#6 - The second part of my latest vacation - Scotland

Busker on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh

As much as I love London, I also wanted my most recent vacation to include a new area to discover as well.  Edinburgh seemed like a perfect addition since it was easy to reach by train and a city with an easily walkable center.  I stayed right on the Royal Mile - the main street in Old Town - so the places I wanted to go were only a short walk.

I very much enjoyed Scotland and hope to go back again.  I spent a fair amount of time wandering about and just enjoying the sites and atmosphere.  Though the main tourist season is during August, there were still street performers out and most attractions had not yet switched to their winter hours.

Steampunk display in a shop window off the Royal Mile

One of my evenings was dedicated to taking a ghost walking tour ... this was interesting.  We went into the vaults below South Bridge and walked about by candlelight as the guide described some of the hauntings reported in each room.  More eerie to me than the ghost stories was thinking of the people who actually LIVED in those spaces two hundred years ago.  I'm not claustrophobic, but the idea of spending most of my day in such a tiny space with no natural light or ventilation or plumbing (aside from the chamberpot in the corner) sounds hellish!  There were several stops above ground as well, and the group ended in the Canongate Kirkyard ... i.e. one of the city's old cemeteries.  Spotting some of the famous graves was interesting - particularly those that had protection of one sort or another against grave robbers.  This was also the location where the guide told us the most gruesome tale of the evening - that of the son of the Earl of Drumlanrig who roasted and ate a kitchen boy.  Ironically, the time in the kirkyard was the only time it really rained during my trips - perhaps the spirits were trying to tell us something?

Lang Stairs - the original way to enter Edinburgh Castle

 One of the places that I truly took my time exploring was Edinburgh Castle.  I was a bit surprised that there were so many people visiting this attraction right away in the morning since it was the off season ... perhaps because every guidebook and website that I saw said to go early in the day to avoid the crowds ... though the number of people seemed to taper off after the 1 pm firing of the gun.

Stained glass in St. Margaret's Chapel

I did get the audio tour which helped me keep the buildings straight as I was making my way through.  I found some of the oldest parts of the castle to be the most charming.  St. Margaret's Chapel is the oldest building still standing (though the stained glass is a more recent addition) and though it looked fairly bleak from the exterior, the inside was quite charming with the small alter area and stained glass brightening the benches where the royal family would have contemplated or listened to the service.   It was also interesting that the origin of some of the names around the castle have been lost ... Foog's Gate for instance.

View out of one of Edinburgh Castle's gun holes

Certainly you have to admire the tenacity of the Scots for building on top of an ancient volcano.  The views from the walls are incredible; invaders would have certainly been spotted early.  Also, the stonework of the castle built directly onto the rock outcroppings must have been quite a task.  Of course, being on top of a large, stony hill means that the winds are a bit brisk when walking about the castle.  The day was not particularly poor weather-wise, but I certainly could imagine (and feel pity for) the poor guards who had to be out in snow or driving rains when on duty.

View down from the walls of Edinburgh Castle

Foog's Gate - you can see how the castle is built directly on the volcanic rock

 The day that I visited Edinburgh Castle there were World War I reenactors on the scene as part of the 100 year anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.  They were doing different things throughout the day, so I made my way back several times to see the initial recruitment as well as a basic drill and the piper play.  You could also see what a basic soldier kit looked like and hear an explanation of how each piece was used.

Visions of WWI

Another favorite area of the castle was the Great Hall with its display of arms and armor.  You can barely see in the photo below as it is blocked by the lights, but to the right and above the fireplace on the far wall is a barred window where the king could peek out at his courtiers to see who was attending (and perhaps chatting/plotting with each other) before he entered the hall.

