Part 3: Edinburgh, Scotland [cont'd]

And the saga continues...

Saturday, September 20, 2008

This is definitely Scotland.

This morning we got up at 8 AM and got ready and went to the dining hall for breakfast. Toast, cereal & milk, tea/juice/coffee, just like at the Dublin hostel. Then we checked out and hopped on the 9:44 city bus to the city. We were the only ones on the top level (most city buses there I think are double deckers) so I busted out my phone and we listened to a few Chris Tomlin songs. Once at city centre, we headed to the National Gallery of Scotland. IT was free (at least, everything except the Impressionism Exhibition was). In the first area we explored, there were a lot of drawings, some paintings and photographs. There was this one photo that was actually like 40 slivers of photographs put together, because it was a scene that was photographed over a period of a year and each slice was taken at the same time of day and month so that it looked like the scene was actually vertical chunks with different season. It was called "Rhythm of the Twelvemonth" and it was by Stephen Lawson. I loved it! First of all, it was an amazing idea. Secondly, it was well done. Lastly, the scene itself was beautiful... Clouds, trees, hills. After this are we went to a higher floor that had many rooms of just paintings and sculptures. It took quite a while to get through it all, but it was worth it. There was this gorgeous oil painting (most of them were oil) of a boy in the dark blowing on a piece of lit coal. It looked so real because the boy was in darkness but you could make out his outline, and also the burning coal in front of him lit up his face with a brilliant glow, a warm and bright orange-yellow. Another one of my favorites was of the Last Supper. Jesus and eleven of the disciples were in a circle, sitting or lying down, and Judas was walking out of the room with his front in the darkness. Everyone besides him just looked so comfortable to be with Jesus... It was just really beautiful and I think it was an interesting interpretation of that event. Everyone looked like each other's best friend. I think Jesus wants us to feel that intimate with Him and with each other as a church.

The Royal Mile


The door to the toilet... obviously

Next we walked along the Royal Mile and turns out there are a lot of tourist shops on this street. We arranged a meeting place for 1:30, which was just half an hour (not everyone wanted to look at the same places). Once we'd met back up, we went down some stairs into this little cafe. There was only one lady working there and the ground floor was full (well, there were only about 6 seats in there anyway) so we went upstairs, which was where the toilet was. I only mention this because the door to it was really neat... It had the word "toilet" painted on it in like 15 different languages and colors. The place where we ate was just a little coffee table and a couch and loveseat... This upstairs portion of the cafe was actually part of another shop, we think, because behind one of the couches was a big piece of fabric and we could hear music and people from behind it. I ate a panini with cheese and tomato and a light salad. While we were waiting for our food, David played this game with us that he read about in the Encyclopedia of Immaturity (it was randomly in the National Gallery gift shop). I don't think the game ended up like it was supposed to, haha. Well, we were in a cute little place to rest. We paid downstairs, and by the counter they had a fridge with drinks in it. I saw this can of something I'd seen a couple other places in Scotland called IRN-BRU... I thought it was some kind of beer or alcoholic drink, but I was curious, so I picked it up and read the ingredients. It was just some kind of soda! The can said that it was an original Scottish drink, and I asked the lady at the counter what she thought of it and she'd never actually tried it but said that people were crazy about it there and that it wasn't available anywhere else (but much to my delight, I've found it several places in Oxford... It's becoming more popular). I just had to try it! OF COURSE. I was so excited. I popped it open, and this orange scent came wafting out, so I thought it was going to be like orange soda back home. I took a drink, and it was more like one of those orange Smarties candies, the ones rolled in the plastic... SO GOOD. I loved it and was so glad I had gotten it.

