A Week in Alba

Beware, this is a long blog here!

First week of November was Reading Week, which of course meant that I took the opportunity not to catch up on reading, but to go with C on a week-long circle around Scotland.  Okay, it was more like a slightly wavy line, but still, we saw the main places.

Actually getting there was a bit of fun itself, as we had to be up about 4 in order to catch our 7:05 flight.  Yes that was a totally insane idea, but we booked through EasyJet, and it was the only one they had that day.  After a few adventures getting to the hostel, we dropped off our bags in the lobby as it was only about 9am, far too early for us to check in.  We then took about two hours walking up the Royal Mile, which we were only just off of, towards the castle.  It wasn't a terribly far walk; we just took our time browsing some of the touristy shops along the way, especially once we found one that also had armor and such for sale.  The castle itself was interesting, although I'll admit not excessively thrilling as there weren't very many indoor places we could see.  The chapel was off-limits as it was being used for a wedding, and one of the buildings I think was closed for refurbishment.  Several were also still in use as military garrisons.  So we caught one of the early afternoon tours around, which mostly involved the history of the building: the many battles fought over it, especially once the Scots and English became ethnic groups and enemies, Mary, Queen of Scots giving birth there, etc.  It is interesting and certainly a place worth visiting; but maybe only the once, at least for quite a while.

We headed to bed early that night due to the extremely early morning.  Of course, the hostel happened to be having a Halloween party that night.  Poor C had a really hard time sleeping through it; I was fine, I think living in the halls at school has helped me fall asleep with strange stuff going on. 

The next morning, we headed out to hit up a free walking tour of the city.  Which was awesome.  The tour guides work for tips, which actually made it fun, because then you get the tour guides who, literally, are doing it for the love of the job. There is so much fascinating history around Edinburgh; unfortunately a lot of it comes from the dark times, but just glad those are mostly past.  For instance, when they built the wall around Grayfriar's Churchyard, they required ashes to make the mortar.  But, as trees were a scarce commodity, they turned to another source of ash: the remains of people who had been burnt at the stake as witches.  So the wall is, literally, made from witches of old.  We also got to see the grave of John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian faith aka the Church of Scotland.  He was buried just outside St. Giles' High Kirk, as he had requested to be buried within 20 yards of it.  Of course, they cleared the cemetery some years ago to build the church a parking lot.  But they did follow his requests about where he wished to be buried, so he now lies under parking space #23, with a solitary yellow square stone as the only marker on his grave.  Seems strange to me, you'd think they'd at least put him under the statue base that doesn't have a statue and make it a memorial of some sort.  But I guess not...

That evening, we went back up the hill to the Scotch Whisky Experience for a brief tour of... to be honest, I'm not sure what.  I was half anticipating a tour through an actual whiskey distillery, or even a reconstruction of one.  Instead, the tour was more using projectors to tell you how the whiskey was made, while you rode through it in a barrel that rather reminded me of the carts on the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.  Then we were ushered through to a room where we were shown a video describing four different types of whisky, after which we got to have a taste-test (and take the glasses home).  As I am a non-drinker, C got to taste two different types rather than just the one.  It was worth doing once, but to be perfectly honest, it wouldn't have been worth the tour fee if we hadn't gotten to keep the glass.

Day 3, Monday, we were up and out early (ish... had to be past 9:30 for the off-peak trains) and on our way to Stirling for the day.  Right next to the train station was the main bus station with lockers, so we were able to stash our luggage while we wandered.  First thing we did was Stirling Castle.  Far more interesting to wander than Edinburgh, I thought, in part because the audio tour seemed better.  Of course, given that it was the off-season, there were no live tours, so instead the audio tours guided you through.  At times it was a bit stop-start-stop-start, but overall was interesting.  The royal palace was being refurbished to it's 1500's style, so we weren't able to see that, but the rest of it was still impressive. 

