scotland

Scotland – Day 5

July 8, 2012 by Taco

The internet at this hostel is atrocious thus far, if I am able to connect for long enough I will try to do a post highlighting my trip to Berlin and initial adventures. No promises though, so far I can only connect to the Wi-Fi by using Linux and being persistent, and since Roboform doesn’t work on Linux, well, no Roboform = No Internet for me basically. The post will be tomorrow if it happens.
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And so my final day in Scotland began earlier than any of the others and I woke up to sunshine. The plan for the day was pretty straightforward, get up around 6:15am, use the real shower one last time, then head to breakfast, then gather as a group to hike up to the summit of Arthur’s Seat. Things started off according to plan, I woke up around 6:15am, after yet another night of my roommate talking to himself endlessly, but in all honestly I still felt fairly rested. As mentioned the sun was out, which was a welcome change since we were going to be hiking. I turned on the TV to give me something to listen to while getting ready, and found some local channel advertising things and playing music. The song that came on was “Scotland the Brave” sang by John McDermott. (You can listen to it here if you are interested). That, needless to say, got me in the mood to enjoy my last day in the Scottish countryside. After getting ready we all headed to lobby, where we checked out as a group, which went smoother than expected. After that we headed to breakfast where I enjoyed my last bit of haggis as well as way too much of everything else, since I knew after this it was back to pasta, cereal, and sandwiches. With breakfast eaten and the luggage stored in the temporary area, we headed out. On the tiniest little whim I stuck my small umbrella into my pack pocket on the off chance that I ended up needing it, this turned out to be the best decision of the day for me, but not for my umbrella. The walk to the base of the hills in Holyrood Park is actually pretty short from our hotel, only about 10-15 minutes. The photo below is from the very base of the hills, notice how the sunshine is already disappearing fast.

From there we started walking up, and would continue walking up for about the next 45 minutes. However, about 5 minutes into that trek, it started pouring. No, this was not the drizzle of the past few days, this was the pouring of Tuesday. What happened at that point, is that about 25% of the group immediately turned around and went back to the hotel, they were the first to go back, but not the last. Looking at the pictures, its kind of interesting because you really can’t seem to tell that it is raining as hard as it was, so just take my word for it, it was really coming down. Rain aside, the views were quickly becoming awesome even after only about 10 minutes of walking.

Shortly after the above picture we got into the thicket alongside the side of hill, which meant the path was little more than a mud trail. It was in this thicket that my umbrella took on its first scars of the day, with the trees tearing two little holes into it. Truth be told I didn’t realize this until about 10 hours later when I was back in Copenhagen, there was enough rain that two little holes made little different. It was also about this time that people started to slip on the wet slopes, which probably sent another 10% or so of the group packing. Once we got out the of thicket, it started to become apparent how high we actually were based on where we started. It wasn’t obvious just because of the views, it was obvious because of the wind. Whereas before it had been pretty content, suddenly my umbrella began a cycle of inverting itself about every 5 minutes. But again, the views were pretty incredible and I was still better off than the majority who had been fooled by the sun into bringing no umbrella or rain coat.

After seeing the decent views from this point, a fair amount of people decided to head back, as the rest of the climb was essentially rocks. I thought about it, but me being me, turning around was never really an option. Despite the rain and wind we made it, though some people actually turned around right before the final rock climb to the summit, I have no idea why. Our professor didn’t make it to the top, I’m not really sure where she turned around during the hike, but by the end it was just students randomly wondering a long what we hoped were the right trails. The view at the top was absolutely amazing though, and it made me really want to come back and see the highlands (remember all of this is in the lowlands). That tiny little mound you can see in the distance is actually the gargantuan fortress of Edinburgh Castle.

After hanging around the top for awhile, my umbrella finally ate it. A big gust of wind came which consumed all the umbrellas in one fell swoop, which resulted in the distant laughter of some Scottish people on the slope below us. I didn’t technically lose many, as some people where actually carried away to magical land of Oz. I might as well have lost it, as it bend so hard the metal arms snapped out of place. End Game. Well, maybe not, I bent them back and was able to use it on the way down.. somewhat. However it doesn’t really open anymore, you just try to open it and it does nothing. It can be opened manually with some elbow grease, but this doesn’t do a whole lot of good if its raining on you. I tried to save myself stress by getting a tiny cheap umbrella for this trip, its not something I will ever do again.You can see a picture of it below, taken just now for Coroner’s Report purposes. Nothing how every single arm is broken, and how the handle is broken in the middle. Not pictured is the broken top.

But, umbrella carnage and being soaked (once again) aside, I made it to the top and back down with no real issues. I even met Molly and Molly, seen below:

Molly the people was out jogging, and saw umbrellas tumbling down the cliff and correctly assumed there were tourists afoot. Molly the dog was content peeing on everything. And yes, their names really were Molly and Molly, I talked to them for a bit since I was the first one down. After we all gathered back at the Hotel, the traditional period of complaining set in, which finally culminated in the Hotel having to give the girls five temporary rooms to change in. But everyone made it, and there were only a couple of very minor injuries in the process. About 30 minutes later the bus came and picked us up, my feelings were definitely mixed. On one hand I was ready to be done with DIS led activities and I was ready to not have a roommate anymore. On the other hand, I was quite sad to be leaving Scotland, as it was my favorite country in Europe so far. But, I still had a week of class left, so it was back to Copenhagen.

The plane ride back wasn’t quite as good as the plane ride over, which actually started in the airport as Norwegian had no self-check-in machines at the Edinburgh airport. This meant I had to wait in line for 30 minutes just to get my boarding pass since I had no bags to check. After that security was once again, fairly easy, and I was able to grab lunch with plenty of time to spare. Once on the plane I realized I was in a center seat, which seems to be where I always end up if I can’t pre-check-in. The person next to me did the classic leaning over into my personal space while sleeping, but they were a DIS student at least, so I had no qualms about continuously shoving them back over to the other side, oddly they never woke up during this, and I was concerned they were dead for a bit (they weren’t). Once back in Copenhagen, the Customs line was way long for some reason, but after getting through that I cleared out of the airport in what couldn’t have been anymore than 5 minutes. I even scooted onto the Metro with about 15 seconds to spare before it took of. This was good because it meant I was able to make the trek back to Tåsingegade alone. Turns out I made it back before anyone else on the entire floor from any of the classes, which gave me free access to the laundry which was exactly what I wanted. Later that night about 60 people were trying to use 4 machines, but I was chilling in my room.

And thus ended my amazing trip to Scotland. Not everything was perfect, mainly in regards to DIS and my travel companions, but the place was awesome. I have a desire to go back to Scotland that is already growing, and I enjoyed the country (and even the city, which is mega rare for me) there more than I have anyplace else thus far, though Norway comes in a fighting second in regards to scenery alone. And since you’re always supposed to go out with a bang, the final Scottish tidbit of the day will do just that.. well.. through descriptive elements at least.

