Edinburgh - Everything Else

Edinburgh – Everything Else

I spent three nights in Edinburgh, meaning that I did do much more than just climb Arthur’s Seat, even though that was the personal highlight for me.

On arrival, I bought a crepe, toured James Craig Mall, and found where Kaitlyn lives.  I settled in, and didn’t do much else aside from that.  It was very nice to see Kaitlyn again, and relieving to discover that I’m not the only one feeling immensely homesick and somewhat unhappy about spending a semester abroad. 

Textiles at work!

The next day I decided to go find the castle, which really I came across mostly by accident anyway.  Before entering the castle, however, I decided to check out the tartan shop nearby.  I was very impressed by this place, and I highly recommend visiting it.  Instead of just being a store, they are also a textile factory where they produce their own wool and cashmere fabrics.  They truly make everything themselves, here, using automatic looms I assume have been used since the industrial revolution.  Being able to witness this process was quite a fantastic experience.  I was disappointed to find that there was no Harrington tartan, but this feeling was relieved when I remembered that my family is Irish, not Scottish.  Nevertheless, I kept catching myself looking for my name between, “Hamilton,” and, “Hays,”.  

 

 The Edinburgh Castle is a very impressive feature positioned up the hill of an extinct volcano.  I do not regret spending half of my food money on the admission fee.  I learned a fair bit of Scottish history, particularly concerning the origin of the castle itself, how it was captured by the English, reclaimed by the Scottish (from infiltration with only 30 men!) and then destroyed by the Scottish so that it may never captured by the English again.  I also learned the story about Mary, Queen of Scots, and I saw the tiny room where King James VI and I was born.  In the dungeons (used prior as storage, then during the civil war became storage for American navy men), I caught a glimpse of what the life of a prisoner of war would be, and became suddenly fond of my room in Bodington Hall, and my freedom to eat a diversity of food should I so choose.

Vegetarian haggis, with neeps, tatties and gravy!

 

After exploring some more, I discovered some places that serve vegetarian haggis!  This is composed of the oats and spices that would make up a regular haggis, plus some vegetable proteins that the chefs decide to incorporate.  Served with neeps and tatties, of course!  Mr. MacTaggart would be proud (maybe).

On the day after I climbed Arthur’s seat, I went for breakfast at a vegetarian café.  I was surprised to see it was only a deli/café when I thought it was a restaurant, but I ordered a walnut scone (delicious!) and some nut ball thing (alright).  Upon leaving, I promptly noticed that the restaurant was below the café in the same building.  Darn.  I then wandered to go explore Queen’s Park before catching my train.  I was disappointed to see that the entire park was fenced off, with locked gates.  On my way back, I stumbled upon Bibi’s cupcake place, completely by accident.  I popped in just to see what all the fuss was about, and the aroma caught me there.  After much contemplation, I bought myself a chocolate orange cupcake.  I think what sold me in this decision over the others was the terry’s chocolate orange piece that crowned the cupcake.

I made my way back to where the train station is, and was pleased to see I had an hour of time remaining.  I found myself a sunny park bench, and enjoyed my cupcake and a book.  This is happiness.  

 

Good bye, Edinburgh!  It was on to Glasgow to meet up with my dad and uncle here.

I finish typing this post just before the train rolls into Leeds (from Glasgow).  Today is my first day of classes!

You know you're in Scotland, when:

 

Day 9 - Chester

Day 9 – Chester

Chester Abby

Chester is a very lovely city that I enjoyed visiting.  It has many cute little shops and places to eat.  I didn’t really do much here other than walk around, take pictures and browse, but I definitely enjoyed my time here.

Something notable about Chester is the apparent lack of crime.  Even in the more industrial area outside of the city centre, I didn’t see so much as a graffiti’ed wall.  No broken windows or anything of that nature.  Even the streets seemed relatively clean.   I like Chester.  

River

It was here we encountered our first Poundland, a fantastic chain that is similar in theory to our dollar stores, except far more useful, and everything actually costs ONE POUND.  I've noticed that our dollar stores range from $1-$15, and is mostly cheap plastic toys, which this place contains useful things like milk, shampoo, cleaning products, and packaged food items.

 

We walked on the Chester walls for awhile, which was delightful in giving us a nice view of the city, parks and the river.

Awesome clock tower in Chester

 We also encountered an awesome pub that had very strict regulations regarding dress and attitude.  I wish I could find something like that here in Leeds, so I could escape the trashy, loud, hammered students in the evenings.  Unfortunately, this establishment wasn't open when we were looking for dinner.

