Edinburgh Escapades

I spent a couple days in Edinburgh.

Arcadia sponsored a dinner and ceilidh this past Thursday in Edinburgh, and a trip to the Highlands yesterday and today. And seeing as how I hadn't either been to the castle or climbed Arthur's Seat when I was there before, and have only one lecture on Friday, it seemed like a perfect opportunity: Go Thursday evening, stay with Destinee, a friend from Wooster, then do the Castle and the mountain Friday, and on Saturday I'll already be in Edinburgh, where the trip left from. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a spot on the trip, but everything else worked out wonderfully.

Destinee hadn't been to the castle yet, had only one class that morning, and with her friends had been planning a whisky picnic atop the mountain that afternoon anyway.

I missed the dinner, but made the ceilidh. It was great! there were Scottish dance demonstrations, they taught us how to do the Highland Fling, and just a good time in general.

Friday morning I joined Destinee in her lecture, called "Mind, Matter, and Language." It was a philosophy class, and very interesting; the lecturer talked about differing hypotheses on how we think.

Then to the Castle!

We joined a tour that had just started, then finished just they were about to fire the 1300 gun:

It fired every afternoon except Sundays, Christmas, and Good Friday, at 1300 so the sailors in the Firth of Forth could keep accurate time.

Then we wandered around the Castle, going in the various museums and taking loads of pictures. I'd have to agree with the conventional wisdom that Stirling Castle is much nicer, and if you have a choice, go for Stirling. Edinburgh was still awesome though! We spent several hours there. Not being pressed for time was wonderful.

Then shopping for the picnic, and we found tons of cheap food. Met up with Destinee's friends Rachel from Bristol, Hime from Cali, and Bryce from Pennsylvania, and ventured to Arthur's Seat, a small mountain in the middle of the city.

That's the view of it from the Castle. It had steep sides that the path zigzagged up, and a flattish meadow just below the summit where we ate baguettes, cheese, fruit, chocolate, and biscuits and drank whisky till the sun went down. I learned three new drinking games: slap, cowboy face, and arrivederci (sp?). As the sun was setting, which takes a wicked long time because Scotland is further north than you think, a piper came and played.


Betsy tells me he played a theme from Dvorak's New World Symphony, oddly enough.


To end the day we were going to go to an improv show by a group from the Uni Edinburgh, but it was sold out. So Destinee and I went to a pub I had been to before called "The Royal Oak." It's one of those tiny, crowded places filled with friendly Scots who mostly know each other, but welcome strangers anyway. There's a store of instruments, and people will come and play, and everyone else sings along if we know the words (I was proud that I know almost every song they played). We were there a couple hours, then went back to her flat and finished off some of the food with her friends. Woke up early yesterday so Destinee could get to the highlands trip, and I caught a train back home.

It was a really wonderful trip. I need to go back before too long.

There're loads more pictures on Picasa.