Monday, December 19, 2011

December 17, 2011: Fantasy Wish List:

A random assortment of the many things I want to do before I die.


Things I would like to learn how to make:
soap
candles
whisky


Foods I would like to eat:
Baked Alaska
Fugu


Travel related goals:
Make a Trans-Atlantic crossing by boat
Stay one night in a luxury hotel
Take a road trip along Route 66
Visit each of the seven continents (four down, three to go)
Ride in a helicopter


Other things I would like to do:
Get a Ph.D.
Write a travel memoir
Finish my novel
Name aforementioned novel --unfortunately Stranger in a Strange Land
is already the name of a sci-fi classic. I didn’t know that when I chose the name of my
(sci-fi) novel in progress.

Friday, December 16, 2011

December 15: Dinner Help

Chicken teriyaki fried rice is an easy, easy dish to make. Put rice, frozen veggies, and chicken into a pot. Season with teriyaki sauce. Stir. Heat until hot. Eat. Easy Peasy. So, when Hannah asked to help, I was at a loss. “Um, sure -- I’ll go sit down. You can make dinner.” What on earth could I have her do?

Let me sum up: Hannah. Kindergarten. Picture a pin-ball machine played by someone who really knows how to keep that ball moving. Now imaging that person playing with ten balls. Now put all those balls inside Hannah and watch her bounce.

Ah-ha! Pinball! Hannah, please bring me some frozen vegetables. Find a large spoon. Find a small spoon. Find a utensil that is not a spoon. Get a bowl and two eggs. It worked perfectly. Around the room. Back and forth. Up and down.

Then I ran out of things I needed her to bring to me.

But, pouring vegetables into a bowl is not so messy. Oh, no there goes the corn! (Just kidding. She did very well). “I like cracking eggs!” With much trepidation and a great deal of looking the other way, I let her crack eggs into a bowl. Whew. That went much better than I imagined.

“Please throw away the eggshells.”

“Okay.” But not before crumbing them into little pieces into the trash can.

I wanted to get after her, but she did so well up until now not messing around. We did, however, have a discussion on the importance of washing her hands after handling raw eggs. Or rubbing raw egg all over her hands like lotion. Or whatever.

She helped pour and scrape and stir. She only once fell off the step ladder with a heart-stopping crash. She was fine. I, on the other hand, had to be brought back with electric shock.

Then it was time to add the rice. I had cooked the rice earlier in a crock pot, as my rice cooker is in storage at the moment. When it was time to transfer the rice into the pot of chicken and veggies, I asked Hannah to go find a spoon. “The biggest one you can find.”

She looked in the drawer and picked up the small wooden spoon laying next to the gigantic ladle. “How about this?”

“How about something bigger?”

“Is this a spoon?”

“It’s a melon baller.”

“Oh.” Then she looked at the ladle, which I had thought looks like a big spoon, and discarded it for a different wooden spoon. A different wooden spoon which happened to be resting on top of a giant black plastic serving spoon. “This one? I want to use a wood spoon.”

I happen to love wooden spoons, and had I a bamboo rice scoop, it would have been what I sent her after. As it is, we were short a rice scoop of any material, let alone wood.

It took several tries, but we finally agreed on the ladle. And then the fun began. I had her grab the bigger utensil because I knew anything smaller would result in massive amounts of sticky rice falling all over the floor. With the ladle, we had small amounts of sticky rice falling all over the floor. My rules for myself were such that I promised myself I would not help her unless she was in danger, the dinner was in danger, or she asked for help. A little rice on the floor did not fall into these categories.

It did, though, fall into the category of “Ewww, I just stepped in something cold, squishy, and sticky. I guess it’s a good thing I am wearing socks.”

And sticky it was. Hannah frequently had rice stuck to her fingers as she worked. “I got rice on my finger. Can I eat it?”

“Oh, no. I have rice on my fingers again. Can I eat it?”

“Six cups of rice seem to have fallen into my hand, can I eat it?”

