Encounter on the Royal Mile

When I wrote about visiting Edinburgh Castle, I forgot to mention who we met on the way in. William Wallace (Bravehart!) himself! Couldn't resist the photo opp:

Photos: Josh Montgomery 

after hours

You know you've done something right when you knock on the doors of a local bar 2 hours after last call (make that 3:30 in the morning), and the bartender welcomes you with a smile and a hearty, "It's the Americans!" 

Edinburgh College of Art campus

The tourists

One great thing about having visitors is the chance to check important Edinburgh visitor destinations off the list. Robin's brother and his friend are up from London this weekend so we spent yesterday exploring the Royal Mile, enjoying a yummy champagne lunch, and venturing up to Edinburgh's gem, the Castle.

We jumped on the 3pm tour but our guide was pretty flat, so we ditched her at St. Margaret's Chapel. Funny story: before leaving for Scotland, my parents played me the home videos from our UK trip in 1994, which included a day at Edinburgh Castle. My dad filmed our guide telling a story about how thrifty (stingy?) Scots fire cannons at 1 pm instead of 12 noon, as to save 11 shots. The guide yesterday told us the SAME EXACT STORY. 15 years hasn't changed much here at the Castle.

The reddish building with grid windows is Edinburgh College of Art! I recognized it first because of the yellowy green tree, which sits in the middle of campus. Notice the canon facing in that direction. If ECA existed 500 years ago, the kings would have easily attacked and destroyed the studios! Ah!!

After seeing the outside grounds, we went in this long hallway that led to the Crown Jewels. The crown, scepter, ruby ring, and so on, were thought missing for some 111 years, only to be found at the bottom of a chest, exactly where the last king had left them (duh). There were beautiful portraits on the walls the gradually turned into 3-D fake people. Kinda weird, Disney-esque, but all interesting and good fun. And the jewels were quite beautiful, as you can imagine (no photos were allowed). 

Castles are kind of exhausting. After the tour, we walked down to the University area known as Cowgate, and settled happily into a cafe called Under The Stairs, drinking tea and coffee and unwinding. From there, our walk home included an amazing sunset. 

Royal Mile 

We spent a nice evening home at the flat, eating bread and figs and prosciutto and manchego cheese purchased from the Cheesemonger on Victoria Street. We watched Antichrist, the newest film from Danish director Lars Von Trier (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark) which was... wow. Provocative and profound and often hard to watch, though with absolutely stunning cinematography throughout. 

We went to bed full and happy. Sigh ... another wonderful day in Edinburgh. 

Sushi party

On Friday night, my classmate Konomi had a handful of us to her flat for a sushi dinner. It was amazingly good. It actually turned into an international dinner, as Augustus (Athens) made a Greek salad and Madhuri (Bangalore) made curry with spices her mother packed her before leaving India. Andy, the only Scot, brought Stella Artois. I brought red wine and tangerines -- not very American, but the best I could find on my walk over. Megumi, also Japanese, offered crazy stories about her own Western Japanese traditions, which differed greatly from those of Konomi. Oh, and Konomi's boyfriend Miguel (Pais Vasco) offered some Spanish tunes on his guitar. 

Our hostess, Konomi

About to dig in - me, Andy, Madhuri, Konomi, Megumi

Madhuri, Megumi, Augustus, Konomi, me 

Andy gets real chopsticks

Andy was really impressed at the quality of the Japanese girls' family chopsticks, so Konomi gifted him a pair from a big box. He wasn't satisfied. He wants a pair printed with his Scottish clan's tartan.

Time for sake

After dinner

Post dinner serenade from Augustus. Listen here:

Trip to Dunbar

Here in Scotland, I am sponsored by the Rotary Club of Dunbar which meets every Monday night. As my host counselor is traveling this month, Peter and Jenny Armstrong have stepped in as my surrogate counselors until November. 

Me with Peter

Jenny and Peter Armstrong 

After Monday's meeting, I stayed at their adorable farmhouse and got another good taste of Scottish/Dunbarian hospitality. We stayed up chatting until around midnight, had a lot of laughs sharing stories about travel, service ideas, past scholars, Scotland v. Ireland, Protestant v. Catholic, Rangers v. Celtics, French v. Spanish in schools, sons v. daughters, hard v. soft boiled eggs, stuffy v. laid-back Rotary meetings, Scottish v. American dating, Ryan Air v. Easy Jet, whisky with water v. whisky with ice, etc. (For the record, I took both delicious drams of the Armstrongs' Benromach with water.)

Wonderful view from the breakfast patio

In the morning Jenny prepared a delicious "cooked" breakfast, which is to say, anything involving a frying pan, I think. Eggs, bacon, potato patty, toast. Delicious. Peter and I headed to a quick tour of the John Muir house in downtown Dunbar with some other Rotary affliates visiting from South Africa. Very informative tour. As I may have mentioned before, Muir is a Scot by birth, and spent some of his childhood here until his father and his "itchy feet" moved the family across the Atlantic. Once in North America, John got the itchy feet gene and walked a total of some 44,000 miles exploring our natural world.

One of his journal entries made me nostalgic for my own trips exploring California. He writes, "Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pushing onward we know not where." 

Another made me nostalgic for my family and childhood, "My first conscience memory is the singing of ballads and I doubt not they will be ringing in my ears when I lay dying."

A final entry just made me smile -- "It's always sunrise somewhere." 

dundee daytrip

I'll suggest that roadtrips get more interesting the more countries you've got represented in the car. Today's roadtrip was a blast. A handful of fellow ECA/MFA students drove up to Dundee where we saw some exhibits at Generator Projects gallery, Dundee Contemporary Arts museum, and on the campus of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. Dundee is one of those once-thriving, then-declined, now-remade-into-arts-community industrial cities. It sits above the Firth of Forth, and then above the River Tay, so involved going over 2 bridges which offer sweeping views.  

We also swung through St. Andrews, were we got out and saw the remains of the famous Cathedral. 

The day was so incredibly windy. So windy that they cancelled a (yawn) golf tournament in St. Andrews. I thought the wind was good fun, it made us laugh a lot, because all of us girls are on the tiny side and kept losing our balance and various articles of outerwear. 

Looking at the River Tay from the top of Dundee

Megumi 

Eli, Stuart, Megumi, Madhuri 

I really liked the drive. It was great to be in a car, on a roadtrip, passing beautiful things like rainbows and hay bales and fields of strawberries, sheep everywhere, gorgeous lighting, 80s hits on the radio, all with good company. While Eli (Athens) had a phone conversation in animated Greek, Megumi (Japan) giggled in wonder at the thought of curly fries, while Madhuri (Bangalore) talked about contemporary art in India with Stuart (Glasgow), our unofficial tour guide for the day, who occasionally cursed slow drivers in his scottish version of English (jaysus f**cken 'ell).