Silly Scottie

Just part of the big "hill" once we got to a higher vantage point

We kept moving on down the Royal Mile towards the palace. On the way, we noticed a couple of Christmas shops (weird). In a window of a whisky shop there was a little Scottie dog, just sitting there watching everyone pass by on the street. We saw a fudge shop called Jim Garrahy's Fudge Kitchen that had a sign over the door advertising free samples. We went in ad tried the German chocolate swirl and it was really good. It was like vanilla and chocolate together. I thought it was kind of strange that there was even such a thing as vanilla-flavored fudge. We got there right before the man in the back came out with a fresh, warm sample of the double chocolate fudge, which was even better. We decided to all chip in and buy a hunk of the first kind to share. Then we continued down the street. We passed Scottish Parliament (the new one). It was a really modern-looking building, which was in such contrast to most of the other buildings in town. We could see this huge, HUGE hill/plateau just a few hundred yards down the road that Parliament was on, but we couldn't go climb it because we weren't sure we'd have enough time to do that and also see the memorial up on the hill before we needed to catch the bus to the airport (much to David's disappointment). Okay, well, it turns out that you had to pay to get into the palace, and we didn't feel like dishing out any more money, so we just walked on and looked for the way to get up to the monuments. These were the pillars we saw off in the distance when we were up at the castle. We found a path that led up and Holly was sure it'd get us there sooner or later, and we grudgingly ascended after her. We ran into some people walking down and they said we were going the right way. So we walked up and up... We got great views of the big green hill and that side of the city, constantly changing since we kept getting higher and higher. We eventually reached the top. It wasn't all that high but it was probably the highest we'd been since the castle, and plus, this offered a 360-degree view. There was the pillar monument, which we never found out its purpose while we were there. Google informs me, however, that it was supposed to be a memorial to the Scots who died in the Napoleonic Wars, but it was never finished because many who promised to help fund it did not pay. It's called the National Monument, by the way, and this hill we were on was Calton Hill. Another monument was the Nelson Monument, which is the shape of an upturned telescope. The city observatory was also up there but it was closed for refurnishing. The other monument was the Dugald Stewart Monument; Stewart was a Scottish philosopher. We stayed up there for a little over an hour, just taking photos, talking, and resting. Then we wanted to go see St. Mary's Cathedral (or what we thought was St. Mary's) because it looked cool from up there where we were, so we walked down into the city. We were in the "New Town" part for the first time, and there was this huge, ugly black "monstrosity" (as Holly put it) of a shopping mall that we walked by. We got to St. Mary's, but it was not the cool building we thought it was. Christ went across the street to check out what the cool building was. It turned out to be some other cathedral, like St. Peter-St. Paul Cathedral or something. While he'd been gone, we were all just sitting on St. Mary's steps, and down to our right just on the sidewalk was a small group of adults, and two of the guys appeared to be in an argument. I'm pretty sure they were drunk. But there was this woman between them trying to prevent them from punching each other. We couldn't really tell whether they were serious of not, but as soon as Chris came back we left. As we were walking I took pictures of the cigarette boxes people had littered on the ground, because there were very large, varied, and blunt warnings about the harmful effects of smoking. I love how they're so honest, but it's sad that so many people still do it. At this point we didn't really have anything else in mind to do and it was only a little after 5, and we only had to catch the bus around 7 to be at the airport at a good time. So we just kind of wandered downtown. We thought we might stop by the Edinburgh Dungeon because just the name itself sounds cool .well, we walked into this place we thought was it and it seemed just like a cheesy goth gift shop. We found out that the whole big deal was just a silly ride and that the last one was at 5 anyway. We walked toward the other part of downtown to see what this one tower memorial was. It wasn't really that interesting. Mary got coffee, and then we had nothing to do.

