Scott's "A Tale of Two Cities" - Chapter Seven: Planes, Trains, and Arthur's Seat

Let me begin by apologizing for the terrible titles I've used for the past few chapters. It' s been raining non-stop here, and I think the lousy weather has sapped my ability to compose any kind of witty remark. At any rate, I spent this weekend in Edinburgh visiting my dear friend Fraser. It was an absolutely amazing time; I think Edinburgh is my favourite non-Washington DC city so far. This entry is long, but it has to be: we crammed more into my two days in Edinburgh than I would have thought possible.

Friday (May 19) morning I awoke around 6am, as my train was scheduled to leave Polegate Station at 8.05 and I was terrified I would miss it. Actually, my intense fear of missing one of my pre-arranged modes of transportation was a recurring theme throughout the weekend: I ended up leaving myself more than enough time to make connections, and spent a fair bit of time sitting around waiting in airports or train stations as a result.

Anyway, I got a cab to Polegate (about 10 or 15 minutes away from the castle) and caught my train to Gatwick Airport in London (which took about 40 minutes) where I caught my flight (which had been delayed) to Edinburgh. I flew easyJet, a British discount carrier of questionable quality. A few minutes after we took off we hit some major turbulence and I nearly had a heart attack as I thought the wings were falling off of the plane. After that, though, the flight was rather quick, and we arrived only slightly later than our original schedule. From there I caught the Airlink shuttle which dropped me off at Waverley Bridge downtown.

Fraser had given me directions to his place (which will henceforth be referred to as 'the apartment,' which is located in the wicked seedy underbelly of the city. The city, you see, is really hilly and his street is sunken down with these old stone bridges for the cross-streets going over it, which lends it a great Dickensian quality. Anyway, after briefly getting lost I arrived at the apartment around 12.30pm. His dear friend Matt from Nova Scotia was also there (he had been in for the week), and after meeting two of his roommates we went out to walk around.

We walked to a Starbucks to grab a sandwich, since they hadn't eaten yet that day, and (except for a couple of British All-Bran Bars) neither had I. After that we walked north, and wandered around for quite a while through the New Town. Don't let the name fool you, New Town is actually quite old. It consists mostly of fantastic (and fantastically expensive!) Georgian row houses arranged along wide boulevards and big circles (called circuses. Circi? I'll go with circuses) around parks. We also found the townhouse where the Icelandic national anthem was written in 1874. There was a plaque. I took a picture.

Actually, I took pictures of everything. It became sort of a running gag with the guys... every five minutes or so I'd stop walking and whip out the camera. Over the course of the weekend I took almost 200 pictures (thanks again for the camera, Dad!), a few of which I'll definitely post in this entry.

We continued walking up to Calton Hill, which is this big park sort of North-East of the Royal Mile. It is, as its name suggests, a large hill. It also offers some rather spectacular views of Edinburgh. At the top are Nelson's monument, a canon, and what we would later discover to be the Scottish National Monument. We were initially confused as to what it was, since there are no signs or plaques, and it looks like a half-finished Greek temple or something. I've attached a picture below:

From there we returned to the apartment for a cup of tea (how delightfully British, I know) before heading out again, this time to the Museum of Scotland/Royal Museum which are two massive museums connected together. Fraser's roommate Tim had recommended the Royal Museum for its interactive displays, and we were not disappointed. Fraser designed a rather accident-prone bomb-defusing robot, while I successfully took on the role of Energy minister for a fake country over a 50-year period. It was a pretty smooth half-century, if you ignore the riots after I opened up that third nuclear power plant (sadly, the game had no "send in the army" button to deal with protests).

From there we walked around through the University of Edinburgh where Fraser has spent the year studying ("studying" should be in quotation marks, I think) before once again returning to the apartment. Somewhere in the preceding three paragraphs we got nachos, but I'm not sure when.

At the apartment we were joined by my dear arch-nemesis, Chase, who I know from High School. He also goes to Queen's, and spent the year with Fraser in Edinburgh. The four of us (being Chase, Matt, Fraser, and myself) went down to the University's campus pub for a few pints of domestic beer before heading out for dinner at a great pizza place down near the old gallows on Grassmarket Street. From there we went to a pub not far from the apartment (called Bannermans, I think) for another pint, and to play some pub-machine trivial pursuit. I think we were all a bit embarrassed at how poorly we fared, especially since Fras and I hold ourselves out to be fairly well versed in most things trivial. After that we returned to the apartment building, where some girls across the hall were holding an end-of-the-year party for a bunch of the university's exchange students. We were there until around 3am or so, at which point we went back to the apartment to crash.