Arms display in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle

I could just imagine courtiers plotting in this little window seat in the Great Hall

The dog cemetery at Edinburgh Castle

Aside from Edinburgh Castle (and museums which I will discuss in a forthcoming post), my Scottish trip included a day tour that gave me a taste of the Scottish countryside and the highlands.  I used the tour company Heart of Scotland with their "wee red bus" and had a great experience.  The day included a visit to Stirling Castle, driving through the Trossachs region, Loch Lomond, lunch in the village of Aberfoyle, and a visit to a distillery (which will also get its own post).  Our group also got a special surprise in the form of a brief stop at Castle Doune - which you may recognize as Winterfell in Game of Thrones OR Castle Leoch in Outlander OR all of the castles in Monty Python and the Holy Grail!  I also feel like I have a better grasp of the timeline of events in Scottish history and how they are connected thanks to our guide - Niall - who provided some great stories about the areas that we visited during the day.

Stirling Castle with highland cattle in the foreground

The Wallace Monument seen from Stirling Castle

Queen Anne's Garden at Stirling Castle

How skilled of an archer would you need to be to shoot THROUGH the tower?

Interior of a guard tower at Stirling Castle

North Gate - this is the oldest section of Stirling Castle

Fascinating gargoyles at Stirling Castle

Recreated unicorn tapestry at Stirling Castle

A secluded garden near the Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle

Looking down at the Nether Bailey from an older section of Stirling Castle

Doune Castle

Meeting a "hairy coo"

Victorian summer home seen across Loch Ard

View of Loch Lomond with the highlands in the distance

Another view from Loch Lomond

On the recommendation of my hotel clerk, I took my breakfast up Calton Hill in Edinburgh one morning.  The views were spectacular - both of the scenery and, as the hilltop started to get a bit more crowded, the lengths that people were taking to get the perfect selfie!  This hill has an odd assortment of architecture - including a partially completed copy of the Parthenon from Greece - and history that made it a great place to contemplate my trip to that point.

A startling site ... which country am I in?

Looking down Princes Street from Calton Hill

The view of Arthur's Seat from Calton Hill

The stone cairn marks the encampment of Robert the Bruce on Calton Hill

Edinburgh Castle seen from Calton Hill

Perhaps the least Scot-centric thing that I did in Edinburgh was to visit a cat cafe.  I was missing my kitty and thought I'd see if I could get a little feline love ... alas, the cats were, understandably, stand-offish and mostly interested in visiting humans as a source of dropped (or stolen) cake.  It was still fun to see some breeds of cats that I hadn't previously seen in real life - particularly to pet the Sphynx (who I didn't get a photo of) after she was finished being a cake stealing ninja.

I had a wonderful time in Scotland.  Here's a few more photos from my rambles there ...

The Balmoral Hotel - the one Harry Potter related thing that I saw

The Scott Memorial

Princes Street Gardens - this was a large stinky lake until a couple hundred years ago

More window shopping ... this time it led me into the store

Edinburgh Castle viewed from Grassmarket

I saw the most beautiful rainbow on the train leaving Scotland ... just barely managed to get out my camera and capture part of it before it disappeared completely behind the train!

#3 - The London half of my latest vacation

I really like London even though I don't like large cities.  Perhaps it's all the museums or the theaters or the history or just the fact that it is a place where it is perfectly acceptable to be an introvert and not converse with everyone about trivial matters like the weather.  In any case, I have found both new things to try and places that I want to revisit each time that I've gone back, and there are still many things that I'd like to see (can you believe I still haven't seen Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard?!).

Exterior of King's Cross Station

For the majority of my visit, I stayed near King's Cross Station.  This had the advantage of access to multiple Tube lines and also the train that I would catch for the section part of my holiday.  As a side note, the movie versions of Harry Potter used the exterior of St. Pancras station (just across the street) when filming the train station scenes.

Interior of King's Cross Station

One of the things I love about London is its public transportation - particularly the Tube.  The trains go through so often that you usually don't wait for more than a few minutes before you are on your way to the destination.  The lines are color-coded (which even follows through to the colors inside each of the train cars), so they are easy to follow on the map, and the signage is consistent in each station (you always know where to look to see if you are on the correct platform).  I have seen some travel writers compare the Tube stations to ant-hills; however, I've always thought of it as the lair of an ancient dragon ... a wyrm who tunnels below London hissing and belching at each station to "Mind the Gap" as it carries its treasures to and fro.

