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Edinburgh Day 2

Edinburgh is amazing, I loooove it. The place smells like baked goods and sweets, it’s fairly easy to navigate since there are so many big landmarks, there is so much to do, people seem happy and active. Sure it has its problems, it has homeless folks and petty crime and is expensive like any other major city…but I really, really like it! Today I stopped by an old church called St. John’s near my hotel and the huge old graveyard attached to it with Edinburgh Castle behind, then to Ross Fountain, and walked down to Holyrood Palace. The actual palace is pretty typical, it felt like walking into Windsor Castle all over again, but the destroyed abbey remnants were pretty cool and spooky, both from inside and out.  Despite no rain in the forecast, it started pouring fast and hard in between peaks of brilliant sunshine leading to a series of beautiful, big rainbows while I was at Holyrood. I jumped into a ramen shop and ate while one bad rain patch passed through, it was pretty good ramen…mid-level, a little bland, but good on the stomach.  It’s funny, the British really don’t use salt all that much considering how many people they’ve historically killed for it.  Anyway, once the rain cleared I hiked up Calton Hill to watch the sunset, then decided to call it quits early because it was super windy and cold! I needed to get my hotel and rental car scheduled for tomorrow (pray for me driving in the UK for the first time) and buy some new shoes because the walking shoes I got are apparently not waterproof like I thought they were.  Good thing they have normal shoe stores here, like Skechers, so I got some waterproof boots.  Then I went back to the hotel to pack up for the big trip up to the Highlands!

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Edinburgh Day 1

I guess I was tired, since I slept until 8am before getting up and heading out.  I stopped at a cute coffee shop for a mocha then wandered over to a nearby church and headed to Edinburgh castle.  I ended up spending 4 hours at the castle, in part because it was gorgeous, but also because they have a military museum with family service and death records as well as a historical association that has researched over a million Scottish clan names.  Since I knew both Shelton and Booth are Anglo-Saxon names, I spent the better part of an hour just scouring through the records trying to figure out where my ancestors were primarily located.  Apparently, the Booth family were seafarers who often were lost at sea and were largely concentrated in the Aberdeenshire area, although they were located all over the region and were a combination of two huge families in the 12th-ish century.  There were a lot of military records to be found for the name Booth.  For Shelton I didn’t find that many, even though our name is of Scottish origin.  Turns out the Sheltons were big landholders and farmers in the Nottinghamshire area, and when people were encouraged to move to and occupy Ireland we packed up and went to Dublin and became government and law enforcement folks for a long time which is why we didn’t have much of a Scottish military presence.  It was all really interesting.  I also think I love Mary Queen of Scots, that lady had an attitude in a “big mood” way.  She openly criticized her husband and family, working her distaste for them into her needlework which is on display today.  It’s pretty funny, too bad she was ultimately betrayed by those same people and killed despite being a fair and beloved ruler of her people.  Anyway, after spending so much time at the castle I didn’t have time to go to the palace, so instead I wandered down the Royal Mile and ducked into the Angels with Bagpipes restaurant, a Michelin rated place, to try haggis neeps and tatties, a really good artichoke root based soup, and this local drink that was made from strong vodka, champagne and strawberry flavoring.  The weather decided it had no intention of clearing up, so after eating I wandered over to another graveyard and took in the spooky atmosphere before heading to my hotel to dry off and drop off my bag.  Then I headed back to Mercat circle to meet the tour guide to the underground catacombs around the former south bridge.  The tour was a perfect mix of informational and campy, and our guide Alex did a great job, it was really hilarious given the seriousness of the topic at hand.  The tour highlighted some of the killings, hangings, burnings, and the shitty way people generally lived back in the day including the poor conditions. Afterwards I trudged back to the hotel in the pouring rain and discovered that my shoes which I thought were waterproof are not, so add that to the list for tomorrow. I got my free pint at the hotel bar and went to bed after a hot shower to warm up.

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London to Edinburgh

I once again was up and at the coach station at 7:45am, but Expedia had the time wrong and it didn’t leave until 8:20am, which sucks because I could have stayed at the B&B and enjoyed a nice breakfast there.  Anywho, I grabbed a coffee and boarded a really neat vintage double decker bus for a tour around town.  Due to the climate protests all over central London our tour was altered and traffic was heavy, but we stopped at Buckingham Palace for a while then drove past the Eye of London, down Fleet Street, past St. Paul’s Cathedral, over the London and Tower Bridges amongst others, and then stopped at the Millbank Millennium Pier to catch a boat.  The boat tour was pretty quick, basically over to Tower Bridge and back, but offered wonderful views of Parliament, the Eye, Tower Bridge, Big Ben (covered and under construction until 2022 though I think) and everything else along the water.  Honestly, if I did it again I’d do it at sunset or at night, I bet that view is gorgeous.  Once we got back to the coach station I picked up my bags from the B&B and took the Victoria line to Kings Cross station.  Of course I needed a cheesy photo taken at Platform 9 ¾ and I sat and waited for my train.  Unfortunately, someone was hit by another train along our route and there were trespassers along another major route, so almost all of the trains were delayed or cancelled.  My original 3:30 train to Edinburg was delayed, then they loaded us in, then they kicked us off and cancelled it.  There was about an hour of confusion before I got confirmation that I could jump on any of the other trains that were running, so I jumped on the 4:30 train and crossed my fingers that I’d eventually get to Edinburg.  Fortunately I was sat next to two lovely people and we chatted and exchanged stories for a couple hours (mainly me talking, travelling solo I don’t get my daily words out!). A Dr. Eeyan Pepper stayed with me until Darlington and was a super nice guy, travelled lots himself and owns a place in Florida.  The second leg I was pretty much by myself so I plugged the headphones in and zoned out for the rest of the trip.  It was after 10pm when we finally arrived, so I scurried through the cold to my hotel about a mile away.  Yotel is in an old building but they completely modernized it, so everything is new and neon and very eclectic.  I was starving, so I went around the corner to KFC and got an interesting combo bucket including a chicken sandwich one (1) thigh piece, a weird salad, and fries. Then went back to the hotel and crashed.