The Scottish Tidbit of the Day: The One O’Clock Cannon

When I previously spoke of my trip to Edinburgh Castle, I purposefully left out one thing, because I felt like it deserved its own little blurb, and that missing detail was the One O’Clock Cannon. Each day (Except Sundays and Good Friday) at One O’clock precisely, a cannon on the lower battery of the castle fires a single shot. When this happens the locals will casually glance at their watches, then continue on with what they where doing. The tourists on the other hand (especially the Asians) will jump out of their skin. This gun is really, really loud. Not to mention, a cannon isn’t something you are used to hearing as part of the city sound-scape. So whats the deal? Why fire a gun at One O’Clock every day? Why not fire as Noon, which is a much more common time for acknowledgement? Well, the tradition started in 1861 as a time signal for ships docked in the harbor and in the nearby River of Forth. It also allowed the harbor master to make sure that everything was going according to schedule for the day, as the large time mechanisms in the castle were much more accurate than those available to the every citizen. The original gun was a huge cannon which took four men to load, and its be replaced multiple times, and the One O’Clock gun is now a specially modified (to be more loud) L118 Light Gun, which as been in use since 2001. So, ok, it was used to help ships with time schedules, and its now a ceremonial thing.. makes sense, but why one o’clock? Well, that’s actually pretty simple, the Scots are all about saving money whenever possible. So rather than fire the gun at noon, which would require 12 shots (as firing one shot for noon would just be improper), they decided to fire the gun at 1, which was the cheapest next best thing to noon. So there you have it, the story of the One O’Clock gun. I was never spooked by it, as I learned about it the first day, and we didn’t get there until after 1pm. I did however, get to enjoy seeing a lot of people jump, while the locals right next to them checked their watch as if nothing was strange at all. So if you go to Edinburgh, remember to brace for some noise around 1pm 😉

-Taco

Scotland – Day 4

July 7, 2012 by Taco

This intro section below was written on Monday, July 2nd, which will explain why I’m talking about coming home from class even though I’m currently in Berlin. It also provides context for the first time the cleaners came, which I mentioned in the July 5th post.

So I just got home from class, and something definitely seemed off as I entered my room. For one, there was this really funky smell in the air, kind of like burnt dirt. Second, when I opened the bathroom door, everything.. and I mean everything was covered in black dust. Apparently they came and cleaned out the vents, without any prior warning to the students (Thank you once again DIS). So now everything from my towels.. to even my toothbrush, are covered in nasty thick black dust from who knows how many years ago. I then found an email from DIS telling us how we expected to leave our rooms spotless when we leave. Yeah go F&#K yourself. My toothbrush is currently soaking in Listerine, I hope that removes whatever ancient diseases are now coated all over it. Oh and we lost internet for a bit too. So, DIS has angered me again, no surprise there. Rather than continue into a rant about DIS, let’s move on to Scotland Day 4!
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Day 4 was the day a lot of people had been waiting for, not because of anything specific thing, but it was the first day with absolutely no academic obligations. I was excited for that, but also because we were finally heading to Edinburgh Castle. I had of course hoped all around the outside of the castle, but hadn’t actually got to go past the first gate yet. People were late to the meeting point (and no one was surprised), but our DIS assistant finally got the courage to follow through on her promise to leave people behind if they were late, and did. But not until after we waited 15 minutes and missed our bus, causing everyone to be almost 45 minutes later than scheduled. Frustrating start aside, the city was awesome. The Haar had finally moved in without rain, and things were looking pretty awesome since I could actually enjoy the environment without getting soaked. It was almost as if the sky had just lowered itself and formed a ceiling to the city, it was obviously fog, but it was also very different than any kind of fog I have experienced before.

Once we got into the city center, we hoofed it up the hill to the base of Edinburgh Castle, where more confusion resulted because they hadn’t booked our tour properly and didn’t know where to go (Noticing a pattern yet?). Just about the time I had decided to just leave the group behind and pay my own way in, they finally got it figured out and we were able to pass through the main gates, though we had audio guides as opposed to a tour guide due to our tardiness. This actually turned out to be preferable to me, because it allowed me to instantly ditch everyone and enjoy the castle at my own pace. After entering through the first of many gates I got my first real look towards the top of the castle, which was very ominous in the fog.

We then passed through a large open area, which was between the first and second gates. This area is the sight of the Scottish Tattoo, an annual celebration with music and drills, etc. Its original purpose was to form a flat area for the attackers to be slaughtered while trying to reach the main gate. So yeah, things are a little happier than they used to be. Once we reached the 1st main gate (as apparently there are two main gates), I noticed a familiar figure standing watch, it was none other than William Wallace. Notice how he doesn’t actually look like Mel Gibson, believe it or not (Not seen here is Robert the Bruce, opposite Wallace).

Once inside this gate, we went up to the 3rd gate (2nd main gate) which was where things got steep. The castle was quite well designed, and any attackers would have been funneled into tiny little passages with the defenders being right about them ready to do all sorts of nasty things to them. Since the castle is so old, having existed (with obvious modifications and expansions) since around 1000, you can see which parts were added before and after the invention of gunpowder. There are several tiers of batteries, and you come to the first one soon after passing the 3rd gate. Even though this is the second lowest of all the batteries, you can still get some pretty good views of the city.

From here you keep going up, either by a long, long series or stairs or by a slope (which itself isn’t so gradual). Either way takes you through more gates and past more walls. Since the castle has been largely converted over to a tourist site, there’s lots of museums to see, be they concerned the Highland Guard, or a recreation of the castle’s prisons (which weren’t pleasant, to be modest about it). Eventually you come to the half-moon battery, which was probably my favorite part of the castle even though it wasn’t the highest or most majestic place. It was just a simple tower, with a load of cannons on it, but the Scottish flag in the center kind of rounded out the place for me.

Not everything was military oriented in the castle though, it is actually home to the oldest building in the entirety of Edinburgh, St. Margaret’s Chapel. This quaint little church is still used to this day, and has survived every major siege, successful or not, of the castle since its foundation. The one stain glass window in the little chapel is of course, William Wallace. After heading out of the chapel I entered part of the keep where the crown jewels and royal sword, and the stone of destiny are placed. Well, much to my disappointment, its just like Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, NO PICTURES OF THE CROWN JEWELS. Needless to say the curators in the room probably deal with hoards of angry tourists each day, especially the Asians, who were raising a storm even in the brief 5 or so minutes that I was in the room. So I have seen the crown jewels of two countries, just take my word for it, no photographic evidence exists. After seeing the jewels and the stone of destiny, I headed into the living chambers, where I saw the tiny room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James I, that was pretty cool. After that I headed into the great hall of the keep. Which is now home to a bunch of weapons and armor, though some sections of the hall have been pretty much untouched since the 1600s.

After exiting the great hall, I went into the central keep, which has been completely transformed into a massive memorial to all Scottish soldiers killed in every war that they have records for. And of course, no pictures. If I had had more time I would have liked to have looked more through the massive log books of names, because I found a few of my ancestors, but I have no idea if they are even remotely any relation of mine. By the time I finished there, it had started to rain, and I had ran out of time. They had only given us 1.5 hours to explore the castle since people were late. They were now taking us to the National Scottish Museum. This was an optional trip, but I wanted to get in for free. Turns out you get int for free no matter what, and our guide lied about DIS paying for us. So that was a little frustrating. The museum was interesting, and I probably would have appreciated it a lot more had I not seen tons of museums by this point, my legs weren’t killing me, and I wasn’t super hungry. I didn’t even look through the entirety of the museum, I really just flew through the portions dedicated to Scottish history, ranging from prehistoric to contemporary. All the other stuff I can see any museums elsewhere anyways. The one thing I did go out of my way to see in the museum was a dead stuffed sheep, but this wasn’t just any dead stuffed sheep, this was Dolly the cloned dead stuffed sheep.

After seeing Dolly, I briefly walked around the dinosaur exhibit then decided it was time to get food. By this point I was by myself, which didn’t really bother me. I headed out of the museum and over to The Elephant Cafe. Now, I enjoyed the Harry Potter series. I haven’t seen all the movies, and I can’t quote the books, but I enjoyed the books (even if they can be a little overrated in my opinion). The Elephant Cafe is apparently where J.K. Rowling started scribbling down notes for the first book after she originally got the idea while on a train. Naturally they advertise the cafe as the “Birthplace of Harry Potter” and the inside is filled of all sort of photos of her there as well as interviews in which she mentions the place. In the back room, which overlooks Greyfriar’s Cemetery and has Edinburgh Castle in the background, is the table where she sat. They’ve even gone so far as to put up a little display case containing the napkins Rowling scribbled the notes on. Harry Potter stuff aside, the food was really good in my opinion. In addition to Harry Potter stuff, the place is obsessed with Elephants, thus the name. So all sorts of Elephant Statues, stories, and pictures dot the place.

