Edinburgh, March 8

Julie, Jennifer and I pulled ourselves out of bed, had a brief conversation about how we all snore and went for a bite to eat. Then it was off to catch the tour bus. The tour was cool because the ticket was good for 24 hours and passengers were allowed to get off and on at any place the bus stopped. Our intention was to do the hour-long tour first and then hop off at Edinburgh Castle to poke around.

The Castle was the first stop the bus made and our tour guide suggested that if we wanted to see the castle then we should do it then. It was Saturday, and would probably be very busy. So, we decided to go ahead and take a look.

While climbing up the hill (did I mention that everything was up hill both ways?), we experienced some true Scotland weather. It started to rain and since it was March, the rain was very chilly. It also started getting very windy with gusts that almost knocked me down a couple of times. Aside from Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh Castle is the highest point of the city and so the wind was even fiercer. Still, I managed to make it to the top and wandered over to the edge to get a better view of the city. The cold wind gusts and rain that made me feel a bit wimpy, but the rain only lasted a couple of minutes and then it was sunny…then it was simultaneously rainy and sunny. The wind however, was constant.

The rock on which the castle stands has had some sort of settlement on it for about 2000 years. An actual castle began to emerge around 1093 AD and one of the structures of that initial building, St. Margaret’s Chapel, is still standing and is considered the oldest part of the castle.

After standing outside for about 5 seconds, it was time to try and find a warm place inside to stand.

As huge as the castle looks from the outside the rooms are rather small and the hallways and stairways, rather narrow. We did find ourselves in the Great Hall, which was where the king received his court. The fireplace took up almost an entire wall and there were swords, shields and armor lining the other walls.

The engraving above the fireplace was in tribute to King James VI and I, King of Scotland, Britian, Ireland and France. He was referred to James VI in Scotland because he was the 6th James, but I in England because he was the first James, a crown he inherited after Queen Elizabeth died childless. The intricate genealogical weave of monarchs between France, Scotland, and England just baffles the mind. Additionally, the amount of treachery and bloodshed that went on is just astounding. Being a king/queen of anything during that time essentially meant that no one could be trusted.

We went through some other rooms of the castle, one of which was the room where Mary, Queen of Scots, birthed James the 6th, whom she was later forced to abdicate the thrown to.

We also made our way down to the room that held the Honours, crowned jewels of Scotland, and the Stone of Destiny on which the kings were crowned. I don't believe that picture taking was allowed in that area.

Our tour of the castle was cut a bit short because of the weather and our inclination not to be in it. We went for a cup of tea and then off to the next adventure.

Next on our list of things to see was Edinburgh's Camera Obscura.

For more information on Camera Obscuras, click here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura#History

That was pretty much the end of the second day. We had to meet two more of our clan, Linda and Mary Lee, at the hostel, then off to dinner which of course included another pint. That evening, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant called Henderson's. Yum!!! I had the Moroccan stew and a local organic brew....Double Yum!!!

Edinburgh March 7

I arrived in Edinburgh at around 7:30 am, Scotland time, on March 7, 2008. My flights were uneventful, much to my delight, since I'm a real newbie at traveling overseas.

Julie and her friend Jennifer were supposed to arrive from Canada, via Amsterdam, at around 10:30, but Canada was having some really bad weather, and their first flight was late in departing. Almost as soon as I arrived in Edinburgh, I received a message from Frank, Julie's husband, telling that they missed their connecting flight in Amsterdam and wouldn't be arriving until around 1:30 pm. Och aye!

I was faced with a choice of either trying to get transportation to the hostel we were staying at or waiting at the airport for another 3 hours. I got information from one of the service reps at the desk, on the best way to get to the hostel. I was trying to remember an e-mail that Julie had sent me earlier, and what the service rep told me and what I remembered from the e-mail did not seem to click. Since, I was feeling rather brain dead anyway, I decided that waiting at the airport might be a better, safer thing to do.

It worked out fine and Julie and Jennifer did arrive at 1:30. We got on the shuttle that Julie wrote about in her e-mail and made our way to the hostel. Because of the time change, we wanted to try and stay vertical as long as possible and so we headed out again. First things first....learning to look right first before you cross the street. This is really important and apparently forgotten enough by tourists, that “look right” is spray painted at every cross walk….unless of course, one needs to look left first.

My first real experience with using the British Pound was at an Italian restaurant we stopped at for dinner. Things are really expensive in Scotland and with the exchange rate between the British Pound and US Dollar, I finally had to force myself to stop calculating how much stuff was costing. Otherwise, it was going to be a very depressing trip.

