Edinburgh Post 1

I'm finally getting to my post about Edinburgh!  My goal, again, is to post pictures and stories but not be concerned so much with timelines, as when I do that the posts tend to take FOREVER (not that it hasn't already taken a long time, since it's now been over a month since we've been home).

We flew into Edinburgh on Monday and left on Thursday, so this was the town we got the most amount of time in with the least amount of expectations and must-see items on our list.

I'm not sure if the more relaxed tone of this trip was the reason, or if it was the town itself, but Steve and I both agreed that Edinburgh was actually our favorite stop of the entire trip.  The town had such a fun, relaxed vibe to it!

One of the days we were there, we stopped at the National Museum, where we met Dolly the Sheep:

Apparently Edinburgh is known for their appreciation of education and has one of the oldest universities in the world there--during the Enlightenment, they gave themselves the nickname "Athens of the North."  Just because.  So of course several of their buildings and monuments from that era are built in the Grecian style, and they even have their own Parthenon!  I loved the whimsical nonsense of some of the things we learned about Edinburgh's history.

Dolly didn't seem to be all that impressed with us...

And then we played a timed puzzle.

It was geared towards children.

We still played it.

One of the things that I enjoyed about Edinburgh was the fact that we got to take several different walking tours of the Royal Mile and the Edinburgh Castle; Steve had scheduled two and we found two "free" walking tours that we decided to join sort of last minute...I put the word "free" in quotations because it turns out that the guides expected tips.  We had no cash the first time and it made it a little awkward when the tour was over and we just kind of, uh, left.

Oops.

One of the tours took us underneath Edinburgh (it's a fascinating city with a fascinating history that includes lots of witch hunts and ghost stories), where he told us stories of various haunts and ghosts that were rumored to stay there.

One of the rooms had tons of baby dolls lined up for one of the ghosts--a little girl.

It was freaky, and our flash was bright, but it was SO fun!

See the dolls?  Creepy....

The guide was actually freaked out at this part of the tour (he actually reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch's version of Sherlock Holmes, super bouncy and rather distracted but obviously intelligent), so he offered to let us stay in and take pictures and walk around as long as we liked, but he went back into the safer room.

There was definitely an odd feeling down there.  I'm not sure how much of it was the fact that we were underneath the city in an ancient tunnel, and how much of it stemmed from the stories/history (guides tend to kind of elaborate on history to make it more entertaining), but we didn't linger too long.

We also enjoyed walking through a couple of the ancient (I use that term loosely, being from a younger part of America) graveyards, including Greyfriar's Kirkyard, where J.K. Rowling got a lot of inspiration for some of the names used in Harry Potter!  We found a Peter Pettigrew, a McGonagall, and a Tom Riddle.

We also found a MacKenzie line, which was fun--Steve's maternal grandmother is a MacKenzie, so we looked for their various family graves.  There were several--I would love to go back some time and do a major family history trip for both of our families, as I know I have some Scottish ancestry, as well.

We enjoyed hiking through Edinburgh Castle, one of the oldest castles in Great Britain.  It was originally built on this site around 180 A.D., and as I was reading the end of the Book of Mormon at the same time, it struck me that this building is older than Moroni is.

Mind.  Blown.

Inside the castle--I loved the stories and the history there, but it was FREEZING that first day, so we didn't stay as long as I would have if it had been warmer.

The MacKenzie clan tartan:

Here is the covenanter's prison, where we learned about Bloody MacKenzie, a zealot who was in charge of basically running a concentration camp where the Jacobites (one of the reformist groups who wanted a restoration of the Catholic church) were kept in open-air prisons with little to no food until thousands of them died.

Heart-wrenching stories.  And yes, Steve is probably related to that guy...somehow.  I always knew there was a little evil in him somewhere, wink, wink.

Such a beautiful place.  I love old graveyards, they are so peaceful!

Each of these tombstones was so touching to me, because it represented so many different stories.  I was struck by how small each one of us is in relation to history, and yet how valuable and interesting our stories really are.

I would love to become a missionary in charge of taking pictures of tombstones for family history work someday; until then I have to content myself with just indexing when I get the chance, instead.

The picture of this next tombstone is sideways, but it belongs to a man named John Grey, about whom we heard a lovely story.

Because Edinburgh had one of the first medical communities where doctors were able to practice on human cadavers in order to learn more about human anatomy, body snatching and grave robbing were a booming business.  Greyfriar's Kirk hired watchmen to look over their kirkyard, and John Grey was one of them.