More enjoyable than the food and decorations was probably the vandalism in the restrooms. Needless to say it is almost exclusively Harry Potter inspired, and some of it is as vulgar as you can possibly imagine. In the entryway between the Gents and Ladies rooms Daniel Radcliff and Emma Watson have signed the wall, which are followed by a slew of sexual remarks from men and women alike. In the men’s room you’ll find more sexual references to Hermione than imaginable, as well as more than a few arguments between supporters of the various houses. My favorite, was probably the most obvious and simple, but I loved it nonetheless, it was perched right next to the toilet.

After having a good laugh, and getting my stomach full with a tasty sandwich, a chocolate tinne dessert (I have no idea what this is, so don’t ask, but it was amazing) and two cans of IRN BRU I headed out into the city. The next thing we had to do was meet up for a Whiskey Tour and tasting, but that was over three and a half hours away. I narrowly avoided a bunch of DIS students as they entered the cafe and managed to slip out into the city where thankfully the rain had stopped. My first mission was to head to the Scottish Clan center (I took a detour so I could walk by the castle again and saw a bunny friend!), which was much further away than I realized. Luckily I was able to find it without even using a map, I seemed to catch onto Edinburgh’s layout quicker than I did Copenhagen’s. Outside the building has a nice view up the street towards the city center.

Once inside I found out that everything cost money, however as a student I was able to access the archives for two hours for free. Now “free” meant I could look at things for free, to print anything, or even save any files cost money, and it was pretty expensive. Luckily I did things the old fashioned way and broke out my pencil and paper, which unfortunately massively cut down on the amount of information I could obtain, but didn’t cost any money. Rather than focus on individual people, I searched for the overall story of my family, and I was able to get a rough picture, which was pretty exciting. Truth be told I would have loved to have had an entire day and about 100 pounds to spend in that place, which I could have easily done. After being shuffled away (they monitor your time like hawks) I headed back up to the Royal Mile, and decided to head down towards Holyrood Palace rather than up towards the castle. This turns out to be a really good choice for a couple of reasons. The first being that the Scottish Royal Guard was practicing for the Queen’s arrival as part of her Diamond Jubilee. They weren’t dressed up in their super dress attire, but they still had the basic getup. For other people this was frustrating because it meant the palace was closed to the public, but since I didn’t have the money to tour it anyways, this was a better outcome.

Just across the street from the Palace is the Scottish Parliament. At first I didn’t think you could go in, given the number of police officers, so I walked on past to take in some of the views of the nearby Holyrood Park (home to Arthur’s Seat). However, after people watching for a bit I noticed that people were going in that most definitely looked like tourists. So, figuring the worst thing that could happen to me would to get arrested and disappear in some dungeon for all eternity, I went for it. I’m really glad I did, because not only can you get into the Parliament, you can get into the Debate Chambers and watch for free. Naturally you have to go through security and you can’t take any photos, but that didn’t detract from my experience. Once in the chambers I was ecstatic to find out that they were talking first about welfare (a hot topic everywhere) then Scottish Independence. You see a lot of Scots hate England, its kind of a historical thing. So naturally a lot of Scots hate being in the UK. Apparently enough Scots have hated this for long enough that they are opening the floor to discussion on Independence in 2014, and they will hold a national vote on it in 2016. So yes, by 2017 Scotland could be independent again. So getting to hear them talk about it was really cool, I felt very lucky to have stopped in when I did. Though I couldn’t bring my camera in, I was able to snap quite a few photos of the outside of the parliament. The picture below is of one of the reflection pools out front, which were really cool.

At this point I had about 45 minutes left before I had to meet up with my class for the Whiskey Tour. So I decided to walk the Scottish Mile, just because you sort of have to do that, its like a requirement of visiting Edinburgh. After walking the mile I headed back down to St. Giles Cathedral (which had since become my hangout spot) and waiting for the most recent round of rain to pass. Right before 5:00 I headed out to the meeting point, where we then walked up to the distillery, unsurprisingly no one was late for this particular meeting.

The tour was actually really cool, we obviously got to taste Scotch which I will get to in a second. Before the tasting, the tour started off with a history of Scotch, as well as detailing the differences between mixed and single malt whiskeys. Additionally they explained the differences between the regional varieties of Scotch, composed of the Highlands, the Lowlands, Speyside, Campbeltown, and the various minor islands. We got a card with scents that made the different ingredients and brewing styles very obvious. After this intro part of the tour we were given our first class of Scotch.. it was strong. So strong in fact that the reactions of the light/non drinkers were quite humorous, with one person spewing it out (they seemed used to this and had a bucket handy, meaning no mess!). After our first taste, we headed into a room with the largest Scotch collection in the world. Which now means I have seen the largest Scotch and Beer collections, this is something I am proud of.

After our first round of Scotch, and viewing the collection, we headed to the actual tasting room, and we even got to keep our glasses. I think I was one of the few people actually excited about this, but as I had never had Scotch before, the glass was pretty meaningful to me. The tasting room was very cold, and we were split up amongst tables, with little cards and 4 already poured glasses of Scotch. At the time I wondered why it was so cold, but after drinking 4 glass of Scotch (5 including the first) one, that room seemed quite warm indeed. The tasting was actually really fun, we learned about colour, body, nose, palate, and finish. The entire time I was thinking how excited I was to apply these traits to beer tasting (yes even when surrounded by extremely high grade Scotch, I think of beer). The coolest trick was swirling the glass and being able to tell the alcohol content based on the thickness of the trails left on the side of the glass. We had a contest based on scent jars which were passed around, where the jar had a number and you had to write down what the scents were. Apparently if you score 14 or above you are in the top 5% of super smellers in the world, I scored a 13. Four people scored a 14, then they had a quiz based on information we had been given about the different breweries. After it was over I overheard all 4 of them talking about how they just lied and put down the max points for each answer. It made me wonder if I had actually scored higher than I realized since I hadn’t cheated. After that the tasting began, which resulted in a lot of burning, especially the 3rd Scotch, which was 83% alcohol, yup. What was really funny, is that two people in our group don’t normally drink, both girls, and they got absolutely wasted, both puking in fact. I’m not sure why they drank it, must have been peer pressure or something.

In addition to my glass, which looks like one of the four above, I got to take home to little bottle of Scotch seen in the background. It was brewed on site, I doubt I’ll ever drink it, I’m not quite manly enough to drink straight Scotch (which apparently is the only way your supposed to drink it in Scotland). After our Whiskey experience was over, we had about 45 minutes before dinner, which I passed in St. Giles Cathedral, then we met up again and walked to David Bann, a vegetarian restaurant. At this point I must digress into a DIS rant. DIS spends exorbitant amounts of time asking you if you have allergies, are vegetarian, vegan, etc. But they 90% of the time they ONLY feed you vegetarian food. By the end of our time in Scotland most of the guys were going out after dinner to get some kind of meat. Now I don’t mind vegetarian meals, as long as they are filling, but David Bann was not. However, it was still better than the Pink Olive, because DIS bought everyone one free drink, so I naturally got a Scottish beer called Grozet, which was made with Gooseberries and was actually awesome. The main course was good, but just way too small, I wasn’t even close to being full. Afterwards they brought us an awesome chocolate souffle that was absolutely amazing and almost made up for the grass shavings they fed us for dinner. After dinner almost everyone headed back to the hotel, either to drink before going out to drink, or to get real food, or to get ready for an early bed since tomorrow was our last, and earliest day. On the way back a group of DIS students almost got into a physical altercations with a group of Scottish kids (yes 20 year olds arguing with 12 year olds) on the bus, I laughed quite heartily at the stupidity of both sides, but at least the kids had youth as an excuse. Afterwards everyone talked about how “kids in America would never do that” to which I laughed, because I have never heard anything more wrong in my entire life. I didn’t bother obtaining free beers from the fellow students as I had the night before, I went to my room and got some sleep, after watching hilariously bad UK television of course.