Then we headed over to go see the Wallace Monument.  When we got there, we figured we'd have lunch in the cafe, as it was getting on in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we discovered when I went to go get tickets, they close earlier than we had thought they did, and stopped selling... while we were eating lunch.  The lady then directed us to the nearest bus station, which we thought was right around the corner.  Wrong.  At the bottom of the hill wasn't far when in the cab coming up it, but took foooooorrrreeevvveeerr to walk down.  And of course it was raining, so by the time we finally got to the bus stop and back to the bus station, we were both a bit tired, cranky, and irritable.  Since all other interesting sites would have been closed by that time, we just got our things and walked back to the train station... where we ended up more frustrated.  Apparently, the train prices we had seen online just that morning were considered advance tickets, and not valid to buy then. So, without much choice, we had to pay more than planned for the train to Inverness. 

But once we got to Inverness, our moods started lightening.  Outside the train station, we asked a cabbie if he knew where our hostel was.  He was actually pretty nice, started giving us walking directions first, which surprised us coming from a cabby.  But still being tired and cranky, we just took the cab as we were too tired to deal with possibly getting lost.  Once we were dropped off though, both our moods started lifting.  The hostel was very nice (by hostel standards, anyways), and felt more like you were just renting the room from someone who just welcomed you in than a hostel.  Nice room, we had a view of the river, two churches, and the castle (not open to the public).  The lounge was large, lots of tables around, as well as a small couch and chairs next to a fireplace.  And the managers would come in, chat with you, get to know you a bit, do their own cooking in the same kitchen, even fold the day's laundry in there.  It was perfect.  She even reccommended the pub next door for dinner; it was a bit more than pub prices, but we discovered there was a restaurant upstairs... with nobody in it.  So that was lovely too.  The hostel was a bit cold, as they only had single pane windows, but that was really the only possible complaint.  It just encouraged sitting by the fire.

So moods sufficiently better, we were up on Tuesday to head over to the bus station for our three-and-a-half hour Loch Ness tour.  All in all, that consisted of a drive down, a half-hour cruise on the lake, a wander through the ruins of Urquhart Castle, the Loch Ness Experience, and the bus back.  Being Scotland in November, the country was green and gorgeous.  Of course, it was also I think the coldest day that we had on our brief tour.  It poured while we were on the bus and some while we were on the cruise, but thankfully let up for some of the castle wandering.  The cruise was great fun (no, we didn't see Nessie for those of you who are wondering).  The lake was choppy, windy, and foggy, which made it feel more like an adventure than a tourist activity.  When the rain was a bit lighter, C and I even went up on the top deck.  Of course, as soon as I stepped around the cabin with the boat's pilot, the boat dropped and a huge wave came over the bow, even up to the top deck and gave me a good splashing.  Which C found hilarious.  I was just grateful to be mostly waterproofed that day :P 

Once we got to Urquhart, the sun began to come out.  It was gorgeous to walk around, with the grass still wet and sun shining all over.  Lots of great photo opportunities as well.  The only thing really left of an indoors, was part of the gatehouse and one tower.  We didn't climb the tower though; it was only 3-4 stories, but it was steep stone spiral staircases (say that three times fast), and given that it was a ruin and had been raining earlier?  We didn't trust those stairs.  We took one look at the steps worn smooth and decided no, that was too dangerous, if we slipped at all we'd probably die.  So instead we headed back up to the visitor's center and the bus, which took us up to the Loch Ness Experience.

Okay, I think C and I have something against that which has been rated a five-star tourist attraction.  Because the Whisky Experience and Loch Ness experience were both rated that high, but we didn't find either to be all that worth it.  I've already gone over why for Whisky.  Loch Ness was a similar idea.  The idea was for them to essentially lay out all the evidence both for and against the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.  You'd think it would be interesting; it wasn't really.  Literally, all we did was get guided into one room, shown a video on some of the history of the legend, guided to another room, shown a different video, through several rooms.  Granted, they all had different props and decorations relating to the video, but none that were really absolutely necessary.  If it hadn't been part of the tour, it would not have been worth the money. 

