipes music going through our heads.
Wednesday,
July 24, 2019.
Best showers
ever! It always feels like a roll of the dice using a strange shower, but this
place doesn’t mess around. They thought of everything. The shower head puts out
a huge amount of lovely, warm water so you can get wet quickly and rinse soap
off quickly, and the lovely heat raises your core temperature quickly so you
don’t feel reluctant to get out. And then even though there is no separate
shower pan from the dressing area, they provide a squeegee to move the water
toward the drain so you don’t have water to dodge while putting clothes on.
There’s
a shop in the Stockholm airport that has reindeer hides for sale. I looked at
them, and Devon said I’d probably have a hard time getting them through
customs. He may be right, but we hardly have anything to declare anyway. It’s
about time we made some trouble. (Okay, maybe not.)
We
hear a horrible grinding noise at another gate, and Devon leans over to me and
says, “I didn’t know they had a dentist office in here.” Haaa. (It was just
some workmen.)
At
the end of the flight to O’Hare, I can tell some of my seat mates are
impatient. They are using the cup holders as fidget-spinners.
It
took about 26 minutes to get through customs and immigration at O’Hare. First
there was the snakey line to delay us so that we wouldn’t get to our luggage before
it came out of the plane. That line was long, but it moved fast. Then there was
the line to declare any customs stuff and have it printed on a slip with our
picture. Then there was the line to the customs officer who was to look at our
printed form. Then there was the line to the immigration officer to look at our
passports and stamp them. It kind of felt like a lot, but because the lines
moved fast, it wasn’t too tiresome.
And
then our flight from O’Hare to Phoenix got delayed 1.5 hours. (Patiencccccce…)
On
the flight to Phoenix I sat next to a girl who loves to draw anime and who is
working on making an anime comic book. It was fun to watch her draw so expertly
on her ipad.
Annnnd,
we’re home. Brother and Sister Farr gave us a ride home in the nicest way. It’s
sooooo nice to be back in our comfortable beds again!
If you’ve
gotten this far through the vacation log, congratulations!
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