Because hanging out all night in a graveyard by oneself is creepy, John got himself a sweet little dog, whom he named Bobby.  Bobby and John were inseparable until John died two years later of tuberculosis.  As the story goes, John was buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard, and Bobby came with everyone else to the funeral.  However, after everyone else went home, Bobby stayed at his master's grave, despite everyone's attempts to lure him away with food and offers of shelter.  He became such an icon that the city ended up adopting him and giving him a collar and license so he wouldn't be put in the pound, and after 14 years of staying by his master's grave, Bobby ended up passing away and was buried just outside of the kirkyard, with a lovely tombstone honoring his story of loyalty and dedication to his master.

We saw his tombstone later.

We also saw what is guessed to be the inspiration for Professor McGonagall, in the Harry Potter books, the tombstone for William McGonagall.

Our lovely tour guide, Dove, told us that William was an aspiring poet, but regarded as one of the worst poets in history.  Despite his lack of skill, he pursued his dreams and even at one point scrimped enough to go across the ocean to America because on of his friends played a trick on him and told him he had become the poet regent of New York (a made-up position).  He came back a little chagrined, but never gave up on his dream, and after he died, his friends gathered together all of his poems and published them post-humously in a book.  

Apparently, they are very bad.  But it was still a fun story to hear.

We wandered about one evening and saw Holyrood Palace, which is where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland.

So beautiful!

Inside Edinburgh castle, again:

The street between the two is called The Royal Mile, and because our hotel was right next to it, we traversed this road quite often.

Here is part of the story of the Scottish crown jewels, which were quite lovely and inspiring to see, with a fascinating history behind them:

Of course, pictures in the actual room weren't allowed.

When we first got to Scotland, I was taken aback by how COLD it was.  It either snowed, sleeted, or hailed every day we were there, and so by the end of the first walking tour, we found a shop and got ourselves some wool winter-wear.

I loved the way we could pretty much always navigate through Edinburgh without getting lost.  The historical district, where we were staying, is very close to a grid system, and even when we went down some of the narrow "closes" (old pathways between the buildings), we could always figure out where we were by looking for the major landmarks.

The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling wrote much of Harry Potter--we stopped in but didn't eat anything, just looked at the graffiti and enjoyed the atmosphere for a bit.

One of the ghost tours we went on didn't end until about 11:00 or so, so to find a place to eat was a little tricky, but we eventually found a pub that was still open and serving food and stopped in.

At first, we thought the lighting was avant-garde, but then we realized they were just heat lamps.

Overall, we had much better experiences with food here in Edinburgh than we did in London.  I don't know if we just knew more of what to look for, or if the food just tastes better in Scotland than in London, but it was a nice change.

Me, sending a video to my sister so she can miss Portland....the vibe was fun and the food was DELICIOUS.  And there was a LOT of it--a refreshing change!


We also visited the Walter Scott Monument--205 very cramped steps up a circular stairway, but it was totally worth it!

The stone actually is sandstone, and it didn't start out that black color; the sandstone absorbed the pollution and soot from the air back when everyone still had coal or wood-burning stoves.

I LOVED it.

And yes, it was cold.

After we visited the Walter Scott Monument, we went over to the National Gallery, which was fun for me; I've never considered myself a huge art person (mainly because I haven't really studied it, so more out of ignorance than taste), but I was genuinely moved by some of the portraits we saw.  I feel that I'm often more touched when I know the stories behind the art.

We then walked over a mile to the National Museum in the rain, at which point I realized I couldn't find my phone and panicked.  We checked, double checked, and triple checked our pockets and bag, and then hustled back to the Gallery where the guard informed us that someone had found it in the bathroom and turned it in.

I'm so grateful for honest people, and was glad that instead of our entire trip being ruined, it just ended up being a panicky half-hour or so.

I honestly shouldn't be trusted with electronics.

Messing around at the Museum:

Don't touch it, Briar Rose!!

Sitting in the warm restaurant.  I laughed at how many restaurants had tables and chairs set up outside for people to eat at, because I never once saw someone voluntarily sitting outside to eat.  It was too cold and windy.

A full view of the Scott Monument--so gothic and dark looking, doesn't it just remind you of Maleficent's castle?

A gorgeous view of Edinburgh Castle...

Hanging out at the hotel while Steve does homework:

Eating out:

This was one of the nights I actually got gussied up.  It was a yummy restaurant, too, so win-win!

This same night, we were walking on the Royal Mile and passed the shoot for the new Avengers movie!  We had to send the boys a video, because we knew they'd be excited.

It'll be fun to see when it comes out how much we recognize.

A shot of our hotel room--this was by far our smallest hotel room, but still very nice.  And warm, which was important to me.

I forget how spoiled I am being a Westerner who is used to wide open spaces and large, open floor plans!  It was fun to see a different way of doing things, for sure.