Day 24: Guest entry--Mom!

Hi! We had 3 wonderful days in Edinburgh, although I never totally got my bearings there. We rode buses when we weren't walking, riding down narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings, and it was rare to see the hills around the city. But being surrounded by all the interesting architecture was also neat--churches and monuments and museums everywhere. And I couldn't leave Scotland without trying haggis. The form that shows up on menus is "haggis with neeps and tatties", which shows up as a tower with a large flat meatball sort of thing as the foundation, with a layer of mashed potatoes and a layer of shredded turnips on top, surrounded by a moat of gravy. Mine was topped with a sprig of rosemary. Best not to know what was in the "meatball". It tasted good, but I prefer the salmon I've had a couple of times.

The National Museum of Scotland was terrific. Lots of interesting exhibits with a little bit of everything, and a terrific wing on the history of Scotland, which we eventually focused on. We also liked the display on the history of ships, especially sailing ships, and there was one on music-playing devices, which included a victrola that looked just like ours (all the shape of the carved wood, but I don't remember what brand ours is.)

This ship is called the Star of India and looks like the Star of India but isn't the Star of India because it was abandoned in the Atlantic in the late nineteenth century. Our guess is that it was rebuilt and then ended up in San Diego.

The Edinburgh Castle was great too. It really looks impregnable from below, and hasn't been taken by force for hundreds of years, but there's always the siege strategy. It was built into the exposed lava of an ancient volcano, and I don't know how people built the stone walls while hanging a long ways above the valley floor. I would say hundreds of feet, but it probably wasn't as far as it looked. We also saw a neat display of old swords with a volunteer answering questions, and providing an assessment of some movies' portrayal of sword fighting.

So that was some comments about the previous 2 days, bringing us up to Day 24, our last day in Scotland and first day in Ireland. It was supposed to be sunny today but was raining when we woke up. But we packed our stuff but left it in our rooms, and got on Bus 35 for one more day (we ended up on this route 3 times before we got to the airport), and headed for Hollyrood Park and a hike up Arthur's Seat (a hill with a rock on top) for a view of the city. When we got to the top the clouds were misty, and we could only see through in bits and pieces--of course everything snapped clear as soon as we left the top. But it was a beautiful walk anyway. Unfortunately when we got to the bottom, we discovered that Erin no longer had her jacket. We weren't sure she even had it along, but Erin headed back up the fairly steep climb of over a mile to check--she returned with jacket in hand, so at least it wasn't wasted effort.

The start of the trail. Note the clear skies and high levels of visibility

The view from the top when we got up. Not really the scenery we were going for, but at least it was peaceful.

The sun slowly started to burn off the clouds, and pieces of Edinburgh appeared in momentary patches before fading back into the grey. 

Forty five minutes later and much sweatier, the view was pretty spectacular.

Then it was off to the Museum of Scotland for a few minutes to see a few more things we missed (we like free museums!), then back on Bus 35 to get to our lodgings and pick up our bags before getting on the 35 again which was also the route to the airport.

Extra note: Our host Becky in Edinburgh was really nice, with the right amount of friendliness but not intrusiveness. And her cat Hugo was really cute and friendly and even enjoyed playing chase the string with me.

Another side note: the miles of row houses in Edinburgh were sort a 3-d puzzle, how they fit the rooms together. And most of the gardens were really pretty with pots of flowers and lilac bushes and green lawns, etc (it rains alot here), although they were a 2-d puzzle between the house rows.

But back to our travels--the journey to Shannon was uneventful, except that after Erin's jacket was rescued from Arthur's Seat, I left mine on Bus 35, totally irretrievable since I didn't realize it till we were in Ireland (probably wasn't anything we could have done earlier anyway).

The people in Ireland have been very friendly so far. We ended up taking a taxi from the airport to our B&B in Ennis, because the bus desk was unattended and the taxi desk guy was about to go home, and it was on his way, and he gave us a discount, or at any rate it was only a little more than 2 bus tickets and was right then and door to door. We had another nice room with a beautiful garden view up close and open country and a hurling field in the distance (someone said that's what it was, to me could also have been a rugby or football field). Wensleydale cheese and brown bread for supper on the patio. Nice sunset, nice shower too--it got sort of hot today walking after the sun came out, then we got wet again as it rained just as we were walking out to our puddlejumper airplane.

First sighting of Ireland--Emerald Isle is right!

Well, that was sort of random but at least I'm getting used to Erin's bluetooth keyboard. Hope to contribute more on another day! --Cheryl

Note from Erin: The most eventful moment of the day for me was my second trip up Arthur's Seat. I was pretty annoyed climbing to the top, grumping about having to hike the entire way and getting incrementally sweatier, but when I finally did reach the summit I saw the jacket and everything was better. The views were pretty great too (earlier in the day, the clouds provided an interesting and mysterious cast to the city, as bits and pieces were revealed for a moment and then swallowed back up in the mist, but it was also nice to stop for a moment to pant and perspire and enjoy an unobstructed view). Then I returned to the base, this time assisted by gravity, and after hopping over the boulders a bit I gradually changed over to a something like a sprint, thus rediscovering my love for running downhill. So it was a good thing I left it up at the top after all, though I spent the rest of the day in dire need of a shower.