Then it was the bus back to central Inverness, and a quick grocery stop on the way back to the hostel so that we'd have dinner and some breakfast the next day.  And the rest of the afternoon, we spent sitting in front of the fire.  I tried to get some school reading done, but that only half worked.  You see, the managers have a cat.  Not only would she pester whoever was in front of the fire for attention, she liked to lay on my papers.  First she started off on my book.  After a while, I passed her over to C, when she promptly crawled off his lap onto my notes.  It was so funny I just couldn't bring myself to move her again after that.  All in all, it was a lovely evening in, and a perfect hostel to be at to have an evening in.

And once again, we were up and out somewhat early so we'd be sure to make it to our train on time.  This time though, we were smart enough to book in advance.  So we picked up our tickets, had some hot chocolate in the cafe (as well as a more substantial breakfast) and boarded the train for Thurso, at the northernmost coast of Scotland.  It was a four hour ride, so I tried to get some more reading done, but that only half worked; it was my first time in the Highlands, and they were far too pretty.  I couldn't stop taking pictures.  And it was raining on and off, so we saw I think a total of four rainbows on that one ride. 

We didn't really do much in Thurso; we were there just to visit my brother-in-law's sister and her family, who I'd met on their last two trips to California.  Actually, they'd taken me to Disneyland with all of them, as I get the disability passes and could take the kids through the separate lines so they wouldn't have to wait as long.  I know, probably a bit cheeky, but hey, they gave me a free trip to Disneyland :P (the first year... the second year was when I had a pass).  So we mostly just stayed in and hung out with the family for two days, which was great.

Then Friday, we took a coach back to Edinburgh.  We tried for train, but for some reason the advance ticket prices weren't showing up online, so a coach it was.  And those were long.  I don't know why I was so exhausted that day; was probably crashing from the long days before.  But I slept a good bit of the way to Inverness, where we had a half hour break in which to get lunch before changing buses to go back to Edinburgh.  And I slept for most of that trip, too.  Although I do vaguely seeing C with his iPhone pointed at me.  Next time I got online, I saw a picture of me sleeping against the bus window posted on his Facebook.  Great.  Oh well, by that time it had been up at least a day, so it didn't really matter.  We went and checked in at a new hostel, as the one we had stayed at first was booked for the night, then had dinner and went up to the castle again as we were told we could see the fireworks show for bonfire night from there.  Well, not quite, the Royal Mile buildings were in the way.  We could hear it, and see some being let off in other areas, just not the main one.  But it's okay, we just hung out in the mostly-empty area in front of the castle, mostly next to the gate where they had a couple of large torches lit.  Real ones, even.  So we stayed there and warmed up from the walk, then got dessert on the way back to the hostel for the night.

In the morning, before our flight, we did what we had tried to do on the first weekend: a tour of Mary King's Close.  For a city that has a lot of hauntings, this is supposed to be the most haunted tour of them all.  The Close is, basically, a street that was once open to the sky, but has been buried and forgotten for centuries.  And it was fascinating.  Looking back though, I wouldn't have wanted to do it at Halloween, when everyone was looking for a fright; some parts were creepy enough as it was.  Guess it's a good thing it was completely booked up then.

We then took the bus back to the airport for an uneventful flight home.  All in all, it was a fantastic week.  Normally week long vacations fly by and leave me feeling like it wasn't enough time and was just too short; but somehow this one didn't.  It felt like we spent a long time there, and got to see and do the main things there, even a few offbeat ones like Mary King's Close.  So it was a great vacation, well worth every penny and the time that they say should have been spent on schoolwork.  But I don't regret it.  Absolutely nothing was wasted.

Of course, I am still trying to catch up on my reading.  But it's okay, I will eventually.