As I walked to get my breakfast, I could tell it would be a rainy day. This isn’t just rain. It’s that misty rain so that no umbrella is going to help at all. It just blows in your face- not so good for those of us who wear glasses. I decided that I would declare this my last laundry day of the trip. Yes, it is true- My time in Scotland is drawing to a close. It is a sad thing, but unfortunately, life must go on.
What started as this……quickly became this!
Other than laundry, I spent the bulk of the day reading and listening to podcasts. In the evening, I did brave the misty fog and went to the cinema to see Shazam!. I thought the movie was a lot better than the previews looked- I’ll definitely add it to my wishlist as soon as the price drops, of course.
Dicky said he wanted to go see Camera Obscura, an Edinburgh tourist attraction that has been around since the 1800s. He invited me to go with him, and I went half-heartedly thinking I’d be bored. I felt like this was going to be a waste of the £14 entry fee. This was, however, Dicky’s last full day in Edinburgh, so I decided to go with him. I have always wondered what it was like inside. I have to admit that it was a pretty awesome exhibit.
Even though it was five stories high, with plenty to look at, I think it £14 is a bit steep of a price to charge. If you have kids, however, they would definitely love the place! It’s more or less a building full of optical tricks and illusions.
It is always great when someone can join you on your adventures. This morning I met a guy called Dicky. He is from the lovely country of Canada, so I guess that makes us next door neighbors. He is on a temporary, paid leave of absence from his job at Walmart. It is a sorted tale of him being an arguably bad employee, mixed with a store full of managers who don’t know how to manage- this got Dicky a paid leave while his bosses get things sorted. Sadly, he may be out of a job, but has already spoken to his lawyer and tells me he’s planning to sue if things don’t work out for the better.
He used this free time to come over to Scotland for the very first time. When he asked me for suggestions on what to see and do, I put my tour guide hat on my head and we hung out for the rest of the day.
We ended up at The Royal Museum of Scotland. I had never been there, and he said he really wanted to check it out, so we did. It was very cool- other than the fact that Dicky kept reminding me that the museum in Toronto was so much better. I guess Edinburgh needs to up their game.
Rat Fighting, Rat Loving“Dolly” The Famous Cloned Sheep
Later this afternoon, Dicky got back from his Harry Potter tour (there is a bunch of them if you happen to be a Potter fan) and he was asking what we should do. I asked him if he had any desire to climb up to Arthur’s Seat. This is something that I told myself I would do every day while I was in Edinburgh. Due to bad weather, and just plain laziness, I have only been up once on this trip. He said he was very interested in going and since the sun was out, and Dicky is only going to be here for three days, we went for the hike.
Today I changed it up- just a bit. When I was walking to Leith the other day, I noticed that the musical Matilda was playing. I decided to check online if there were any tickets left. As luck would have it, the Edinburgh Playhouse had exactly two tickets left for the matinee, so I decided to get one of them. It was a really great seat, too! I was about six rows from the front.
It was a fun show! I miss seeing live performances so much! My only criticism is that a lot of the main character’s words were hard to understand. She was trying to enunciate, but the little girl had such a thick English accent, that it made it difficult. Luckily, the storyline was pretty easy to follow along with.
Tonight was such a cool night! I went on a City of the Dead tour. This tour, which I also went on a few years ago, is all about Edinburgh’s haunted past. Paranormal stuff has always fascinated me. To be honest, I don’t believe in so much of it, but it still fascinates me.
Before the tour, I got myself in a spooky mood by listening to the Sweeney Todd soundtrack, while taking some pictures. I used them. “Noir” filter on my phone to give the pics a scary feel.
There were a few moments on the tour where I was legitimately frightened, but that was only when the tour guide would shout or try to scare us. So I guess ‘frightened’ is the wrong word. It’s more like I was startled.
The tour actually takes you into some underground places in Edinburgh that had actually been sealed up for centuries. One if the places are supposedly haunted by a young boy called Jack. Freaky stuff!
I decided this morning to go on a long walk. It ended up being over 6 miles, by the time I got back to the hostel. I walked all the way to the Ocean Terminal Shopping Center, which is a mall in North Leith that is right on the Firth of Forth. I decided to do one of my ‘<100 Steps’ posts. This is simply where I walk with my camera while counting my steps. I have to take a picture before I the count gets up to one hundred. Do to all the pictures and lack of storytelling, you may find this post boring.
I, on the other hand, love doing this because it means that I am really paying attention to my surroundings. Sometimes when I go on walks, it’s easy to get lost in my thoughts, or lost in the music I’m listening to. When I do this, however, it’s an entirely different experience. I find myself paying attention to the little details all around me because I only have so many steps left before I have to take another picture. I recommend taking a walk with your camera and going this.