Marquee for Kinky Boots

Of the things I do on vacation, I love museums; there will be a separate post concerning those I visited.  Theater is another activity that London has in abundance.  On this trip, I saw four shows - two of which are probably on my top 5 in a lifetime list.  One of the interesting things that I noticed on this trip was that there seemed to be many more people going to the West End Shows alone than I have seen before.  This was a welcome change for me; I had some great conversations with people in nearby seats and didn't feel quite so much like the odd single out in a sea of couples.

The first show that I saw was Kinky Boots. I made this choice not so much by the storyline on this one - though it is based on an interesting series of events that did actually happen - what really pulled me to it was that the music was done by Cyndi Lauper.  I hadn't thought about her music in ages, but I was definitely a fan in high school.  Also, it seemed to have the potential for great costumes.  It definitely lived up to my costume expectations ... great boots and over-the-top outfits for Lola and her angels.  The music was interesting - very much plot-driven - there were some songs that sounded like the style I expected and others didn't.  It worked though and was a very fun night out.

Still thrilled that I got the chance to see this

For my second theater adventure, I devoted most of a day to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  Yes, I had tickets that I purchased very early; however, the girl sitting next to me had lucked out and gotten hers in the returns queue earlier in the day.  The girl on the other side of my had gotten hers as part of the Friday 40 deal where the theater is selling 40 tickets from throughout the theater the Friday before.  So, it IS POSSIBLE to see this show despite the media frenzy about how sold out it is.  And, I had an excellent seat - in the stalls, 7 rows back and 4 seats in from the center aisle.  It is more like one show with a very long intermission than the two shows, so I'm glad I took the option to see Part One as an afternoon matinee and Part Two as the evening performance.  This theater is huge - seats over 1,000 - and the stage has some extras (particularly the height over the stage) that you might not find in other places, so I don't expect to see it come to America soon - especially not as a traveling show.  The performance was phenomenal; there was tons of attention paid to little extras like how set pieces were removed from the stage and background sound design.  The sorting hat was very different from both the movies and the picture in my head after I read the books ... and so good that those scenes gave me chills.  This was a performance that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I can't say too much more though since each attendee was admonished after the end of the first part to ...

buttons given out after part one of H.P.&tC.C.

I had chosen the third show just because I liked the title - The Play that Goes Wrong - and I am so glad that I picked it on a whim because it also is probably one of the top 5 plays I've seen in my life.  An amazing coincidence to see two very different spectacular performances two nights in a row.  The premise is a not-so-great theater troupe tries to put on a locked room style mystery show and everything goes wrong.  I was laughing so hard by the end that my face was wet with tears and I could barely see the stage.  Having done some amateur theater, it was even more amusing, and I give huge props to the actors who had some very difficult things to manage - staying on a very slanted surface, picking up phone receivers with their foot, staying limp while being picked up and dropped repeatedly.  Not only did I buy the script (it was being sold at the bar), I also booked tickets for one of the other shows that this company is currently performing for my last show of the trip.

The last theater was on Piccadilly Circus, so I got a night shot when I came out

The Comedy about a Bank Robbery ... all I knew about it going in was that I loved the other show by Mischief Theater.  Well, I was surprised that the bank robbery in question was set in Minneapolis MN in 1958 - not exactly a common historical setting for British theater!  This comedy was also lots of fun and very clever in use of space - I particularly enjoyed the scene where you were looking down on the heads of the people in the office done by attaching all of the furniture to the back wall of the stage.  I will say that American, particularly Minnesota, accents seem to be as hard for British actors to keep consistent as the reverse ... but, a very very fun show to watch.

