May 30, 2015

Ann R. said haggis and black pudding were two of her favorites, and I challenged myself to try them. The haggis I ate tonight at World's End was like loose sausage. If someone put a gun to my head, I'd eat it again. Can't say the same for black pudding, which I ate in the Isle of Lewis several days ago. It was crispy and crunchy on the outside and slippery and slithery on the inside. Like sky-diving, once was enough.

Our waiter told us that haggis stops at the border. The English won't eat it. He also confirmed that this pub and restaurant was the one referred to in one of the Outlander books, but those events happened going on 300 years ago. And they were fictional.

The Hidden Door in Edinburgh involves experimental artists who find empty spaces in the city and transform them--old warehouses, in this case. My favorite piece was a small trailer with twigs growing out of the walls and furniture, and short, plaintive verses printed on the walls and ceiling. Other works were tires painted pink, a male mannequin with an alligator head, a typewriter covered with plaid and polka dots,

and a floor littered with rocks. We think Ron Rainville would like the rocks because he so enjoyed the pile of bird-mats at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh.

I don't know what the message was in this unusual art, but I appreciate any evidence of imagination, bewildering though it may be.

Edinburgh was bursting with sunshine and life today. The sidewalks were crammed, and sunbathers found spots in front of the National Gallery of Scotland (see photo below).

We found Cleopatra in the National Gallery with an asp ready to bite her nipple. Couldn't it have just bit her big toe? Hasn't the poor woman gone through enough?

We fly home tomorrow. It's a lovely country, but we probably won't return. There are too many other places in the world to see, and time's a'wastin'.

May 29, 2015

On our drive back to Edinburgh today, we stopped for a ride in the Falkirk Wheel, which is a lock that gets boats into different levels of water in an innovative way. Tom likened it to a slow-motion ferris wheel, with one boat up and one boat down. I would provide more details about how it works except for two reasons:

1. It's boring.

2. I didn't listen to the explanation (See reason #1).

However--except for the crying baby--it was fun to go up and look at the treetops and surrounding areas.

Before we got onto the boat, Brian Young (the first mate), heard our American accents and started chatting with us. The Young clan in the U.S. will gather in Milwaukee for the Highland Games on August 13. He said we should find them, greet them, and get a free beer from them.

Brian also said he had applied to be an extra in the Outlander TV series, parts of which are being filmed in his area. We talked about the standing stones where Claire Beauchamp (Outlander heroine) was transported into the 1740s. Brian told us they were the Clava Cairns, which Tom and I visited a few days ago. But we're still in 2015, in case anyone's concerned.

The Kelpies are 100-foot horse heads in Helix Park outside of Edinburgh. They're horses with superpowers, which they use for evil instead of good. When people see a kelpie, they feel compelled to get on its back to ride it. Brian warned us to resist this impulse if we run into a kelpie. Its back is sticky, and as soon as you straddle it, you're stuck. Then it dives into the water and drowns you.

This seerms unreasonably hostile.

Tom is relieved that we dropped off our rented car today. He had to get used to driving on the left side of the road, in a car with the steering wheel on the right, and a round-about every two blocks (it seemed). He did all the driving because I don't have an international driver's license and also because I didn't want to drive.Only one more full day in Scotland.

 

May 28, 2015

More castle-hopping, which is a little like bar-hopping, except with a lot more stairs and no booze.

Craigievar Castle was closed today, so we walked around the outside. It wears a coat of pink harling for weather-proofing and looks like architectural cotton candy. -- Mary Jo, this is Mary Kay's new big prize, after the pink Cadillac. Better sell more lipsticks.

Drum Castle was open, fortunately. The first parts of the castle were built in the 1320s and, over 700 years, several generations of the same family lived there before the castle was turned over to the National Trust of Scotland.

I climbed up a gazillion steps to the top of the tower, momentarily forgetting that I'm 60 years old and afraid of heights. But I still took that photo of Tom on the ground below me.

It really felt like spring today, with sunshine, no rain, and temperatures in the high 60s. I briefly wondered if we'd taken a wrong turn and left Scotland.

Naturally, we had to do a little bookstore-hopping, too. Went to Books and Beans and then Waterstones in Aberdeen's Old Town. We both have dozens of books at home that we haven't read yet, but I consistently fail to leave a bookstore without at least one new book. (Dad would be so proud of me.)

Tomorrow morning we head back to Edinburgh for two nights, then fly home on Sunday--to the land of no castles, except for the ones we build in the sky.

May 27, 2015

Castle Fraser, outside of Aberdeen, has no connection with Jamie Fraser of Outlander fame, largely because he is fictional. Castle Fraser is enormous (as castles are), and many of the rooms were designed in that Victorian style with busy wallpaper and carpets and bird plumes atop bed posts. (Tom and I would have those ourselves except that we have no bed posts.)

Charles MacKenzie Fraser lived in Castle Fraser in the 19th century with his wife and 14 children. That's the trouble with the idle rich. You get too much time on your hands and there's going to be trouble.

The most imagination-piquing castle, though, is Dunottar Castle, which is in ruins, but at least it's free of bed-post-bird-plumes. Built in the 15th century, it drew historical celebrities such as William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots. Also, it's said to be the inspiration for Brave, the Disney movie.