Scottish Tidbit of the Day: The Haar

So earlier in this post I mentioned the Haar, you may have wondered what in the hell that is. Well, as it probably became obvious, its fog. What makes it so special? Well, it Scottish fog, so there. In actuality it did seem to be heavier than the fog I am used to, and it really seemed to blanket the landscape more. Its sort of became Scotland’s trademark weather and its actually really pleasant to be out and about in as long as its not raining while Haarin’. If you want to be specific, its actually a sea fog, but it goes much further inland in Scotland than in most areas of the world due to the countries location in regards to atmospheric changes. It really adds some character to the landscape, and truth be told I probably looked more forward to the Haar than I did the sun. I can’t vouch for it in the winter when it comes inland and then freezes all over everything, but according to the locals Winters aren’t normally really that bad in Scotland. So next time you are talking to someone about how bad the fog was, be sure to tell them that the Haar was so thick you couldn’t see to walk. It should get an interesting reaction, unless you are in Scotland, then they will just make fun of you for being a sissy boy.

-Taco

Scotland – Day 3

July 4, 2012 by Taco

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

So its the 4th of July.. here in Denmark that means..

Having gotten my 4th of July festivities out of the way. On to Scotland! (Though to be fair I am going to the Bishop’s Arms bar tonight for beer, and a group of us might be going to get some BBQ which will be eaten while listening to this, I must at least try to celebrate.)
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By the third day of my Scottish adventure, the weather had completely changed over to the infamous drizzle and grey skies of lore. Luckily the pouring rain of Tuesday was gone, and wouldn’t return until Friday. Wednesday began much in the same way Tuesday had, with a big hearty breakfast at the hotel. This time around I tried more haggis, but passed on the bloody sausage, though I did eat like 4 of the veggie sausages. We had a fairly long day planned, and after breakfast we all met in the lobby of the hotel where we boarded a bus bound for Fife, a region in Scotland. Our bus driver was really awesome, and seemed to alternate between tour guide and driver. He had a lot of fun stories about the things we passed as we were leaving Edinburgh, which included passing by the park were gold was invented. St. Andrews is the famous home of golf, but according to him (and I’ve found sources to back him up) golf’s true home is the park below.

Its nothing too fancy, but then again, neither is golf if you really think about it. We also passed by the new home of J.K. Rowling, though I was on the wrong side of the bus to get any photos of it. From what I could tell it looked like your standard billionaire’s house, if there is such a thing. As we proceeded out into the suburbs, he showed us his brother’s house and then told us about his crazy wife and their crazy kids all of which were doomed for prison and how she was a complete psycho and his brother was totally incapable of controlling them. He said all this while laughing and insert comically jests from time to time, as I mentioned, dark self depreciating humor. I can’t think of one time in America I’ve heard someone make fun of mental illness, juvenile delinquency, and a crumbling family all in once sentence. As we reached the Firth of Forth, a branch of the River Forth, which separates Edinburgh from Fife. On this spot is the famous Bridge of Forth, which was constructed in 1890, was the UK’s first steel structure, and is still the 2nd longest single cantilever bridge in the world.

I tried to get a picture of it, but I’m just not good at taking photos inside of a bus, the people and the glass seem to mess with my shots at every occasion. After that we passed into Fife, and saw the foundations for what is apparently the initial stages of construction for what will be the longest bridge in the world. According to our driver the bridge is a financial nightmare and most likely will never be completed. But Fife was my first time out into the lowlands country side, and the views did not disappoint, though my ability to photograph them did. I can basically sum them up pretty nicely though, it was either a small town, sheep, or roundabouts. I saw more sheep in Scotland than I have in my entire life up to this point, and the same thing can be said for roundabouts. The countryside started off pretty flat as seen below, but we eventually got into the very, very bottom of the foothills of the highlands.

So where we we headed? We were bound for the Playfield Institute, which is located on the grounds of the former Stratheden Hospital, an insane asylum. Sounds nice and pleasant right? Well actually it was, the asylum was always a very progressive asylum, so there were few of the horror stories we’ve come to expect from 19th century mental health facilities. The Playfield Institute itself was across from the asylum, located in a former juvenile center (since kids are crazy, you know), but unlike its grounds predecessors the institute is devoted to much more happy fare. They are part of a nationwide effort to make the Scottish people more happy, as apparently they are depressed. They do this through a variety of training methods for teachers, management, counselors, etc. They also focus on children, with an entire section of the building being devoted to child research. We spent about five hours there, doing some of the activities that normal clients would do, ranging from Qigong, to blowing bubbles, to drawing pictures, to staring at a flower. Despite the relatively mundane descriptors above, everything was actually really cool. My favorite activity being one where we associate positive thoughts with candies, then eat them in the order of how important they were to us. This all obviously ties into Positive Psychology, and our primary focus was on the different methods employed in Denmark vs. Scotland, since apparently the Danes are so happy.The coolest part of the institute was their meditation rooms, little zen rooms that employees and clients alike can enjoy through the day. The grounds and the whole institute were actually pretty cool, and I’m glad we went, the five hours went by faster than expected. The lunch full of traditional Scottish fare helped pass the time as well 🙂

After leaving the institute, we boarded the bus again, and heard more stories about various places we were passing through. Including the story of Abercrombie (of Abercrombie & Fitch Fame). Turns out Abercrombie is actually a tiny little village of about 15 people, and the person who left it never came back, but they did use the name when they became rich. We also saw the caves where Alexander Selkirk, the real-life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe lived after he decided that he hated people after being stranded on an island for so long. Our destination was the small town of Elie, situated on the coast of Fife against the North Sea. Our academic mission for the day, and the entire trip actually, was over. We were headed to sea to go kayaking. As we approached Elie we got a glimpse of where we would be getting very wet, and very cold in the near future.

Now, what follows is limited solely to my recollections, because picture evidence does not exist. I had hoped to be able to take my camera out while kayaking, but a couple of things stopped me. First off, the water, its kind of a sea, so this is self explanatory. Second, the water, it was also starting to rain, so 360 degrees of water is sort of an issue. Third, its not my camera, its Meem’s, had it been my own camera I might have been more willing to risk its death. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t take the camera because of how much work kayaking turned out to be, I don’t think its plastic bag I brought along would have helped much in the end. So, since I can’t provide any picture of me kayaking, here is a shot of one of the areas were I paddled around.

My kayaking adventure started off with obtaining a wet suit, not to be mistaken with a dry suit that actually keeps the cold water away. I was given a suit, then we all marched over to the meager changing facilities, which amounted to about 1′ of space to change for each person, and zero privacy. It was much worse for the girls though, as they had the same amount of space with three times the people, so I can’t complain too much. I hadn’t brought a swimsuit, because I completely air-headed it, though no other guy had one either. This meant that I donned only my skivies and a wetsuit as we went to the beach to get the kayaks, more on that later. When we got to the kayaks, I immediately pounced on one of the singles, because I wanted to be alone in this endeavor. That was a decision I initially regretted, but later came to be thankful for. On the beach there were three kinds of kayaks, single ocean kayaks, double ocean kayaks, and single river kayaks (this is the kind you are probably imagining in your head right now). There was also one teeny-tiny sailbot, which held two people, I passed on that one. Me, having never kayaked before, and wanting to be in a single, picked one of the river kayaks. In turn, this meant that when I hit the water I endlessly paddled into circles despite my best efforts to replicate the kayakers I have seen on TV. Eventually I figured it out, only to find that rather than go over the top of the waves like the ocean kayaks, my kayak cut straight into them and subsequently went underwater like a frigging submarine. Apparently the design of a river kayak does not yield good results in open water with large waves, I did not learn this until it was far too late. They only brought them out because we were such a large group and all the ocean kayaks would be used up. Me being me, I passed up multiple offers by the instructors to change boats, and after about 30 minutes I was out-paddling everyone, including the double sea kayaks. I seem to have an affinity for all things water related, its a shame that I haven’t found a way to incorporate this into my life more than I have.