I don’t have a whole lot to report today. Since it’s Sunday today, I wanted to have a day of relaxing. I was able to make it out to church. I was planning on walking, but as I set out to start the walk, I noticed my phone had stopped working. It was on but wasn’t responding to my touch. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to respond. I ran back inside and up to my room, hooked it up to my laptop and reinstalled the software. This worked like a charm but made it to where I would have been late for church. I decided to summon an Uber and made it just in time.
After church, I walked back to the hostel, took a nap, and worked on some postcards to send back to the states. I listened to some podcasts for a bit and ended up getting my dinner at Mum’s. Later, I walked over to Greyfriar’s and walked around the cemetery, finding family names. I did a live stream from the sight, nothing too exciting, just something to show the friends back home what I was up to. For those of you who like to watch the live streams, I’m occasionally on Periscope with the nickname @DavTravels.
The bad news: I spent a good part of the morning talking with a very rude employee at kiwi.com. He first told me his name was Steve. I could tell, however, that he was sitting in a call center somewhere in India. Yes, there is a chance his name is Steve, but when I asked him he confessed that his name wasn’t Steve after all. It was Mohinder (I think that’s how it’s spelled).
So the situation is this- Wow Air has ceased its operations due to bankruptcy. Since I was planning on taking three flights home, and that was simply my middle flight, I can’t take either of the flights. The only refund coming to me is the portion for the second flight, I think I’ll be getting around $130 back. Kiwi.com wanted me to pay the €20 to pursue getting my money back from the other two airlines (easyJet and JetBlue) and even though I want those refunds, Kiwi.com’s website wasn’t taking my payment online.
I spoke with their customer service agent, hoping they could take my payment over the phone, but there was no way they could do that. They told me that the problem was on the side of my bank, not their system. So I requested to speak with a supervisor and he told me he’d have one call me back.
Next, I called my bank to see if it was indeed them stopping the payment. As I suspected, it wasn’t. About three hours later, I got the call back from the supervisor. By then, I was so frustrated and mad that I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. Buyer beware: Kiwi.com is a great site for looking for cheap flights, but they really don’t care if you get to your destination.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing. I needed to calm down, and I didn’t feel as though I had the mental capacity to explore Edinburgh Castle just yet. Instead, I read from my book, went for a couple of walks and even went to Oink for lunch. If you recall, Oink is the restaurant where they have a whole, dead hog in the window. I first had a sandwich there last year, and it was amazing!
The hostel is full this weekend because there is some big rugby game happening today. All the guys in my room are here from all over the U.K. with tickets to the game. They’re pretty stoked and they can’t believe that I didn’t know about it. Rugby is life, after all- or it should be according to the guy who is in the next bed over. I guess the right team won, and there is happy, drunk singing in the streets tonight.
Kiwi.com sent me an email last night. They wanted me to know that the airline Wow Air was no longer in business. I had read this in the news, and I feel bad that all those employees will lose their jobs, but sometimes this happens with airlines. Why were they letting me know this? Because they are one of the flights that I’d planned to fly home on.
I called Kiwi’s customer service line, and they told me that they would get back to me within 48 hours with a new plan. She told me that I can cancel the flight altogether, and they would try to get a refund from all three airlines, but the only guaranteed refund would be the leg I had booked on Wow Air.
One part of me just wants to book a whole new flight home and hopefully get a refund for the original flights (the agent told me that it could take up to 30 days to get that refund). Still, another part of me wants to take advantage of the situation and run off to some undisclosed location in Europe.
Then I overheard some people talking about the whole Brexit thing. Since they haven’t reached an agreement on the plan, this is likely to weaken the British Pound. If that happens, If it gets closer to the U.S. dollar, I could take advantage of this and get a killer deal somewhere within the U.K. Maybe I could jump down to London for a few days or something like that. For now, I think I’ll wait to hear back from Kiwi and then make the decision when it’s time. If I was a “normal” person, this would probably stress me out a bit- and even though it did at first, I’ll just count this whole thing as part of the adventure.
It’s been a relaxed day- I didn’t visit any castles but read and rested. I sometimes have to remind myself that I’m on vacation and it’s ok to take some downtime. I got some reading done and have been listening to the Serial Killers podcasts while walking around.
One thing I failed to mention about yesterday’s visit to Aberdour Castle: When the girl sold me that ticket to get into the castle, she actually talked me into buying a five-day pass. This means that even though you may be sick of learning about castles or seeing pictures of castles, I chose to take a quick trip up to Stirling so that I could see that castle as well. Yes, I did see it three years ago, but it was time for another visit.
I happen to be enjoying learning about all these old kings and queens at the moment. I am finally at a place in my life where I am starting to remember historical facts. It’s not by any means a photographic memory or anything like that, but at least I have a desire to figure all this stuff out. It’s fascinating to learn about the rise and fall of these people!
Stirling is one of the towns that I feel like I could totally be happy living in. There are a few places like this- I visit and it just has an “at-home” feel. How cool would it be to relocate to Scotland? I probably shouldn’t hold my breath while waiting for my airline to start flying here. Still- a guy can dream, can’t he?
