A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again. - Alexander McCall Smith, speaking of Edinburgh
Edinburgh is beautiful. It's overrun with tourists, but you can still see what a pretty city it is. It's more aesthetically pleasing and charming to experience than Glasgow, but Glasgow has a warmer, funnier personality. The people in Glasgow are more welcoming because there are fewer travelers...there are still many, but fewer. I recommend these logistics to anyone who wants to visit Edinburgh. Stay in Glasgow and commute to Edinburgh. The train ride is pleasant, 50 minutes, and it runs about four times per hour.
Sir Walter Scott's Monument is not a gothic cathedral, though it seems like one from the train. I got to that later when I could snap a photo from a prime seat on a city sightseeing bus.
I started on an informal, self-guided Harry Potter tour in Greyfriars Kirkyard. At the entrance to the church, there is a grave for a loyal pup, Greyfriar's Bobby. Everyone hug your pets. They love you.
Of course, people leave sticks to fetch instead of flowers at a good dog's grave.
I just love all the skulls and skeletons in a very old cemetery. That's what I like about Boston and Salem, too. These grave markers weren't as grand as the Glasgow Necropolis. They were more humble and even more fascinating. Some of them were from the 1700s, and many of them showed evidence of the problem that grave robbing was here back in the 1800s.
Ha! This one
really is pushing up daisies!
Not subtle.
A young woman, maybe in her early 30s, spoke to me. "Can you tell me where to find Tom Riddell's grave?" I was wandering around lost, looking for the exact same thing, and I told her as much. Google Maps had sent both of us to the wrong side of a stone wall. We wandered around together for a while. Her name is Manavi. She is in medical school in Sheffield and will be graduating next month. She will be doing her residency in Edinburgh and is visiting for a week to find a place to live. We poked around until we finally found Tom Riddell, celebrated, and laughed that poor old Tom probably had no idea his grave would become globally famous...enough for people to leave flowers over two hundred years after his death.
Then, Manavi and I walked back up Candlemaker Row and Victoria Street together. We talked about her plans for her career. She wants to specialize in female reproductive health after residency. Absolutely fascinating. We talked about science, religion, politics, and medical care, all within the span of an hour. I am so glad to have met her. (I also cannot understand why Blogger is insisting on centering this paragraph, despite my attempts to left align. Grrr....)
When the One O'Clock Gun sounded from the castle, we exchanged email addresses and parted ways. I had purchased a ticket for entry to the castle between 1 and 1:30 pm, and they were sold out for the day.
Treguna Mekoides Tracorum Satis Dee...Not even a flutter. They refuse to come to life. My magic needs tuning.
The unicorn (Scotland) and the lion (England).
There is a
pet cemetery at Edinburg Castle.
St. Margaret's Chapel is the oldest building in Edinburgh, built around 1100. It is tiny and claustrophobic inside.
Margaret was a Saxon princess who fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. She married
Malcolm III, a king whose father, Duncan, had been killed by Macbeth. I had no idea until today that Shakespeare based
Macbeth on real people.
There were owls on Victoria Street. This photo was taken from the top level of a city sightseeing bus. There was a boy of around 6 years of age in the seat directly behind me who had been driving his parents crazy. They deserved it. His dad had taken his iPad away and insisted he look around and appreciate the tour. The kid was humming with the bumps in the road, jostling, and fidgeting. They put headphones on him to listen to the guide and then reprimanded him angrily when he said, very loudly, "This is so stupid."
I peeked at him through the seat and pointed..."Look! Owls!"
This got his attention fully. They are enormous, their eyes are bright orange, and he had not noticed them there.
"Do you think they have mail to deliver?" I asked him.
"No, they should be sleeping. They're nocturnal."
Smart kid! Maybe it would have been better to bring him here when he is a little older.
The illustrious Sir Walter, seated in his gothic forever home. He is right over the train station, so his monument has been blackened from many years of train smoke. I wonder why he hasn't, or if he has been scrubbed?
The castle on the Rock.
Tomorrow's my last full day in Scotland. I fly home on Wednesday, and then it will be time to buckle down, finalize and practice my presentation for Lonza, and make sure I am fully refreshed on as many of their publications and patents as I can find. I have confidence that if I can land an interview, I can Hermione my way to an offer.
I'm off to Stirling Castle and Loch Lomond!
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