The National Monument at the top of Calton Hill

Just hanging out and resting

We simply walked to the bridge where our bus was going to pick us up. We'd bought open return tickets when we rode into the city so we were able to go on any of the buses, and they came really often, like less than 10 minutes apart. There was one when we got there but we decided to just wait for the next one so we wouldn't have to rush on. The next one came about 2 minutes later. We got on, said goodbye to the city. At the airport we decided to eat after security, since it seemed that at the Dublin and Gatwick airports there were better options afterward. We asked a shopkeeper if there were any restaurants after security, to be sure, and they said yes. So we went through. To our dismay, there was actually only a bar and a Costa Coffee. At least the Costa Coffee had cafe sandwiches. And... IRN-BRU!!! That made up for the lack of restaurants, in my eyes anyway. So we ate. We saw on the screen before we even checked in that our flight was delayed half an hour, which would give us 10 minutes from the time it landed to the time our bus left for Oxford. Well, it got delayed even more. We most certainly weren't going to catch our bus, and we thought the next one was at 3 AM... So we were pretty bummed, but at least our tickets would still be good because they were valid 24 hours after the return departure time. Well, while we were waiting in the airport before the flight, David and Chris got into this debate involving movies, music, lyrics, and relationships. It continued on the plane, as far as I could tell. Mary, Holly, and I just talked about guys, TV, and health. I saw on the TV that was playing that there were bombings in Pakistan. Once the plane arrived, we got on. The pilot explained the reason for the delay, but all I can remember about it is that the plane that was supposed to have flown us wasn't able to for some reason, so this plane came even though it was supposed to be in Barcelona. The free magazine in the pocket in front of us was pretty interesting, since it had a lot about cities in Greece, and I'm going there for Thanksgiving break. I sat by Mary and we talked a bit about Greece and about how tired we were. This flight was the longest of all the weekend's flights at about an hour and forty-five minutes-ish. By this time we just wanted to get home, you know. We got to the airport in London and David was convinced that we were going to be able to catch our 11:15 bus... It was 11:10 when we landed. Mary and I were like, there is no way we'll catch it and there is no way we're running through the airport to try to catch it. We all just walked fast and got to where the bus should have been at about 11:18. we were upset, so we went back inside to try to ask an employee if they knew anything about when the next one was. No one knew (well, we were only able to find one who wasn't helping anyone at the moment), so we just walked through the terminal following signs to where the local bus info was, hoping there'd be something about our coach there. We fortunately found the schedule, and fortunately (even more so) the next bus was only at 1, not 3 like we'd thought. So we figure that's not a bad wait. Mary's stomach wasn't feeling well, so she found some Sprite. We just hung out in the middle there for a while Chris looked at the exchange rates, or at least we thought he was. Next thing we know, we're turning around and he's nowhere to be seen. We decided that David will walk around for a few minutes to try to find him while we girls stay by the vending machine. About 5 seconds later (David's only walked about 30 feet), we see Chris turning the wrong corner away from us, and then we all catch up with him. We went out by where we need to exit for the bus (but still inside) and sat on these chairs. Chris went downstairs to the bathroom and David and the rest of us started talking about what he and Chris were talking about. It was all very interesting and got even better when Chris got back. Soon it was almost 1 so we went outside and the bus was there. We were doing fine until the bus driver got to Chris. He said his ticket said that he was to depart at 03:15, not 23.15 like ours, so he couldn't get on this bus because it was before his confirmed boarding time unless he paid £22. he's the driver, what he says goes, is basically the way he put it. We were like, "No, his ticket says 23:15, it's just creased right on the '2' so it's really faint," but he wouldn't hear it. We didn't want to pay so we decided we'd just wait 'til the next one at 3. we got off, went back inside. But David still wanted to go back and argue about it. We didn't go back until Mary had figured out that it wouldn't work if we just did it the way the driver said to because of a date and time conflict. So we went back and she was able to (thankfully) explain to him calmly how and why he was wrong. He realized he'd made a mistake and let us all on. We went towards the back. Everyone was on the right of the aisle except for me so I wasn't able to join their continuing conversation. It was all good though because I needed to catch up on journaling. I did, and eventually I started to feel nauseous, partly from writing in a moving vehicle (especially at the back of it) and partly because the strong cleaning scent wafting from the bathroom behind me was so overwhelming. I had to stop writing and just listen to music because I didn't want to have to be rushing to the bathroom if I needed to vomit. We finally got to the Oxford bus station at about 3ish, and since it's in the city centre we had a nice brisk walk of about 20 minutes back to our houses - we walked fast so that we would warm up, because it was cold!! There were SO many people out that late at night! It was so shocking. I noticed that there were plenty of those cigarette boxes with the warnings on them lying on the ground. I also saw an IRN-BRU can on the sidewalk! I was sooooo extremely excited, you don't even know. It gave me hope! Haha. Eventually we got to our road, and ended our journey with a prayer of praise. I went right to bed. Fell asleep right away.

One of the many... but this was my favorite

The most amazing thing that God taught me was how big His love is. I got to Dublin and realized how absolutely huge it was and how many people lived there, and God loves them all enough to die to possibly have a right relationship with them. Then I got to Edinburgh, which seemed even bigger, and realized the same thing. And these were only two cities out of the entire world! And if He loves them there, and there, and here, then he is everywhere and His love is everywhere, too. It brings me yet again to Psalm 139: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me..." and I definitely felt Him with me that weekend. He's definitely opened my eyes and shown Himself to me.

That's the end... but tomorrow (a.k.a. today, since it's about 1:30 AM on Thursday right now) we go to Spain! We'll be there for two weeks. :) wish me luck.