On Saturday June 20, Grace and I took the long train from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverly for two weeks in Scotland. It's the second time we've been to Scotland, the first time being in May 2008, when my brother Mike and his friend Rob came over. During that trip, we did a driving tour of the whole country, spending just two days in Edinburgh, one of which was a daytrip to Stirling. Grace saw even less of the city, because she had to finish her master's exams and couldn't come up till halfway through the trip, when we had already left. Grace ended up only spending one evening in the city, which we spent at Indiana Jones 4 (mistake).
This time, we spent the entire two weeks in Edinburgh, or at least came back to Edinburgh every night to sleep. That's because we had a free place to stay this time. As we said earlier, one of Grace's coworkers based in Amnesty International's Edinburgh office needed someone to feed his cats while he went on a vacation of his own. We jumped at the chance.
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| From Scotland 2009 |
One of the cats takes up residence on our suitcase...
On the first night in, we mostly acquainted ourselves with the new flat, especially the television. It's in the city centre, within walking distance of everything, and it's bigger than our place - two bedrooms, a big living room, kitchen and study.
The next day, we explored the city, Grace for the first time.
Edinburgh is Scotland's capital, population 450,000 (or maybe more - our guidebook from the library is about five years old). Compared to London, it has a real consistent architecture (dark and old) and it's really hilly. There's a park in the middle, Holyrood Park with a giant extinct volcano in the middle. It's also got a giant castle looming over the city atop another extinct volcano in the city's center.
First day in, Grace and I headed off to see the park, the new Scottish Parliament building (ultra modern... I think they're trying to establish themselves apart from London's old houses of parliament), and the Royal Mile. The last one is a long street full, full of souvenir shops (and a very few other kinds of shops).
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| From Scotland 2009 |
The Scottish Parliament Building, in front of Holyrood Park
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| From Scotland 2009 |
Grace on the Royal Mile.
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| From Scotland 2009 |
Me with good old Adam Smith.
We spent the rest of the afternoon down in Scotland's National Gallery of Art (good!). No photos allowed.
The next day, we had a few things we wanted to do: see the National Portrait Gallery (Grace's favourite type of painting is portraiture), go to an embroidery shop (Grace wanted something to do with her hands while we chilled out with the TV at the flat) and see the other art museums in Edinburgh. Grace and I seem to like looking at paintings more and more. Somewhere between checking out the museums in DC and checking out the museums in London, looking at paintings moved from just another thing to do when visiting a city, to something we really enjoy.
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| From Scotland 2009 |
Edinburgh Castle in the rain.
Anyway, that plan didn't quite work out. We walked out to the national portrait gallery, only to find it closed until 2011 (one of the hazards of having a library guidebook from 2003). Then we walked to the embroidery store only to find it was a knitting store. We asked the lady if she sold any embroidery stuff and she said, "no, but have you tried 'The Embroidery Shop?' "
Turns out this perfect store for what we were looking for was just ten minutes from our flat, but miles away from where we were at the time.
So, with two strikes against us, we finally got some luck. We were close to the city's canal, and we were able to follow it down to the modern art galleries. It was an unexpectedly nice walk through beautiful old-style European buildings along cobbled streets. We also saw old mill buildings from Edinburgh's past as a lively wool weaving town.
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| From Scotland 2009 |
Like a painting or something.
Anyway, the modern art gallery was OK - we don't tend to like modern art as much as older stuff - but the weather had turned great and we ended up spending hours in the cafe, just drinking tea.
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| From Scotland 2009 |
A land sculpture. You can walk on it.
Finally, after the museum, we headed back to the flat and passed by the movie theatre on the way home. It turned out they were showing "Withnail and I" that night. "Withnail and I" is a classic British comedy that I've never seen all the way through, and Grace has only seen on YouTube. It's legendary over here, but not well known in the states. We had been planning to rent it, but instead we bought tickets to the movie that night. Good times.
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