After about two hours of kayaking, I was completely soaked, thanks in no small part to my kayaks burning desire to explore the bottom of the sea. We had a race back, and I beat everyone by a fair margin, which impressed the lead instructor quite a bit given that I was in a river kayak. He didn’t believe me that I had never done it before, but I seem to get that a lot when it comes to water related stuff. After bringing my kayak to the beach, the lead instructor pointed to a distant pier and told me to go jump off of it. At this point I was the only one there, having beaten everyone back, so I asked him how deep it was, he responded with “deep enough”.. oh so reassuring. However the burn of curiosity was in place, and I headed over to the pier. I was stopped by another instructor, who told me I needed to wait until he asked the lead instructor as apparently at certain times of the day it is too shallow and I would splatter all over the bottom. The lead instructor reconfirmed that it was “safe” to jump, and by this time a few other guys and one girl had joined me. We were all pretty nervous, given the precarious situation we were in. This was a full sized pier, so think of that height, but make the water “deep enough” then prepare yourself to plummet into it, and oh yeah, make the water as cold as you can imagine. After people started to back off, I decided I would be the guinea pig for great justice and I just went for it. It was a long, long, fall and I hit the water like a ton of bricks, and sank.. and sank.. sank.. until my foot hit the squishy mud of the sea floor, and then I rebounded back to the surface. A quick thumbs up revealed to the other students that I was ok, and then I realized that I was freezing to death. I climbed the slippery metal ladder back to the top, and watched as the others jumped in, but the majority never made the jump, I can’t say I blame them too much, it was very high, and very cold.

Now, remember how I said I had a wet suit and my underwear? Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that. See I had no spare clothes, and there were no towels for anyone to use. So most people were drenched with no clothes to change into, and we were drenched in salty sea water. This led to a choral rendition of “Free Ballin” (a wet DIS student rendition of “Free Falling” by Tom Petty) as no one had any underwear to use and just carried on without. We boarded the bus, and it stank to high heavens, which resulted in a lot of complaining by the girls, it may sound sexist but its 100% fact. They then complained (also all girls) about wanting coffee, which resulted in our female DIS attendant convincing the bus driver to take us to McDonalds, which in turn resulted in about a 45 minute stop so they could have their precious coffee. Needless to say I’m still a little bitter.

That night everyone was so tired that we just ate dinner at the hotel’s bar, which was probably really expensive, but I don’t even remember how much it cost exactly, I’m thinking around 7 pounds for a sandwich. After that I played beer pong for the first time in my life, then learned how to open a beer bottle with just a window ledge and my hand. After leaving the partiers behind, I watched a little more UK television, which tries so hard to copy US television that its a little sad. I fell asleep to South Park, then was later woke up by my roommate coming back late from drinking, and no one in the world was surprised. All in all it was an awesome day, despite a lot of frustrating situations. My first time kayaking was in the North Sea of the cost of Scotland, I doubt many can say that.

Scottish Tidbit of the Day: Roundabouts

Ok, so maybe this isn’t exclusively Scottish, I imagine its a UK thing, and really even a European thing. But they love their roundabouts here. For those of us in America who can barely understand a single lane roundabout, imagine a four lane roundabout going in the opposite direction, yeah, they exist. Try as I might, I was unable to fully understand all the signs and road markings in regards to roundabouts while in Scotland. Granted, I never once drove, which is probably a good thing, but I spent a lot of time riding, and still couldn’t figure it out. While driving on the other side of the road didn’t really bother me, I think the crazy taxi rides in Nassau got that out of my system really fast, the signage was almost alien. As we left Edinburgh I would guess we went through at least 15 roundabouts, some of them branching off of other roundabouts, so yeah, roundabouts on top of roundabouts. If that wasn’t enough, some roundabouts had different signs than the others, which really threw me off. Had I had the time to set and watch one for awhile I probably would have got the hang of it, but just flying through them in buses doesn’t give much of a chance for learning the method of the chaos. Some things I just couldn’t figure out on my own, such as the jagged white lines on a road, and so I had to ask. The driver acted surprised that I cared about such things, which kind of surprised me, I figured lots of people would ask, perhaps I’m just weird like that. Below you can see a sign for a small roundabout we encountered just outside the town of Kellie, in Fife. And 13 degrees Celsius is 55 degrees Fahrenheit, just in case you wondering, this was mid-afternoon on June 27th.

-Taco

Scotland – Day 2

July 2, 2012 by Taco

So today was a big day in my Positive Psychology course, as we had to do the first part of the assignment which accounts for 50% of our grade. The assignment basically turned us into novice counselors, or “coaches” for about 30 minutes each. We took turns being a coach, a client, and an observer. It was pretty lengthy once you factored all that in, plus the 2 hours of regular class we had. I volunteered to be the coach first in our group, and the coach is undoubtedly the hardest position. You have to coach your client based on certain guidelines and plan a positive intervention for them. As a client you just talk, no real issue there, I spoke about my frustrations with my leg injuries, and how to be more positive about it, the client also gives brief feedback to the coach. The observer.. well.. observes, then gives detailed notes/feedback to both the coach and the client. I now have to take all this experience and notes and go write an evidence based research paper that gives a custom tailored plan for my specific client. It has to be APA style and contain a lot of experimentally based assertions. Since I have never used APA before, and have no working knowledge of psychology, this is going to be a rough paper. I also have to simultaneously work on a group project, which is 25% of the grade. If any characters look weird in the above section, its because I am on a stupid Danish keyboard, as I am waiting on my group members in the library. Anyways.. on to Scotland!
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My first full day in Scotland started quite nicely. I woke up nice and early and was quite excited to use areal shower for the first time in over a month. Additionally, the breakfast at the hotel was exceptionally good (for a hotel). As I mentioned before, Chancellor’s Court is a residence hall most of the time, and as such has its own cafeteria. Now while I cannot vouch for the price of the food, as it was already factored in to our lump DIS price, the quality and quantity were quite nice. It was setup like a traditional continental breakfast, however there was much more food, including none other than haggis. Now I had been jiving to try haggis from the instant I landed in Scotland. I do believe you can safely say that I was the only person with such a mindset. Naturally I tried it at my first opportunity, and I’ll describe it in more detail in the tidbit of the day below. Additionally, I found these veggie sausage things that would become the staple of my breakfast diet for the entirety of the week. I normally don’t go crazy over vegetable-meat-clones, but these were amazing.

After breakfast we headed out for our first academic venture of the trip, which basically amounted to going to a lecture. We set out on foot towards our destination as apparently it was close enough to not need to use the buses, I think this would be true if you weren’t trying to navigate with 31 people. As we left the hotel behind I caught this nice view.

As we proceeded into the city, several people were almost hit, and even more were honked at in rage. I found this quite humorous to be honest, apparently some people didn’t grasp the whole “opposite side of the road” thing too well. Once we got to campus, which is so spread out and scattered that I never did truly understand where campus actually was we walked by the end of a graduation ceremony. I thought it was pretty cool, especially since they don’t drive around screaming with wailing sirens. Or perhaps they do, but I never saw or heard it.

