Edinburgh

Spent Sunday exploring the city. Fantastic place, seems as old as the hills in some places, and fresh as tomorrow in others. (my apologies, by the way, if all of the imagery in this post is that bad. It's been a long couple of days)

Anyway, my friend and I decided to wander up to the castle, through the Royal Mile. For those who aren't up on the specifics of Scottish cartography, the Royal Mile is the main street of Edinburgh, called the Royal Mile because at one end is Edinburgh Castle, and at the other is Holyrood (pronounced just like it's spelled) House, the main palace.

We decided to go the the Castle. The walk through the Royal mile is gorgeous, albeit filled with tourist traps. Lots and lots of tourist traps, filled with cheap kilts, and with the bagpipe music cranked up. Trust me, any possible travelers, get away from the Royal Mile as quickly as possible. You won't find anything there that you can't find anywhere else twice as good and twice as cheap.

Still, wandering along the Mile was fun, and, hey, if you don't fall into a few traps, then whats the fun of being a tourist? There are all the usual things you expect along heavily touristed areas...for instance, the man (who looked disturbingly like Mel Gibson) posing as William Wallace for the tourists. The castle itself, however, is so old and grand, that any attempt to touristy it up would just look cheap and really stupid. Fortunately, whoever is in charge of these things knows that as well and is more than smart enough to leave well enough alone. Anyway, just wandering around the castle takes several hours. We decided to start from the top and work our way down.

Now, those of you who are opposed to full on history-geek mode, might want to skip these next few bits, and go to the end, where I will be discussing accents. Edinburgh Castle isn't just old. It's frigging ancient. And that's by my standards, the Greek-Rome scholar standards. It's huge, blocky, and real. This isn't some fairy tale, 1800's rich man's folly filled with turrets and spires. This castle was designed for battles. You want pretty little spires and kings and queens in funny hats, it's only a mile to Holyrood.

Speaking of funny hats, the single coolest thing there, was the Scottish Crown jewels. A Sword, A Scepter, A Crown and a Stone to be precise. The Sword was a gift from the pope, the scepter was (if I recall correctly) from when wayyyyy back when the Scots and the Picts got together, the stone is the traditional place of crowning the kings, and the crown...well supposedly part of it is from the original circlet that Robert the Bruce wore. They were presumed lost until none other that Sir Walter Scott rediscovered them. Imagine, americans, that the Declaration of independence, orignal copy of the Constitution, Mount Vernon, and the White House had all been missing for 111 years, and then someone found them. You'd build them Scott's monument too.

Anyway, for my friend, who has a wee obsession with royalty (not really my cup of tea, as I will explain some other time.) the room where Mary Queen of Scots stayed was the coolest bit. As were all the pictures of James VI and I. (That little scumsucker Weldon (yes, I do get passionate about things that happened in the 1600's. HISTORY MAJOR. Jesus, people do I have to etch it in stone?) was full of crap about him, by the way)

There are also some other cool things, like the fact that several royal regiments are based here, and so there are wonderful little nooks to go and study their history. Yes, I know that "little nooks to go and study their history" has a technical term attached to it. I just can't spell it right now and I'm too lazy to look it up. Starts with M ends with M. Anyway, they have things in there that make my little history mind jump up and down. Like the flag captured from Napoleon's OWN REGIMENT.

Anyway, can't reccomend the place highly enough. I'll turn off the history geek now.

Accents! More specifically, MY accent. I've always picked up accents fantastically quickly. Put me in Georgia for ten minutes, and most people would swear I was born on the banks of the Chattahoochee. The only problem so far is, while surrounded with scottish people, I've also been hanging out quite a bit with a couple Irish people. I don't quite know what I'm developing, but it's interesting. And more than likely, given the almost fetishistic fascination some american women have with Celtic boys, incredibly sexy.

Anyway, have fun. Reports soon....Burns night is this Friday, so I will try to update on Sunday...when I wake up.