Saturday (May 20) morning we woke up fairly early, as Matt had to leave to catch his train. After he had left, however, Fras and I quickly fell back asleep until sometime around noon or 1pm. We went to a "West Coast" coffee shop called Black Magic (or something like that) for coffee and a muffin before setting out for another day of wandering. We went down to this massive park beside the University, and then looped around to end up near Edinburgh Castle. I say "near" because the castle itself is built into a large rocky hill surrounded by a large garden-filled chasm. To actually reach the castle you have to come in from the east along the Royal Mile (which is the street running down the smooth side of the castle's hill). Attached is a picture from the impregnable south-west side:

Anyway, there was a little farmers' market happening on the sidewalk near the castle garden's parking lot, where I sampled blood and kidney sausage. It was (thankfully) far less disgusting than it sounds. We walked through the gardens on the north side of the castle and then up one of the side streets on the hill to the Royal Mile. At the top of the Royal Mile, near the gates of the castle itself, are a number of monuments to various military units.

We then proceeded down the Royal Mile itself, which leads from the castle to the royal palace of Holyrood. Along the way, I dragged Fras into a number of hoakie tourist-oriented stores looking for souvenirs. We also came across an absolutely fantastic store which sells prints of really old maps. I was in heaven, but sadly I had no way to transport any of them home.

Eventually we reached the bottom, where we saw the new Scottish Parliament. I don't care for the building myself - it strikes me as something that belongs in Spain rather than Edinburgh, but that's not important. I'll also spare you my "they shouldn't have a bloody parliament in the first place" rant. Just past the Parliament we came upon Holyrood Palace, which was closed off and teeming with people (including many men in kilts, and many women in fancy hats). The army was there, and when I asked what was going on was told simply that "they were having a dinner." Just south of Holyrood is Arthur's Seat, a mountain (at least, I'm going to call it a mountain) which is another giant park sort of in the middle of the city. We decided to go up a little bit to see over the hedges and get a better view of what was going on in the palace grounds. I'll attach a picture of Arthur's Seat below:


Sadly, there were tents. But we decided to keep climbing anyway, and went all the way to the top. The views of the city were absolutely spectacular, and you could see for miles and miles. Fraser and I sat at the top for quite a while; we also used the opportunity to take pictures of ourselves looking pensive. You'll find one attached below. This was, without a doubt, my favourite experience of the entire trip: It's hard to explain, but it felt so perfectly Scottish to be up in the "highlands" (even if we were in the middle of the city). To add to the atmosphere, the party at Holyrood had bagpipers, and their music could be heard faintly while we were at the top. It was like having a soundtrack to the climb.

Getting down was a bit more awkward, since we took a less gently-sloping route than on the way up. Once we were down we walked over to this intensely socialist coffee shop called The Forest where all the employees are volunteers and nothing is as it seems. It was pretty cool, and we had a late lunch/early dinner (it was around 5 at this point, I think). After we were finished, we headed back to the apartment where we relaxed and just hung out for a bit. Since I had to get up early the next morning, going out to a party was not in order for the evening, so we decided to go see Mission Impossible III. It was something like a half-hour walk each way, I think, but it wasn't too bad, and we got back around midnight. We went to bed shortly thereafter.

Sunday (May 21) morning I woke up around 6.15am, exhausted, and left to catch the 6.45 Airlink shuttle bus back to the airport. My flight back was scheduled for 8.25, and, again, I was terrified I would miss it. I didn't of course, and spent about 50 minutes sitting in the airport. The flight back was quick, and we arrived earlier than scheduled. As a result, I waited for over an hour for my train back to Polegate. Then I hopped a cab back to the castle and arrived around noon, where I promptly had a three-hour nap. I don't know why I went through all those travel details, since they were just the "going to Scotland" details in reverse, and this entry is already so long.

This concludes the interesting part of the chapter. The rest I'll cover briefly.

That afternoon I worked somewhat diligently, and finished up the slideshow for my Marketing presentation on Monday. Later that evening the castle people had arranged a trivia night, which I had signed up for with a few of my friends. When that was over, I met up with my Marketing partner and we ran through our presentation a couple of times.

Then, absolutely exhausted, I collapsed into bed.