A Sunny Day

There is a heat wave here in Scotland! Meaning it is 70 degrees. The house is stocked up with ice cream to get everyone through what is supposed to be a whole week of this temperature! Surprisingly, it did not rain ONCE today. Much to my dismay, I got sunburned. Again. Even after putting sunblock on before leaving! I guess that is my punishment for being spontaneous! I'll get to that in a bit.

I set off from Haddington this morning with the idea to do two museums: The Writer's Museum, and the Portrait Gallery up on Queen's Street. I did make it to the the Writer's Museum. It was an interesting, if not a very tiny place. The museum is located in Lady Stairs Close. Lady Stairs, a huge support of writers during her time, used to reside in the house that has now been converted into the museum. The floor tiles of the Close (the Scots believed 'enclosure' to be way too long) are engraved with quote from literary figures. I thought this one was particularly resonate for first-time-solo-travelers such as my self. It says "It's a grand thing to get leave to live."

The museum itself was interesting right away due to the architecture. Once you walk in the door, you are immediately faced with the option going either up or down a narrow winding staircase. Unfortunately, guests were not allowed to take pictures inside, but I think that the museum website may have some if you're interested. You can check out the link here. The museum features artifacts from three celebrated Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I think the RLS exhibit was my favorite, because they played an audiotape of someone reading Treasure Island as you looked at pictures of all the inspirational places he visited. He travelled so much to gather stories up in his head, fragments of experiences that later he would incorporate into his books. 

 From there, I decided to stop in Saint Giles Cathedral (fun fact, not actually a cathedral because no bishop has sat there). It can also be known as the "High Kirk." It was incredible. Someone was giving a very monotone sermon, I think just to provide a backdrop for visitors to the site. On the bus on the way into the city, for some reason "Call Me Al" by Paul Simon popped into my head. The lines that go "he sees angels in the architecture/spinning in infinity/he says 'amen' and 'hallelujah'" particularly kept going through. So it was amazing to walk into this ancient stone structure and see the statue of the angel. Just one of those weird coincidences I think. 

I did not manage to get a picture of it because I did not want to disturb the people in the far left chapel of the church, but there were actually wooden carved angels playing bagpipes! It was so unusual! I have passed a restaurant on the Royal Mile before that is called "Angels With Bagpipes," so now that makes sense! 

Edinburgh was absolutely BUSTLING with people today, all out enjoying the weather. I think there is already a kickstart happening for the Festival shows. You want to see someone juggling some inflamed item, you got it. See amazing art made right before your eyes, sure. Panto? Of course. I even saw someone dressed as a ghost singing opera, and another as a gypsy spinning wool into yarn. But here is one unusual act I saw today, a guy balancing a ball on various body parts, to "Teardrop" by Massive Attack playing on a boombox. Anything goes I suppose!

I continued down the Royal Mile a bit, contemplating whether I should start making my way back towards New Town to find the Portrait Gallery. It was so nice out still in the morning hours, that part of me just wanted to grab a coffee and fall asleep in Prince's Street Gardens again. But then I saw a sign advertising a free 2.5hour walking tour of the city, and on a whim just decided to sign up and do it. I am really glad that I did! Our Australian tour guide took us to many places I had been before, but provided so much history about the city I probably would not have known otherwise. For example, on top of the market post in Parliament Square, there sits a unicorn. I already knew that the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn (how awesome, to have a mythical creature as your national animal), but what I did not know that symbolically, this wild and unruly animal is considered tamed when it is shown with a chain around it's neck. Very telling, when you think about Scottish history and the many years of violence in which they sought their freedom. This political battle is still going on. Next year a referendum will be taken to vote to see whether Scotland will become independent. Very interesting!

The Scots during the age of enlightenment also considered themselves the "Athens of the North," believing their country to be the next great power, like the Romans. Throughout the ancient architecture you can see many reminiscent elements of that idea, including sphinxes on top of buildings, famous leaders garbed in togas (no one actually ever wore a toga in Edinburgh) and even the start of a parthenon replica they hoped to build. However, they got about 8 pillers constructed out of the 60 needed, and then ran out of money. This was quite embarrassing for the city! But you can still climb up the hill and picnic by those pillers now, and be reminded how Edinburgh tried, but failed, to become the "Athens of the North."

 Some other highlights: The tombstone of Thomas Riddell (and his son!), the inspiration for the name for JK Rowling's famous villain in her Harry Potter books. It has a different spelling, but she does claim this is where she got the idea, while exploring graveyards for interesting character names! I mentioned before about the Elephant Cafe, where Rowling used to sit and write. This back of the cafe overlooks Greyfriars Kirk and Kirkyard. 

The beloved dog of a nightwatchman, a terrier named Bobby, was buried here. He is famous for guarding the gravestone of his owner for 14 years, and was utterly loved by the whole city. When he died, he was not allowed to be buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard because they could not be sure he was a Christian...so that is that. As you can see people still leave him tokens of gratitude. SOme of the more unusual gifts we were told about included unused German train tickets, inviting the spirit of Bobby to join the gifter for Oktoberfest! 

 After the tour, one of the girls I met on the walk and I decided to grab something to eat somewhere. She's an American student as well who is doing an internship in Dublin this summer. I also met a girl from Monmouth County who was studying abroad in London and spending the weekend in Edinburgh. It really is a small world! Here is the view from a balcony restaurant in OldTown. We did not eat here, but the little cafe we did go to is the white building on the bottom right with the tables outside! I had been there before, but I was not too hungry so I grabbed a smoothy. She decided to use the rest of the day to go to the castle (she was flying back to Dublin in the morning), so I wandered a bit more through the town before heading back to Prince's Street. 

SO that is how I got off track and did something completely different than I expected to, and got very sunburned in the process. Tomorrow we are going to Loch Lomond Shores, a shopping center on the Bonnie Bonnie Banks!