Dunnottar Castle sits on a cliff on the ocean--very dramatic. I kept expecting to see Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights race across the castle grounds crying, "Heathcliff! Heathcliff!" Of course, she didn't, because she was only a figment of Emily Bronte's imagination.

A folk music club regularly meets and performs at the Blue Lamp in Aberdeen, so Tom and I listened to folk songs about gallows and lost loves and war. General folk music fare. A woman sitting next to me asked me if

I was from out of town, and I said, "Yes. We're from Detroit." "I guess that is out of town," she said. She plays the accordian and says it's an expressive instrument. She had not heard of Astor Piazola, the game-changing accordianist from Argentina. She might like his music, although it's definitely not folk-ish.

Yesterday, Tom and I stopped to see the Clava Cairns, not far from Culloden. These stone tombs are estimated at 2,000 years old, and they're each surrounded by a ring of stones. Apparently, more than one person got tossed into a single tomb. --

With all the billions of people who've been buried over hundreds of thousands of years, it's probably not a stretch to imagine that we're always walking over the dead. And one day, people--not yet born--will be walking over us. So we probably shouldn't get too impressed with our own importance, even those who live in castles and sire 14 children and allow ridiculous bird plumes to be placed atop bed posts.

May 26, 2015

Culloden lies less than 10 miles east of Inverness.  I wanted to see it because I had read a fictionalized version of a devastating battle there in Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Her fictional account lines up pretty closely to the account we heard at the museum, and that I heard on the walking tour outside. Naturally, the museum provides more context.

A man who works in the museum gift store said this site has become much more popular since the publication of Outlander (and the ensuing TV series, I'm sure).

In 1746, the Jacobites faced the British at Culloden in their bid for Scottish independence. In a battle that lasted less than an hour, 1,500 Scots were slain. The British buried them in mass graves, the war was over, and a period of brutal oppression followed. Jacobites were rooted out and executed.

On a happier note, we visited Cawdor castle and grounds. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth is the Thane of Cawdor. There's a countess who lives there now. 

Many of the castle's plaster walls are covered by 17th-century tapestries. A couple of the tapestries depict scenes from Miguel Cervantes's Don Quixote (e.g, Don Quixote tilting at a windmill).

Of course, it would be a poor excuse for a castle with no ghost stories. One staff member said that the ghost of the widow-countess's husband has been seen, as well as a woman wearing a blue nightgown.

I assume it's all true. I don't think I've ever met a ghost story I didn't enthusiastically believe.

Now that Tom and I are in another Airbnb rental in Aberdeen, we have a chance to wash our clothes. I am grateful beyond measure.

May 25, 2015

Drove by Loch Ness. Didn't see the monster. Didn't expect to. Didn't care.

Our right rear tire (or "tyre," as they spell it here) went flat on our way to Inverness today. Lo and behold, our rented Ford Fiesta didn't come with a spare. Fortunately, Tom was able to reach Enterprise (company that leased the car to us), and the British Auto Association (BAA) came to our rescue. We also got to learn about the tow driver's former life (was a cop), his divorce from his first wife, and his remarriage to his childhood sweetheart.

Before this adventure, though, we saw the Eilean Donan Castle, between the Isle of Skye and Inverness. A McCrae (sp.?) decided to rebuild it in the early part of the 20th century, and his family used it as a summer home. They still stay there sometimes. Isuppose it would be fun to invite your friends to visit you in your castle, but it's not terribly warm and cozy. The family lets tourists see much of it, probably to pay for its upkeep.

I wonder if Tom and I could open our co-op unit for tours and charge money to pay for our housing? "Now here's the living room--turn a quarter-inch, and there's the kitchen--turn a quarter-inch, and there's the bathroom..."

 I

This whole aristocracy thing--with castles and coats-of-arms and family crests-strikes me as a little pompous. But maybe I'm too American to get it.

As we drove inland, we saw greener fields, more trees, larger houses, and fewer of those low, stone walls.

May 24, 2015

For the first time, we heard Scottish-Gaelic (pronounced "garlic" by the residents here). We attended a Gaelic church service this morning. Before the service, in the front vestibule, the minister asked, "Do you know this is the Gaelic service?" We said yes. "Do you know Gaelic?" he asked. We said no. He gave us a copy of the Bible in English so we could follow along.

Mostly elderly women wearing hats attended the service. After the service, we spoke with a few of them, who told us they had spoken only Gaelic until they started attending school. -- Coincidentally, the minister has been to Livonia before.

If I heard Gaelic out of context, I might guess that it's a Scandinavian language. Although its roots are

Germanic, no doubt the Vikings, who ransacked northern Europe from the 8th to the 12 centuries, influenced the language's evolution.

The Bridge to Nowhere also turns up in Chessmen, but its actual history is at least as interesting. (Okay, I don't mind reality as long as it sounds like a story.) Back in 1918, a rich guy bought the Isle of Lewis, and planned to bring industry to the island. He built the bridge with the idea of developing a road beyond it. He also expected the Isle of Lewis residents to give up crofting because he felt he was offering something better. They didn't see it that way. Rich guy left in 1923.

Of course, we had to see it, and it's true--there's no road beyond the Bridge to Nowhere, just a walking path.

The animal in one of these photos is a "hah-ree koo," as Tom heard a Scot say it. At first I thought it was the name of the species, until Tom pointed out that it's a Scottish pronunciation of "hairy cow."