I had a very delicious fast food noodles for dinner.  It was in a pad Thai sauce, with egg, tofu and pineapple bits.  NUM!

You know you're in England, when:

 

Day 8 - London Part II

I’ve almost given up this futile effort of keeping everyone completely filled in of previous exploits, but since I have a three hour train ride ahead of me, back to Leeds from Scotland, I shall see how much I can accomplish in this time.  I’ll begin by recounting the second half of the day of our return to London.


Day 8 – London   Part II

I felt slightly dizzy leaving Holland and Holland, the experience was rather overwhelming.  As a comic relief, I promptly walked by some fancy art gallery, which had this as its prominent display. 

Naturally I walked past, paused, backed up, and peered in, in the cartoon double-take fashion.  I walk up to the door, and ask the door-holder-person if I may enter.  I can, to get a better look at this homoerotic beast.  Yup, it was pretty much what I thought it was, and all the bit fantastic.  I took a quick tour of what else was on display, and found this glittery sequin-covered model of an AK-47.

I don’t get art.

It was a fair distance to Camden market, my next stop, (as recommended by Austin), so I look for buses that are heading that way.  I forgot that the bus stop I originally wanted to take was right across from Holland and Holland in my daze, and I was already a few blocks away from there.  I ask a lady at a bus stop, who happened to be American in origin, but has lived in London for 10 years. She was happy to help me find my way, and apparently lives near Camden market.  She shows me the way, and thank goodness for it, because there is a small flea market titled, “Camden Market” that I might have mistaken for the actual thing, and would have been promptly disappointed.

Camden Market is to the right

 I crossed a bridge, and took this little picture because I thought the canal was cute.

I enter the market alone.  It is predominately indoors, which creates a confining shell of this euphoria of overwhelming sensations.  Camden Market is a sensory overload.  It is a plethora of small booths all crammed close to each other.  Each booth is completely overfilled with products as the vendors shove as much Chinese factory made merchandise as they possibly can into their allotted space, giving you far too much to look at, (sight).  Bright colours everywhere, while the market place itself is dimly lit (sight).  Every third booth or so has a different type of music playing (sound). Every fourth or fifth booth is burning a different type of incense (smell).  Naturally, at the clothing booths I’m interested in, I need to touch the fabrics of all the pieces to feel the materials (touch).  People are smoking hookas (smell).  The place is filled with talking, chattering and shouting (sound).  Passing through the food vendors, aromas of Chinese, and Indian dominate (smell).  The food vendors shout at me specifically to test and buy their food products (sound).  After shouting “Vegetarian!” at two food vendors who are offering me mystery-meat Chinese products, I enter a vortex of three other food vendors shouting at me from different directions at the same time, and I end up (literally) running through that area to get away from them.

Camden Market is the exact opposite of Holland and Holland, in every way, while both manage to create the similar overloading anxieties within me.

Um, OK then.

I read this sign (shown left) at a military style vendor, and I’m still not entirely sure what it’s referring to

I am very delighted, however, by the quantity and variety of gothic clothing vendors available.  We have four, maybe five places that sell these things in all of Vancouver (if I’m wrong, please let me know where else to shop!) , while I walked past half a dozen here within one block of each other.  The prices were all very reasonable too, making me partially relieved that I had no money on me, least I have spent my living/food money on corsets.  I did get the business cards of a couple places, so I might browse them online when I’m more settled down in Leeds.  (Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that some of those vendors imported from the same Asian factories).

I explained my surprise about the quantity of these shops to one of the gentlemen running one of the gothic booths, saying, “there’s only about two places like this in my entire city!” (incorrect in hindsight), and he responds, “let me guess what city, Toronto?”  I’m a little surprised, and ask, “No, Vancouver, but how did you know I’m Canadian?” and he claims that our accent is softer than that of Americans, and we can be differentiated by that.  Cool!  Not even most Canadians or Americans can do that.

And such concludes the evening of day 8, and I head back to the B&B in Barnes.

You know you’re in England when:

YOUR NAME IS WALDO, AND YOU KNOW IT!

Is it too late for me to go through a Gothic phase?  I really regret not doing this in high school, and I LOVE the clothing styles

Edinburgh - Arthur's Seat

As a forward, I apologize for the lack of nice photos in this post.  I don't have my camera USB with me, so I can only post pictures from my iPhone, of which are lesser in quality, and are many less to choose from.  I'm afraid I don't do the hill justice. I will post better pictures when I return to Leeds, in the same way I did for Dumbleton Hall Hotel.

