Scotland Redux

I visited Scotland twice on my trip. The first time around I met Steve and that is why there was a second visit to Scotland at the end of the trip. I forgot to bring my camera on our adventures almost every single day, so I have, for example, no pictures of the terrible, terrible, narrow bridge we had to cross to visit Steve's ancestral home. And I have no pictures of New Lanark (the first project of Robert Owen, whose second utopian mill society, New Harmony, I visited in Indiana; New Harmony does not include a Disney-esque ride through the utopian mill society experience, narrated by a ghost, though) or the House of Dun or Dunkeld Cathedral or most of the places we went.

I do have

The Den

The Den is an old, pagany site in Dunino. This is a pool and a hollowed out footprint that were likely used for ancient coronation ceremonies or, depending on who you believe, human sacrifices.

And Seaton Cliffs

I took this picture before I realized that we weren't to the really picturesque part yet and then I didn't pull my camera back out when we did reach the prettiest parts--cliffs and caves on the North Sea.

And the Hermitage

Steve at the Hermitage. This area of Scotland looks like Tennessee.

Super Castle Party Day

We have seen many, many castles. The famous intact ones like Eilean Donan and Inverary and Cawdor and the famous castle ruins like Urquhart, but I think my favorites were the ones we saw on Super Castle Party Day. It's hard to take good pictures of castle ruins. They're much more impressive in person. We saw four castles on this particular day. AND we ate dinner on the beach with a view of the island that was the inspiration for Treasure Island.

This is the Coordinatrix at Dirleton Castle, where her people once lived. We tried to visit on Holy Island day, but it was closed and we couldn't manage to breach the fortifications (though we tried). Fortunately, SAZ was willing to come back and drive us around the next day. The most notable thing in this picture (to me) is that you can see the Coordinatrix's growing warm weather gear collection. She's purchased three jackets, a scarf, and a blanket since entering Great Britain. All solely for warmth, not as souvenirs. Dirleton Castle was my favorite.

This is Tantallon Castle, which has an amazing view out to Bass Rock. It's built right on the coast and is six stories high.

We visited 3 cemeteries on Super Castle Party Day. I can't get enough of the relief work on some of them. Last night I visited a cemetery in Edinburgh (where Adam Smith is buried) and there was a great marker that noted that the dead man had been a bassoonist and adventurer.

Don't the skulls on these look sort of alien-like?

Argh, matey.

Meta came too. EVERYBODY loves the metadog. She got loved up everywhere we went.

The Most Beautiful Place We've Seen

These are pictures from Stoer Lighthouse north of Lochinver. Our B&B owner (a Dutch man fascinated by motorcycles and Texas) sent us up here in search of whales and other sea creatures. We drove through fields of sheep and stone houses and ruins to get here and the pictures do no justice at all to the experience. We just kept turning to one another and exclaiming over how beautiful it was. The sky was so huge and the grass was so green and the light was amazing.

Picture Catch Up

Kirsten and the Coordinatrix hiking to Culag Woods in Lochinver. It was so green.

The view from the lake at Culag Woods

I like to take pictures of Kirsten taking pictures. I have lots.

The Iron Bridge -- This was the first cast iron bridge and the valley where it was built was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

The view from the road to our B&B in Keswick

I visited the Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswick. When we arrived, there was some sort of ceremony with hand-holding and chanting and rock hugging going on.

Sitting on some fort ruins on Hadrian's Wall. We ate our lunch here and the entire time I thought about how funny it was that I was munching a sandwich on what was once a hugely fortified military structure. Ha ha, Romans!

I've never seen tug-of-war as an event in the highland games in the States. It's surprisingly fantastic. The participants literally dig their heels into the ground and then there's a man standing to the side for each team and his job is to turn red in the face yelling for them to pull together.

The Highlands

A little bit of magic allowed me to upload three pictures. The computer still won't upload my highland cow!

A view down from the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. Can you see the three sheep down there?

Views from the Isle of Skye

My Favorite Part of Edinburgh Castle

The historical exhibit about the Honours, the Scottish crown jewels, is very good and takes approximately five billion years to peruse with all the crowds of people frantic to see the goods. So, I was there yesterday and a group of little Scottish boys (probably 9-years-old) came into the actual chamber with the jewels right after I did and had this conversation with the kilted guard who looked pained to be working there (imagine this all in a Scottish accent--it's better that way):

Little Boy: What's this? (bear in mind that the exhibit ABOUT the jewels and Stone of Scone that precedes the actual artifacts is VERY long)

Long-Suffering Guard: That's the Stone of Destiny.

Little Boy: Oh. (pause) Are there spirits in the castle?

Long-Suffering Guard: Don' know. None that I've seen.

Little Boy: Do you think the spirits come out at night?

Long-Suffering Guard: They could do.

Little Boy: And haunt people?

And that's when I escaped the jewel chamber, but I left deeply amused.

Quick Update

What we've been up to:

• Attended Highland Games in Portree - In response to friends' questions about how the Scots wear their kilts at the games: the competitors in the local games wear jeans
• Hiked the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye
• Had very pleasant breakfast conversation about American politics with minister from the Orkney Islands at our beautiful B&B in Duror
• Visited the MOST beautiful tiny village (I really mean it this time) in the northwest corner of Scotland. Coordinatrix eaten up by midges.
• Stayed with a friend from Indiana in St. Andrews area. She may be the coolest person I know and her food is very, very good.
• Ate delicious fish and chips by the sea
• Visited four castles, two churches, and three cemeteries on Castle Party Day with tiny dog wearing raincoat
• Scottish computers continue to refuse access to pictures on my camera

Scotland's Good Too

The Coordinatrix and I made our way to Scotland on Monday. I navigated us to Hadrian's Wall by way of Gretna Green. Look at a map. That's really astonishingly bad work. All the same, we managed to find Kirsten in Edinburgh and the three of us are in the Highlands this week.

I would have sworn that when I booked our hostel on the Isle of Skye I reserved three spots in a female dorm, but we'd only been back from dinner about half an hour before the three French guys we'd just encountered in the cafe showed up in our room and started making themselves at home.

I'll post pictures of the Highland Games in Portree and the many castles and the gorgeous scenery we've been seeing, when I get to a computer that will cooperate. We've been in the car a LOT this week. The Coordinatrix has gotten very good at driving and Kirsten's friend burned us a CD with 8 hours worth of music so we could escape the tyranny of the 5 pop songs played on a continuous loop on British radio. He put three hours worth of Camera Obscura on the CD, so I'm very pleased with our new soundtrack of Scotland. Whee!