How on earth do I summarize 3 days of Scottish bliss? Jet lag? Blisters? Haggis? Eating a picnic while watching the sun dance over a daffodil-strewn medieval city to the accompaniment of bagpipes? Yes, this is Edinburgh 🙂
Well, in case you’re wondering, I’m still alive, and more than that–I’m in SCOTLAND! Alba go bragh! (‘Scotland forever’, in the native Gaelic). After flying for something like 12 hours, with 2 time changes and no sleep, we flew over a snow-covered vista into Edinburgh. The actual city doesn’t have snow on it because it’s right on the sea, but it’s been rather chilly. I’m currently wearing almost all my remaining clothes, after a failed attempt to dry my laundry in the hotel bathroom last night. Amazing how a pajama top can convert into church clothes with a little fairy dust 🙂
Speaking of church, happy Easter, everyone! My roommate Alyssa and I, along with 2 other friends, went to the service at St. Giles Cathedral, which has been standing since who-knows-when; probably the 1500s O,O There were dead knights and lairds buried along the sides of the vaulted nave, and the soaring song of the choir blended with the light from the stained-glass Robert Burns window 🙂 SO beautiful!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Thursday we arrived and hit the ground walking, so as not to fall asleep instantly. Friday morning we had a guided tour of Edinburgh with a guide named Morag (“princess” in Scots) that took us through 2 awesome cemeteries, secret stairways, up the Royal Mile, and finally to Edinburgh Castle at the top of the hill. A few of us had lunch in Deacon Brodie’s Cafe, the man who was the inspiration for Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, including cream of carrot soup…Later in the afternoon was one of the highlights of the trip so far for me; a hike up the mini-mountain Arthur’s Seat. It was a tramp across the moors, culminating in a view of a ruined tower overlooking a lake of swans 🙂
Saturday we had more of a ‘local’ tour, with one of Dr. Reinsma’s former students. We traipsed around Grassmarket and up the farmer’s market on the far side of the castle. (Castle! I get to be around one!) Alyssa and I tried wild boar burgers with HP (Houses of Parliament ;P) sauce, which is a bit like barbecue sauce. We’re learning all kinds of new words: ‘litter bins’ are garbage cans’, pants are ‘trousers’, and elevator is ‘lift’. Fancy that! My Scottish accent is also improving: I’m learning it’s a blend of elongating the vowels and rolling the r’s 🙂 We blitzed around the National Museum of Scotland, the Museum of Childhood, and then took an underground tour of Old Edinburgh…very far underground 🙂 Visited the Elephant House cafe, where J.K. Rowling supposedly wrote many of her Harry Potter books. I also discovered that the endless miles of walking had rubbed the skin off the backs of my heels…so we voted to do a little less walking today.
Today we went to that glorious church service in the cathedral, and then climbed the 237 steps to the top of the Sir Walter Scott Memorial, with a breathtaking 360-degree view of the city (and claustrophic staircases filled with multilingual tourists 🙂 We then ventured into a Sainsbury’s Grocery and bought Lockerbie cheese, bread, plums, and a Mars Bar, and enjoyed the idyllic scene described in the first paragraph 🙂
Ah! I am running out of internet time. Suffice to say that the pictures are of our hike to Arthur’s Seat, wild boar burgers, and my writing adventure in the Elephant House 🙂 Everything literary in me is going crazy with excitement 🙂 I love Scotland! God bless!
Adventures Abroad 
Leave a Reply