Edinburgh – Arthur’s Seat

Arthur’s Seat has been by far the highlight of my trip to Edinburgh so far.  The experience was whimsical, and almost magical, despite it raining on me the entire climb.

Despite the ominous grey clouds, and the falling rain, I knew that this was something I needed to do in Edinburgh.  It took me quite a long walk just to reach the base of the hill, so I was already fairly damp before I had even begun.  I approached it from the west side, with steps leading up to the trail.  It was a very steep beginning, so even after five minutes I was already impressed with the altitude I had gained.  Shortly up the way, I ran into a women looking at snails, and quickly discovered that she is an environmental geochemist from Massachusetts.  She had a printout guide from one of the local universities, and together we explored the different geological features of the extinct volcano. 

We walked along the Salisbury Crags, pausing whenever we noticed contacts between the sedimentary bedrock and the intrusive sill.  The heat and pressure from the intrusion caused some notable deformation in the underlying strata, and we took pictures of some of the folding, (on my camera,).

The Hutton Section!

We then came across Hutton’s Rock, named for the conservation efforts supported by James Hutton, (father of modern geology), in preserving the crags from the quarrying that was taking place.  The government halted the quarrying, and the hematite vein which intruded the sill remains today.

Next, we walked over the Hutton Section, which was one of the most exciting features for both of us  We might have missed it, were it not for a plaque.  The Hutton Section is one of the areas where there is visible disruption of the sandstone due to the intrusion of the volcanic sill.  He wrote about these observations when formulating his theories of uniformitarianism, and thereby disproving the previous doctrine.

SO COOL!  -Squee!-

After that we parted ways.  She wanted to investigate some ripple marks and desiccation cracks (NOT syneresis cracks, Dr. MacEachern), while I wanted to climb up to the summit.

So I did.

The other geologist lady went over there

But I was determined to get up there

The stones were slippery, the hills were grassy and wet, the wind became stronger each step I took, and oddly the fields were covered in herbivore droppings.  But I made it.  The grassy areas came as a relief after the treacherous slippery bedrock.  To climb the finally summit, I needed to climb the wet bedrock again, this time with little to no path.  I went up eroded waterways, which were actively draining the rainfall.  I climbed on, and as I did, heavy clouds and fog rolled in.  When I made it to the top, I was surrounded by cloud, unable to see any of the city below me, nor even the grassy hill I had just left.  Wind howled past my ears as I stood alone and a bit cold, rain still coming down.  My boots [and pants (TROUSERS)] had gotten wet by this point, and I had left my waterproof coat back in Leeds.  But, I wasn’t cold enough to be miserable, which was very much appreciated.  An old man climbed up the way I did, acknowledged me, told me I should have something on my head, and hiked down over the other side.  I couldn’t see where we went, as the cloud was too thick. 

I dared not go down an unfamiliar route, so I very carefully stepped slowly down the rock face I had just climbed.  I needed to use my hands to prevent slipping (and splattering my head on the stone), and carefully made my way back down.  From there I climbed the second highest point, which was much easier due to the grass and less steep incline.  I decide to head back down from the East, as I remember reading that it is an easier trail.  As I start my decline, I see nice stone steps leading up to the first summit from the other side.  

Bugger.

I continue down, thankful for the soft vegetation, which was much more welcoming in the case of a fall, and take my time to admire the sights.  The cloud begins to clear somewhat (though still raining) and I have a wonderful panoramic view of Edinburgh. 

I suppose it helps add to the wonder the fact that I just started to read, The Fellowship of the Ring and the rolling hills of Scotland definitely feel like the Shire.  I also saw a bunny hop by me!  I barely saw the flash of its white tail, before bounding into the bush. I looked for him, and saw him briefly before he hopped further into the shrubbery. 

Beautiful Rolling hills

Ruins!

I felt very joyous during the descent, and then gasped with glee (yes, really,) when I came across the ruins of a chapel.  I felt even more awesome when I realized that these must be the ruins that Robin and Bryan came across on their trip to Edinburgh.  I wanted to climb into the window, and pose like Robin’s Facebook picture, but 

1) it was very, very slippery,

and

2) I had no one to take my picture even if I did.

So, I set the 10 second timer on my camera, and took some pictures of me in the doorway of the ruins. 

Hiking down further, I saw the bright green raincoat of the women I met before, and hurried to catch up with her.  We swapped stories of the desiccation cracks she saw, and the climb and ruins I enjoyed, and I walked back with her to the train station, before heading back to Kaitlyn’s flat to warm up. 

Happy.

Today was awesome.