After dinner, we headed out again and stopped at a tourist information site. It was decided that we would take an hour long bus tour around the city the next day to try to get an idea of where things were.

After that it was a bit more walking. Okay, “a bit more walking” is a slight under-exaggeration….we walked almost everywhere, with the exception of the shuttle to and from the airports and the tour buses, everything was done on foot. Everything was uphill too….both ways. The first couple of times I walked up the hill to where Old Town Edinburgh (pre-1700s) began, I reached my target heart rate in about 2 minutes. Edinburgh is a bit hillier than Florida, and, oh yeah, a bit colder, and maybe even rainier.

We decided to walk up, one of the many Closes that are part of Old Town Edinburgh. Closes are narrow winding streets with a series of multi-leveled apartment houses, usually 7 stories high, on either side. More on those later.....

That particular walk ended in the Malt Shovel Pub, where of course, we had a pint. We were, after all, in Scotland and if you like beer and/or whiskey, Scotland is the place to be.

With a 7 hour flight and a 5 hour time difference, one pint did us in for the day. We walked back to the hostel, and crashed.

As I go through my adventure, I will occasionally add a link to a google map that I created with the entire route from Edinburgh, through the Scottish Highlands, back to Edinburgh. It's an exceptionally cool tool! The route will contain markers for places that we visited and hopefully a few pictures as well. I hope you enjoy this blog. Scotland is really very beautiful!

My Scotland Trip March, 2008

This particular post, and a few more after this, will be about my first trip to Scotland....actually, my first trip to Europe.

My sister Julie, who turned 50 last year, decided that she wanted to celebrate in a most extraordinary way. She wanted to go to Scotland...and....she wanted to go with her good friends, and 2 sisters.

Julie had been there before and fell in love with the country. Going to Scotland had always been a dream of mine as well, so I readily agreed to the adventure.

There were times when financially it didn't look like it was going to happen; for instance, when my house kept flooding because of a tree root obstruction that took forever to diagnose. It did happen, and I had an absolute blast, in my calm, soft spoken, dry sense of humor kind of way. I have fallen in love with Scotland as well.

Getting ready for the trip proved to be a minor adventure itself mainly because of the dramatic change of weather that Scotland is famous for. We were planning our trip for March just before "spring" was to officially begin. Julie sent me the BBC weather website, with the Portree, Scotland area highlighted. Portree is located on the Isle of Skye in just about the northern most tip.

According to the weather site at that time, within a 24 hour period on a typical day in March in Portree, the area was forecasted to receive light rain, some sun, heavy showers, perhaps a little more sun, light snow, heavy rain, maybe some sun mixed with light showers.....

As one who still tries to figure out what Florida weather people mean between partly sunny and party cloudy, I was having a difficult time trying to figure out what the difference was between a light shower and a light rain, or a heavy shower and a heavy rain. "The mind boggles," as my sister said. One thing was for sure; it was going to be wet at some point....at many points on our trip. Oh yeah, and cold. Much different than the weather I was leaving in sunny Florida.

The trip was getting closer and I had done all that I could do, except get on the plane and actually go. This included the purchasing of British pounds. Egads, that was an eye-opening reality check. Things were going to be really expensive in Scotland. The money sure looked cool though!

Finally, March 6, 2008 arrived; it was time for me to start my adventure. Of the group that was going, I was the only one leaving from the states, which means I would be taking my first adventure to Europe by myself. The rest of the group would be coming in pairs at various times, from Canada. I would be the first to arrive. Me, the newbie traveler. For some people that might not be a big deal, but for a somewhat introverted individual with a hearing disability...(um that would be me) it was.

My first flight took me to New Jersey and my next flight didn't leave until around 7:30, which meant we probably wouldn't be served dinner until 8:30 or 9. That, coupled with the fact that airline food is less than tasty, I took some time to grab a bite to eat.

While eating, I was joined by a very pleasant man, who was on his way back from Europe, heading to Wisconsin. I told him where I was heading, and a huge smile lit up his face. Scotland was one of his favorite places ever. It turns out, he worked with a golfing industry, and since Scotland is well known for being the "home of golf", he knew the country well. When looking at a map to determine how far it was from the Edinburgh airport to the hostel we were going to stay at, I couldn't help but notice the very high number of golf courses there were in the 10 mile distance. Listening to Mr. Wisconsin dude talk about Scotland, just made me more excited...if that were even possible. For my Packers fans, Mr. Wisconsin was very, very upset indeed that Brett Favre retired.

It was time to get on a plane again. Next stop, Edinburgh, Scotland.