After this we found the place we needed to be, well no, the professor we were going to listen to found us. You see, in typical DIS fashion, they had no idea where they were actually going other than the name of building. Yes, a name of building does you so much good when you have no idea where that building is within an 8 block radius. We asked people, and no one had any idea what we were talking about, as it turns out they even had the name of the building wrong. Luckily, whilst we were aimlessly wandering around, the professor, Dr. Thin, saw us and came and rescued us. His lecture was a little dry, he wasn’t bad himself, but lets be honest, I didn’t come to Scotland to sit in class for 2 hours. Ok, so technically that is part of the reason I am here, but I’ve made it pretty obvious I only chose this class because it came to Scotland, not because I have any interest in the subject matter. So we had a lecture, I’ll skip the details, nobody cares. After lecture we headed to lunch, which was way too soon, as it had only been about 2.5 hours since everyone had engorged themselves on the breakfast. In addition to everyone not being that hungry, it would turn out to be the worst meal of the entire trip. We ate at a place called “The Pink Olive” seen on the corner below.

I’m generally pretty favorable towards food places, being the unpicky eater of all things that I am. However there was a trifecta of things that really fouled up the experience. The least annoying thing was the food itself, it was just pretty bland. Nothing was Scottish, the only thing even UK centric was the first course of tomato soup, which they seem to love here. The main dinner was cheap pasta, and the dessert was cheap ice cream with nothing on it. The second factor was that it was too small to hold 31 people, so we were mashed in like sardines, which meant it was hot. The biggest factor, was our absolute beotch of a waitress. She was Romanian, she barely spoke English, and she was rude as hell. At one point she literally tossed the bottles of water onto the table knocking over glasses and baskets of bread, then walked away. She complained about everything, and eventually I got so tired of her crap that I followed her into the kitchen and got us silverware myself, since she couldn’t be bothered to do it. So yeah, after my Human Trafficking course talking about Romanians being some of the biggest thieves and human traffickers in Europe, plus this encounter with the worst waitress I have ever met (Congratulations old lady at the Denny’s in Bloomington, you have been usurped as worst server of my life), I don’t have much good to say about Romania, so I’ll say nothing at all 😉

That rant aside, the rest of the day was really good. We hopped on a bus, which was the wrong bus (Thank you DIS), until I, yes me, figured out the right bus to get on to get us to the Mahabodhi Buddhist Centre. This was another academic portion of the trip, and it was the thing I was looking forward too most. Unfortunately since we were late due to DIS error, we lost almost an hour of our time. The time we did have was awesome though, we learned a lot about Buddhism, and their specific tradition, New Kadampa. Then we learned different meditation techniques, none of which I was good at. I just kept starting to fall asleep. Apparently my mind doesn’t has difficulty with stillness (And the sky is also blue, fyi), but I really enjoyed the experience nonetheless. The downside was that the group was larger than what they normally deal with, so some of us had to sit in chairs rather than on the little floor cushions. Naturally I was one of those in the chairs, which made it really hard to do some of things we were being guided to do. During the third session I actually think I was meditating for about 10 seconds at one point, which is probably the longest I’ve ever done in in my life.

As mentioned we were late, but also we had to leave early, which further cut down our time. This is because the DIS people had vastly overestimated their navigational abilities and thought that we could return to the Mary King’s Close tour by 5pm. Wrong. Truth be told we weren’t that late, but we were late, luckily the group that took our spot was small, so we were still able to split up into two groups.

The good news about being split into two groups, is that it gave the second group about 25 minutes of free time. I immediately volunteered to wait and literally sprinted over to St. Giles cathedral as I was quickly becoming obsessed with the place. Fortunately it was entirely free, you could pay for a guide, or an audio guide, or a book, but I decided to just be ignorant and admire the church itself. Most of my pictures were really dark, as you had to pay to be able to use flash, I didn’t really understand, you could take pictures for free, but flash cost money. I suppose its because flash can do damage to stuff, regardless, I went the free and darker route. While this meant some of the pictures are blurry, I actually think it captured the church better, as this Gothic cathedral was very dark on the inside, which was quite awesome actually.

There were quite a few people interred in the cathedral, but as I didn’t have a guide book or anything I had no clue who most of them were. Nor did I really know what anything was, that didn’t stop me from appreciating the church though. The stained glass was undoubtedly the best I have ever seen with my own eyes, and there was so much of it. The tombs were also masterfully carved, though I wish I knew more about Scottish history, since as mentioned, I had no idea who they were.

What’s really cool about St. Giles cathedral is that it is the site of the beginning of the Scottish Reformation, lead by John Knox. This reformation, like others, was basically the Scottish people giving a big “feck you” to the Church and Crown, which came after the King decided they had to pray to him in addition to God. Well, people don’t like to be told how to practice their faith, it just never works out well. In Scotland violence actually ensued, but in the end the people won, which actually changed the format of Presbyterian Churches worldwide (St. Giles is the mother church of Presbyterianism). Interestingly enough, John Knox, the famous clergyman of it all, didn’t want a shrine built in his honor when he died. He didn’t want to become an idol, he wanted people to remember God, not him. So he was buried in simple marker in the cemetery next to the cathedral, which looks like this today.

Yes, the leader of the Scottish Reformation, and one of the most important figures in Presbyterian history is now buried under a parking lot. As the governmental buildings grew up around the church, so did the need for parking spaces. All of the bodies were moved from the cemetery, except one, John Knox. His only request upon death was that he be buried next to St. Giles, so they honored it by leaving him there. A small gold plaque now marks the spot, its in the middle of parking space 23, if you were curious.

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

After that, I noticed I only head about 3 minutes left, so I sprinted back over to the tour. So, what exactly is Mary King’s Close? Its not an area where they used to wall, or close up people with the plague, that’s a common urban legend (the Scots are not that mean). So, for starters, here is a picture of the sign, since you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside because A. They wanted to sale you one, and B. Because its private property and the owner has said no pictures.

Ok, so a Close is basically the name for a “street” in medieval & Renaissance Edinburgh. It was called a close because it was very tight and cramped and well.. close. The buildings were up to 14 stories tall, and cram packed full of tiny rooms with low ceilings, and those rooms were even further packed with about 10 people per room. And when I say packed, I mean packed, these rooms were maybe about the size of my apartment’s living room, and the ceiling was way lower. These buildings were essentially right on top of each other, and they even descended underground. Needless to say, the bubonic plague had a gay ole’ time in Edinburgh. But anyways, the result of this, is that most of the original underground portions of the closes are still there. The above ground portions have almost entirely been removed. There are a few that have been renovated, including the one where Robert Burns lived (The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley,). Now, not all closes were scum-pits, in fact some of the houses in the closes could have been quite nice. Normally the richest person in a close was what it was named after. In this case, Mary King, a wealthy woman had this particular close named after her. All that remains in the underground portion, which unfortunately did not contain Mary’s house, as the rich liked to have daylight and more space, which the underground areas did not have. What makes Mary King’s close so important is because they literally built town hall right over it. In fact, someone even lived there up until 1987, until he finally moved out, but only after being paid some exorbitant fee. Because its right under town hall, its very well preserved, so naturally they turned it into a tourist site. The tour was actually pretty cool, though I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is spooked easily. They’ve turned it into a pseudo-ghost tour, but its mainly about the history. Other tours take you to even older, darker closes, and they are all about ghosts, but I prefer real stories myself. All in all it was actually a pretty cool tour, our guide was exceptionally good, as he was role playing a merchant from the 1600s. He really liked to give people a hard time (in good fun), but seemed quite impressed when I corrected him on something he said about the plague doctors.

After the tour I decided to break free from DIS for the today and headed out into the city once more. It was at about this time that the skies, which had turned grey around 3pm, decided to break open with my first real British Isles rain. Now, of course this would happen when I left my umbrella at the hotel room. I also didn’t have a rain coat, or a poncho because I forgot it at home. So, I got soaked to the core, I mean I was literally more soaked than I think I have ever been before. I might as well have jumped into a pond, it would have yielded the same results. Once it started raining, the temperature dropped, eventually getting to the point where I could see my breath. However, I was thrilled by the city I kept on trucking, I was already soaked, so why bother stopping now? I was getting hungry by this point, but I wanted to see something in the distance before I got some food. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was big, and it looked nifty. So I headed towards it, this is what it was.

