Edinburgh, Scotland

For our final trip during spring break, we went to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Edinburgh Castle. The oldest continually lived-in structure in Great Britain

The first thing I'll say about Edinburgh is that the architecture is unlike anything I have ever seen before. It's so Gothic and basically just really cool. I don't know a lot about architecture, so I can't properly describe what I was seeing. I wouldn't have been surprised to see dragons sitting atop the roofs.

In fact, all of Edinburgh had an air of fantasy and myth. I suppose the people of Scotland feel it too since their national animal is the unicorn. A lot of their culture is focused on storytelling. It was really great to experience.

On our first day, after a late breakfast, we decided to hike Arthur's Seat. It was a steep climb at times, but for the most part, the weather decided to be nice to us.

We also went and visited the Royal Botanical Gardens, which I can imagine would have been much more beautiful in the spring.

I have been finding the tours of the cities that we go to very interesting. I love learning about the history of a place. We took three tours total on this trip: The Harry Potter Tour, a tour of Edinburgh, and a tour of Edinburgh Castle.

The Harry Potter tour was first on our list. J. K. Rowling lived in Edinburgh for a time while writing some of the Harry Potter books, and so a lot of the wizarding world can be seen in bits and pieces of Edinburgh. My first photo here is the grave of William McGonagall. This graveyard is where J. K. Rowling found the inspiration for a lot of her characters' names. Incidentally, this guy is also known for being the world's worst poet. Our tour guide was nice enough to give us a sample of his work:

On yonder hill, there stood a cow...

...It's not there now,

It must have shifted.

These next two photos are of the school that apparently inspired the look of Hogwarts along with Edinburgh Castle itself. The second one is a head-on view from our hostel window.

For dinner, we went to Paradise Palms, where I had the first alcoholic drink that I have ever enjoyed. The bacon mac and cheese that I had wasn't too bad either.

The tours of Edinburgh and then Edinburgh Castle were really enjoyable. Our tour guide was incredibly spirited and gave us a very lively tour full of stories and little facts about the city. One of my favorite stories was about Maggie Dickson. There's a pub named after her in the place she used to live. The story goes that Maggie was tried and hanged for hiding her pregnancy. She had miscarried, and her pregnancy was discovered when she attempted to hide the body. She was hanged, but when they were carrying her coffin off to be buried, the priest heard knocking coming from inside. They opened it up, and Maggie was still alive, though probably a little worse for wear. Not knowing what to do, they took her back to the gallows. But a lawyer pointed out that a person couldn't be tried twice for the same crime. And so, being legally dead, Maggie lived the rest of her life in her house, rent-free. Her window overlooked the gallows, and she was often known to poke her head out during a hanging and shout out, "Don't worry, it's not that bad!" to the victim down below, which really shows the true sense of Scottish humor.

Another entertaining story was that of Deacon Brodie. He also gets a pub named after him. Deacon worked as a locksmith, and being such, he had access to everyone's houses. He decided to take advantage of this and steal from his clients when he knew they would be out of town. The town became alarmed at these mysterious break-ins. With no evidence of any actual breaking in, it seemed to be the work of ghosts. So, the townspeople decided they needed more locks on their doors. So, of course, they called the locksmith, who was only too happy to oblige. Alas, the robberies did not stop. It was decided that a task force was needed to crack down on these burglaries. And who better to lead the task force than someone who knew extensively about locks. And so, Deacon Brodie lead the group of people on a roundabout chase and away from suspecting him. He was eventually discovered and captured for his crimes, but he still makes for an entertaining story.

I really love little stories and pieces of trivia that I can spout out at random times in a conversation. I'm the person who will sometimes start a sentence with "Did you know...?" or "I heard/read that..." I find it all very fun.

We had some very nice food while in Edinburgh. One note of caution: If you eat at the Baked Potato Shop and ask for sour cream, they will give you all the sour cream. Probably the only time in my life where I have ever wished for less.

You thought I was kidding, didn’t you? I think they emptied out the whole container on my potato.

To be honest, Edinburgh was not a place that I fell in love with as quickly as Nice or Bath. Perhaps because it was so starkly different from any place I have ever been to, it took a little bit of time getting used to. But I think that, after making the effort to get to know the city, it has become a place that I would be glad to return to. Edinburgh really sticks with you. There's the cobblestone streets, the air of myth and lore, and the occasional street performer playing bagpipes while wearing a kilt. The entire country is wrapped in tradition. They are all very proud of their roots, and it's really great to see.

I guess Edinburgh liked us too because it didn't seem to want to let us leave. We were waiting in line to board the plane, which was sitting there waiting to let us on when the flight got canceled. Apparently, Stansted Airport back in London had caught on fire. I guess a transport vehicle parked near the building had an engine problem, which resulted in it erupting into flames (luckily nobody was in or near the vehicle at the time). These flames traveled over to the building, and soon Stansted was on fire too. We had to stay in a hotel for another night and take a later flight the next day, which thankfully did not get canceled. But it did force us to land at Gatwick Airport, which resulted in a six-hour bus ride back to the university. A very tiresome journey, but I suppose it's better than catching on fire.

Now I'm back at UEA working on my final essays which are due in a couple of weeks. We had a really nice heat stroke for a few days where Norwich was even sunny. I've been told that that's what I can look forward to when summer rolls around. In the meantime, I need to write about Madhyamaka, the eternality of the universe, conspiracies, and French humor. Not necessarily in that order.