It is now time for you daily history lesson! If it’s too much to bear, feel free to just skip down to the castle picture.
The rock of Stirling was the key to medieval Scotland. Sitting astride the narrow waist of the Central Belt, it commanded the upper reaches of the Forth as well as guarding access to the Central Highlands. In medieval times, Stirling Bridge was the lowest practical crossing point over the Forth. All invading armies had to come to the rock of Stirling if they wanted to enter Scotland’s hinterlands; Stirling Castle was rightly described as ‘a huge brooch that clasps Highlands and Lowlands together’. It suffered sixteen major sieges as a result. Legends link a citadel it’s Stirling with King Arthur but the first records of a castle there date from the reign of Alexander I who died there in 1124. Control of Stirling Castle was also demanded by Henry II before he would release the captive William the Lion in 1174.
William regained the castle before his death there in 1214, but Stirling fell into English hands again in 1295-96 when Edward I tried to annex Scotland. William Wallace briefly liberated the castle following his decisive victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 but an English governor, Sir John Simpson, was back in command in 1298. Simpson found himself besieged in turn the following year and called on Edward to send reinforcements. When these failed to arrive, the castle was surrendered and its Scots constable, Sir William Oliphant, raised the lion rampart over its battlements once again. Edward finally arrived in force in July 1304 having crossed the Forth downstream using a fleet of pontoons. At this point in the Wars for Scottish Independence, Stirling was the last major stronghold in Scotland still under patriot control. After three months of siege, Oliphant and his starving men marched out. Edward accepted their surrender but ordered the garrison back into the castle while he bombarded it with stones from his siege engine, the War Wolf.
Stirling was still in English hands in 1314, when it was among the few fortresses not under Bruce control. Failing to take the castle by siege, the King’s younger brother, Edward Bruce, parleyed with the English castellan Sir Phillip Mowbray. They agreed that the castle would be handed over to the Scots if it had not been relieved by Mid Summer Day. This committed both Robert the Bruce and Edward II to the climactic battle that was fought on the plain below the castle along the Bannockburn that summer. Once back in Scottish hands, Bruce damaged Stirling severely so it could not be held up by future invaders. Despite this, after Bruce’s death in 1329, the forces of the puppet King Edward Balliol and his sponsor Edward III captured and rebuilt Stirling on 1333, and held it until 1342.
With is the stability of the Stewart Age, Stirling flourished. Money was lavished upon the castle, to turn it into a symbol of royal authority. The Great Hall of 1500 and Gatehouse of 1510 built by James IV, and the Royal Palace of James V of 1540, were designed to protect the dynastic identity of the Stewart kings. The exterior of the Great Hall Who is even painted in a bright golden wash so that it could be seen for miles around. Stirling was the effective capital of Stewart Scotland, where the family preferred to hold court and carry out their business. The infant monarchs James V and Mary were both crowned in the Chapel Royal. The baptism of Prince Henry Stewart in 1594 was celebrated by a banquet of gargantuan proportions, even by Renaissance standards. The highlight of the feast was procession into the Great Hall of an eighteen foot galleon with masts forty feet high from which servants dispensed seafood to the guests. Darker deeds were done at Stirling too. In 1452 James II took the first step towards bringing the power of the house of Black Douglas whose wealth and privileges rivalled those of the Crown. Negotiations between James II and the Earl of Douglas came to a sudden end when the king plunged his dagger into the throat of the magnate. Douglas had been promised a safe conduct but his corpse ended up being thrown out of a castle window onto the rocks below. The Scottish Parliament exonerated the king and put the entire blame for the incident upon the dead noble who had some clearly been guilty of treason.
Stirling was little used by royalty after 1603 but it witnessed blood again in 1651 during a siege by Monck’s Roundheads which badly damaged the castle. Its continuing strategic value was highlighted by the devastating Jacobite victory at Killiecrankie less than sixty miles to the north in 1689. Stirling became an important base for the Hanoverian army and its defenses were stiffened by modern artillery platforms. More was done to strengthen Stirling after the aborted invasion of 1708 when the Old Pretender sailed into the Forth with a French Fleet. In 1745, Jacobite forces bypassed the castle and only fired a few desultory shots at in on their way back north. The castle suffered badly in its years as an army base; the Great Hall was converted into a barracks and the Chapel Royal was used as a store. The army finally left in 1964 and after over thirty years of conservation work, Stirling Castle has now been restored to its Renaissance grandeur and magnificence.
Scottish Castles & Fortifications – Richard Dargie
When I got back to Edinburgh, I went to the cinema to see Mary, Queen of Scots and it was quite fascinating, especially because she is one of the people that I’ve been learning about on these castle visits.
There were a few moments on the tour where I was legitimately frightened, but that was only when the tour guide would shout or try to scare us. So I guess ‘frightened’ is the wrong word. It’s more like I was startled.
DavTravels 