It was actually a huge monument to Sir Walter Scott, the famous Scottish novelist, poet, playwright, etc. It was absolutely awesome, as are most Gothic structures. I couldn’t find much on the monument itself, other than it was in remembrance of Scott, and had been built in 1846. I later learned from a local that its frequently under restorative work and hidden by scaffolding due to its intricate nature, so I was glad I actually managed to avoid some construction for a change. After departing from the monument I saw something on a hill in the distance that I could swear was the Olympic Rings, turns out that is exactly what it was.

Apparently they were just placed here earlier in June, as part of the 2012 London games and celebrating the torches path through Scotland down into England. Also apparent, the locals seem to hate them. Even as I was taking this picture someone told me that they were “a bunch of rubbish.” I guess they don’t like them being near the castle, as they like it the way it is and they also don’t like the Olympic rings being in Scotland for an English Olympics. Now, he could have just been grumpy, but I’ve found a few news reports online that seem to confirm his sentiments. I however, liked the rings, if only because they made a good picture, though they did stand out quite a bit in the otherwise dark and Gothic city. After seeing the rings, I headed to a cheap resteraunt where I had some sort of cheap chicken wrap thing, combined with an IRN BRU, the official soda of Scotland. After sitting there for awhile, and literally leaving a puddle of water on the floor beneath me, I headed back to the hotel where I got a good laugh out of the Scottish TV ads for local businesses. They are just as bad in the States, but they are so much more comical when the announcer is shouting in a gruff Scottish accent about the awesome deals at some used car dealer.

Scottish Tidbit of the Day: Haggis and IRN BRU

So, naturally, one of things you have to do while in Scotland is to try haggis. Most of us have at least a general idea of what haggis is. But I will give you the details you so desire here. I think the best way to describe came from the mouth of a Scottish woman herself:

“You take a nice tasty sheep, then you butcher it, then you take all the lovely chops and cuts and delicious bits of meat and sit them aside, you won’t be using them. You then take all of the entrails, including the heart, liver, and lungs and mince them up into a paste. You then add a mixture of herbs, spices, salt, and all sorts of other bits to your liking, then shove them in the stomach of the sheep. You then cook this for a few hours, slice the stomach open, and enjoy your piping hot stomach paste.”

Thus were the words of our tour guide, to which she followed with “But its actually really good as long as you don’t know whats in it!” ..as I mentioned yesterday, interesting sense of humor. So, even after this lovely description I still wanted haggis. Well, I had it the next morning as mentioned above, and it was actually pretty good. It tastes almost exactly like liver pate, maybe organs all taste similar. Its not something I would eat tons of, but then again I like gizzards and I wouldn’t eat tons of them either. What I did not like was the black pudding, also known as blood sausage, also known as congealed blood mixed with floor sweepings. I can eat most anything, but black pudding hit my upper limits, so I couldn’t finish the slice I had, though I did give it the ole’ college try.

And what goes with haggis? Well, yes, beer of course. But what else? IRN BRU, the official soda of Scotland and largely unknown in the US drink of pure awesomeness. It was really good. It sort of tasted like.. Sunkist mixed with Mt. Dew mixed with Red Bull. Now that might not sound appealing if you aren’t Taco, but for me it sounds very good. I unfortunately never was able to pair IRN BRU directly with haggis, but I consumed enough of each to make up for this short-coming. The downside to IRN BRU is that it contains ingredients not approved by the FDA and therefore cannot be easily obtained in the US. I was told a modified version is in very limited markets in the US but its not as good (New Coke anyone?). The good news is that I drank a lot, and also brought 2 back to Denmark with me. The first one didn’t survive the first night, but I’ve packed the second one away to share with SB in Denmark. Sorry everyone else, but you’ll just have to imagine its orangey Scottish awesomeness. It is seen here in a can, I normally had it in the bottle as they seemed to be easier to find for some reason.

-Taco

Scotland – Day 1

July 1, 2012 by Taco

As I write this, it is currently 72 degrees outside, quite possibly the warmest day since I came to Denmark. Its also very sunny, I should probably be outside, but there’s some stuff I need to do before I have to meet my group at six, writing this post being one of those things. So, without further adieu, lets recall my Scotland trip!
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My trip for Scotland began at 7:15am on June 25th. The Scotland trip was actually the last study trip to leave (and also the first to come home, which was a blessing in disguise). Most of the groups had left on the 24th, and the few that were left on the 25th had flown out even earlier than us. Our flight wasn’t until 12:15, but they wanted us to meet at the airport at 9:30, which really isn’t that out of line for a group of 31 people I suppose. I had managed to fit a week’s worth of stuff into the small backpack that DIS gave us on day one, this came much to the chagrin of my fellow students who were lugging around suitcases that could have lasted me 6 months. Only having this small backpack would come to benefit me more times than I could count during the trip. For starters, it let me use the automatic check in machines (and thus secure a window seat) at the airport and completely skip the counters. So while I was able to sail straight through to security, which is so much smoother in Denmark than in the States, all my other travelers got to go to this:

This resulted in me getting through to the airside of airport about 25 minutes faster than everyone else, which meant I had 25 minutes more to sit and relax. We were flying out via Norwegian Airlines, a “budget” airline. To be honest I was a little concerned about this, having heard quadrillions of horror stories online about the likes of other budget airlines such as RyanAir, or EasyJet. However, I must say Norwegian Airlines were exceptionally pleasant for what they were. We actually had to get on a bus to ride to the plane, where we entered via two sets of stairs from the front and rear of the plane, which was way faster. The jet was a recently refurbished 787-800, and it was very clean. There are no “classes” on-board, its all economy class, its part of their business model. After DIS representatives had everyone freaked out about the size of European Carry-On compartments, they turned out to be at most 1-2″ smaller than the US equivalents. DIS being wrong once again, no surprise there. There is nothing free on Norwegian, no free checked bag, no free drinks, food, etc. Now DIS did purchase 1 checked bag for each of us, but I didn’t use mine, and didn’t fret much over the loss of the money I assuredly paid for. The flight was pretty simple, as it was a nice day. It was only about 1 hour and 50 minutes, which was far better than O’Hare to Copenhagen. As we approached Scotland the infamous sheet of clouds came forth, they literally formed a blanket over the landscape.

I was pretty stoked about this, I think I was the only person in the entire group excited about going to the “land of the misty cloud” and I wasn’t too much concerned about sunshine. Once we got under the cloud cover things were actually surprisingly sunny, and it wasn’t too long after that that we were touching down in Edinburgh Airport. The landing was smooth in my opinion, though later some of the people were complaining about it being rough. I suppose my flight from Andros to Nassau on a tiny plane in thunderstorm changed my definition of “rough.” Right before landing I was greeted with this view:

After we exited the plane, which didn’t involve any buses this time around, we headed inside the airport where everyone else had to wait for there bags while I got to go about my merry business. Of course this didn’t involve much because I was pretty much tethered to them by no real choice of my own. We boarded the chartered bus and headed for our “hotel.” Now, I say that with quotations because where we were staying is actually not a real hotel. It is called Chancellor’s Court, and it is a residence hall for the University of Edinburgh. During the summer session they convert it into a hotel, which basically involves adding a second bed to all the rooms, as doubles (or more) are not very common in Europe apparently. It was actually pretty decent, the room was about the size of your average budget hotel room in the states, and the amenities were probably just barely above what you would except for a budget hotel. What really made the place shine was its location, which was just below a part of Arthur’s Seat, a series of hills overlooking Edinburgh.