Gaslight in St. James Park

View between bars of London Eye and Parliment

Of course, I did more than just theater and museums during my time in London.  One of the new things I tried was a walking tour - specifically Old Westminster by Gaslight from the London Walks group.  It was fascinating; I never realized that parts of London (including areas that I've been in after dark) are still lit by old-fashioned gaslights.  There was also a lot of history and some nice photo ops along the way.  Unfortunately, this was my first night, and I was so tired from the flight that I was having trouble holding my camera steady enough to take advantage of the evening views.  Another aspect of London that was - unintentionally - highlighted for me as part of this walk was how safe it was ... many people jogging alone in dimly lit spaces, couples in the park in the dark, school kids heading to events without adults ... all signs that crime is not a big worry in the area we were located.

I always love to wander and find new tiny corners as well - fun shop windows, quirky memorials, etc. are all part of the fun as you travel.

Since I was doing Harry Potter, I also had to visit Platform 9 3/4

A different type of street art - poetry!

A very interesting evergreen - no idea what species

It warms my heart to see a memorial to an average-type person

Large size chessboard in the square outside by hotel by Paddington Station

 

#74 - New foods

I have been described by a number of people as being a picky eater.  There is some truth in that statement, so this goal was designed to expand my culinary horizons a little.  Out of the five new things I tried, I really only liked one; however, I don't see myself actually making it often.  Sadly, I did not take photos along the way, so you'll have to do with my descriptions.

The first try was roasted seaweed.  I had been given this by my brother's family, and it is one of my niece's favorite snacks.  It was very thin - almost like a gelatin sheet - and quite crispy.  However, it smelled exactly like cleaning the tank on the library's pet turtle.  Too much so for me to enjoy despite the crunch.

The second new item was daikon.  This was okay, but I can't say much more than that for it.  I tried it raw, and the taste was actually milder than I expected ... sort of like a radish.  I don't know that I would ever use it though.

The third try was clotted cream which I had with jam on a plain scone.  I had a very different picture in my head of how this would look and taste; I expected something more fluffy and with a more sweet cream taste.  On the other hand, I also had reservations that it might be like a dry cottage cheese which I don't like at all.  Instead, it was a lot like unsalted butter - which made sense after I thought about it.  However, I'm not all that interested in sweet butter as a direct addition to baked snacks, so though I don't really think I'll ever be using it.

The fourth item was my favorite - parsnip soup.  I've had (and enjoy) roasted parsnips, but I had never really thought about making them into a soup.  The one I tried was excellent - similar to carrot or squash soup.  I never use the blender for making soup though, so this might just be something that I keep my eye out for at restaurants rather than making my own.

The last new item was leek soup.  Spurred by both the success of the parsnip soup a few days earlier, and my need to stick to softer food because of having my wisdom teeth out, I tried this even though I am not a big fan of onions.  It was okay, but not something that I would seek out.

#99 - Something that scares me

I had hoped to use this goal for something a lot more fun (but also slightly nerve-wracking) like rock climbing or something.  However ... it became just something that made me incredibly nervous.  I, unfortunately, had a tooth split in August and had to deal with one of my personal terrors - the dentist.  Even worse, it was a wisdom tooth.  Adding to the complication level, I had a huge vacation planned for the first two weeks in October, and the oral surgeon was booked out past that for consulting appointments to say nothing of actual extractions.  However, it all worked out.

My personal terror level in any dentist visit has to do with some experiences when I was young.  One of which resulted in both a free root canal (after the dentist hit and killed a tooth when doing a routine filling) as well as an allergic reaction to the antibiotic I was prescribed.  Needless to say, my anxiety level is quite a bit higher than the normal person's when visiting the dentist, and I have had the tendency to put off dealing with my teeth as much as possible.

I will say that although the process of having both of my lower wisdom teeth removed in my 40s was not at all pleasant, I did find a new dentist who is much easier to work with in the process.  Kudos to Crystal Chopp at Ely Family Dental for not only being good at her job and making sure I got in with a good oral surgeon under my time constraints but also for being very kind through the whole process.