We didn’t have much time to doddle around, we got our rooms (and roommates) and then headed straight into downtown Edinburgh. Our meeting place was the Royal Mile, which is a straight located in the heart of the city. This street is headed by Edinburgh Castle at the highest end (Edinburgh is basically a huge hill), and the lowest end is Holyrood Palace, which is the residence of the royal family in Scotland. It is funny though, the Scots, unwilling to ever be compared to the British, actually made the street 1 mile and 7 yards, so that it would trump any British mile. This measurement is called a “Scottish Mile” and it is a real, officially recognized measurement, and it only exists in that one spot in the entire world. We were heading there for a guided walking tour, which I wasn’t overly thrilled about as normally I like to proceed at my own pace the first day or so. However, It was a really cool trip that took us to a lot of different places. We started just outside of St. Giles Cathedral, which is my new favorite church I have ever seen.

From there we headed to city hall, then to the base of Edinburgh Castle, then to the Grass Market, then to Greyfriar’s Graveyard. Now, it might seem like an interesting choice of location, a graveyard. Well, it was actually probably one of the most historically interesting areas of the tour (aside from the Castle, but that is for another post). We learned a lot about the different people buried there, including a famous dog “Bobby” who still gets presents left at his grave to this day. We also learned about the Edinburgh Witch Hunts, and how they would use the ashes from the witches to make mortar, which actually was used to construct the wall around the perimeter of the graveyard, morbid stuff, but really cool. While in the graveyard we saw the graves of several people who J.K. Rowling used their names in the Harry Potter series, including Thomas Riddle, Moody, McGonagall, Granger, etc. Interestingly enough, right next to the graveyard is a private school which served as the inspiration for Hogwarts. Most of this stuff I would have probably walked right by without the tour guide, as to be honest I had forgot that Rowling lives in Edinburgh. The graveyard is also on the official list of most haunted places on Earth. Now, I’m not a big ghost person, at least not in the traditional sense of ghosts, but the stories behind the ghosts were really interesting. Most primarily the ghost of Sir George MacKenzie, a bitter old corrupt lawyer who now attacks as a malignant haunt in the graveyard and beyond after his tomb was disturbed in the 1990s. I will admit, peering through the windows on the door made my hair stand up a little bit.

After the tour was over, we were back at the Grassmarket, which was actually the spot of one of the biggest sets of gallows in Edinburgh. There is even a inscription on the ground stating the last person to be publicly hanged there. The market is surrounded by pubs, tons of pubs, many of them from the 1800s or earlier. They include such names as “The Last Drop” which was given this morbid title in 1817 as a play on words, since people were hung right outside. Each pub had its own story, be it a haven of the two infamous Scottish serial killers William Burke and William Hare, or being formerly owned by a woman who was hung and survived. We ate at the Beehive Inn, which would actually turn out to be the best meal the entire time we were in Scotland (and this wasn’t just my opinion, everyone seemed to agree).

The Beehive Inn doesn’t (at least to my knowledge) have any crazy murderous history, but it is over 400 years old, though it hasn’t had that name for that duration, it has been an inn the entire time. The food was traditional British Isles fair, and therefore was extremely good. After we finished dinner, which was probably the best food I’ve had the entire time I’ve been gone, rivaled only by the meals I shared with my visiting family, we headed off to another tour, called “Mary King’s Close,” which I wont discuss too much in the post. The reason for that being that DIS once again proved their inability to properly plan things, and they hadn’t reserved a tour. Now, it clearly states on both their website and over the entrance that booking for groups is required. 31 people is what I would call a group, but nope, no prior booking, so needless to say they couldn’t fit us in. We signed up for the next day, but had to go in two groups since we were so big. Clearly DIS doesn’t do their homework, but I already knew this.

After DIS’ blunder, I took to the streets with my hotel roommate to explore the city. The sun was still out and the clouds had departed, so it was a perfect day to walk around and I wanted to take advantage of it because I figured it was only a matter of time before the rain came (which turned out to be exactly what happened for the next 4 days). We didn’t really know where to go, and the map we had been given was really terrible, so we sort of just took off into the city. I saw a bridge, so we headed towards that, which I am really glad, since it lead to Calton Hill, a totally awesome spot. The walk there was pretty smooth, as all the signs being in English helped so much when using our sub-par map. I’m still not sure what the bridge was called, but it had a nice side view of the center-most part of Edinburgh.

As we progressed onwards, I saw a building that was part of the University of Edinburgh, they were closed by now but a small sign on the front of the building listed it as a clan resource center, I made a mental note of that and planned to come back another day. Keeping the tower at the top of the hill in site, we made our way there and were greeted by some absolutely awesome views as we started walking up the side of the hill. Thankfully it is a public park and there are trails, though they were sometimes not much more than old wood chips and mud. Regardless, the climb was pretty easy since it was so gradual, and even once I was just halfway up I was very glad I had went so far off the beaten path of the city center.

Once we got to the top there were several buildings up there, ranging from an old observatory, to an incomplete national monument, that will probably never be completed as its kind of being disregarded. I wasn’t really sure what the monument was as we ascending the hill, at first I could only see the top and thought it was some kind of old aqueduct, well it wasn’t an aqueduct but it was definitely old. Not ancient, but still old, as it was abandoned in 1829. It was a monument for the soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars, but today most people don’t seem to know much about its history, other than it is cool looking and its a popular hangout spot for local teenagers.

The top of the hill was fairly flat, with a few mounds here and there, each mound having its own building except for the far mound which had some sort of marker related to Greenwich Meridian Time, I couldn’t really figure it out and there was no information nearby or on the map. It was started to get late by this point, so we decided to start heading back to the city center, because we still had to catch a bus from there and tomorrow was going to be an early day. Walking down the other side of the hill, which faced the eastern part of city, gave some really cool views, of which I probably took far more photos than necessary.

After we got back into the city center, which was really only about 30-40 minutes of walking, I decided to head up through the Royal Mile a bit by myself. This turned out to be a really good decision as I encountered some drunk Scottish people who after finding out my last name gave me a free beer. I was needless to say quite happy about this, though I could barely understand anything they were saying as they were from Glasgow and they were drunk. While walking around enjoying my beer I game across a Scotch Distillery, which interestingly enough turned out to be place that our group would do Scotch tasting later in the week.

After that I got the bus, a double-decker which I of course sat on the top section of. The ride back to the hotel wasn’t very long, and luckily I knew which stop to get off at as DIS had given us no instructions in regards to the buses. Thankfully they did give us a day pass each day, but that was pretty much it. My roommate snored and talked in his sleep all night, reminding me of how incompatible I am with having roommates, but I still slept pretty well considering how long the day had been.

Scotland Tidbit of the Day: Dark Humor

Anyone familiar with the UK probably knows about how different their humor tends to be. Well, I’ve never been one who is too obsessed with British Humor, as I think a lot of it sucks to be honest, but the Scots generally impressed me with their humor styles. It tends to be extraordinarily dark and self-depreciating. Murders are explained in humorous lights, social issues approached with a tinge of dark morbidity, and they never miss an opportunity to tell you the most gruesome story they know. Some people in the group wondered why they were so down on themselves, but I didn’t see it that way at all. They seemed to have firmly embraced their cultural darkness and gray landscape, rather than try to play it off as something it is not. They also approach issues in a far more direct way than we do in the States and certainly more so than do the Scandinavian peoples. They are loud, they are rough, and they can be very, very mean but they are ok with that. They seem to inject a dark humorous slice into almost all commentary, and often you have to be very quick to catch it. I enjoyed the personalities of the Scottish people I met largely based on their affinity for morbid humor, in the end they come across as quite humble, you just have to know how to listen. Besides, the world isn’t always a happy place, why pretend it is?

-Taco

Scotland – Day 5

Scotland – Day 4

Scotland – Day 3

Scotland – Day 2

Scotland – Day 1

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