We finally got it all together, and stirred. Five year old energy was successfully harnessed into a rice and vegetables. She was so proud. It was a fun night, really. The other kids all ate seconds, and but for the rice, nothing major was spilled.

Now, though, if you will excuse me, I have to change my socks.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

A New Mission

Yesterday marked three weeks since we arrived back in the midwest. Until we know what is next, our base is our friends’ basement in small town Illinois. It’s a great arrangement: they let us stay and eat, while we watch their kids and cook. This is not a new arrangement for me; I have done this in Waverly, Lake Mills, and ... well, maybe that’s it. But the arrangement is temporary, so I am job hunting.

I have applied for every job for which I might possibly qualify, although that does not yet include fast food and telemarketing because I don’t know if I’m even qualified for those. However, I landed a summer job teaching Intro to World Religions at a local community college. Of course, I am still looking for something to fill the void before - and after - that interlude in my unemployment.

I thought I would be finished writing my blog when we got back home from Scotland, but then I decided to keep it up. This is going to be a new challenge for me: keeping a blog when I am not out travelling. Adventures in Mission? How about finding adventure in everyday life? The new mission.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

November 12, 2011: Moving Day

Today is moving day. One more time! Okay ... two more times, but this is our last move within England. The apartment we booked for our time in London was only available until Nov 12. Our flight is Nov 14.

For the last two days we are booked into a hotel right underneath the landing planes of Heathrow. It will be impossible to sleep, I’m sure. However, I would rather make the arduous journey to the airport today when I am not worried about missing my flight, than on Monday morning. This is a trial run for getting ready to fly.

We’ve been here two weeks, so the suitcases are well and truly exploded all over. From Saturday night to Sunday morning, I do not imagine we will have the same amount of packing to do.

Crystal Palace is a delightful place. It is a quiet place to live, albeit still a busy, close-to-inner-London suburb. The area was named for a Victorian-era exhibition hall, which delighted people until a fire took its toll in the 1930s. Much of the town is still Victorian in its architecture, although modern buildings are found here and there.

It has been pleasant to stay here. The park was a beautiful place to spend a few hours in the afternoon. There is a hedge maze, though at this time of year it is truly a sad sight to behold. If it weren’t for the chicken wire fences in between the rows, the empty bushes would just look like winter is coming. With the fences holding people in their rows, and the leaves fallen off the bushes, the effect is more one of decrepitude, rather than natural order.

The park also contains several dinosaur statues. Although life-size and designed by a scholar of natural history, today palaeontologists claim they are inaccurate, due to new research. I still think they are cool.

I’ll miss the park, and being able to get the best Indian food in London (in my humble opinion ; ) ). I won’t miss hiking up the hill to the highest point in all of greater London every night at the end of sightseeing, just to have to walk up three fights of stairs to get to our attic apartment.

In Orkney, Inverness, and in London, how did we always manage to find accommodations at the top of steep inclines? Well, I guess it keeps the heart pumping.

London’s Underground is undergoing massive construction work this month. Every possible line leaving Crystal Palace, and the only line to the airport are all being replaced by buses for portions of their journeys. The thought of dragging the suitcases up and down stairs to the trains, changing to a bus, back to a train, then a different train to a bus, then back to the train...umm, No thank you. Instead, we’ll take two buses. That’s all. It should take at least a couple hours to get across the city, but it will be easy.

We’ll have one more day out in London tomorrow. One more chance for blogging!

Friday, November 11, 2011

November 7: Harrods

I have mixed feeling about Harrods. On one hand it is a London icon. It has been a department store in London since 1824. Its history is interesting, being the first store in London to install a “moving staircase”in 1898. It has served the likes of A.A. Milne, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, and various members of the royal family.

It sells a little of everything. Okay, it sells a lot of everything. I started in the food area and skipped most of the clothing: slacks, dresses, purses, shoes, custom made suits. You can buy books, fountain pens, stationery, air hockey tables, gold (I mean gold, not jewelery, although they sell that, too), and by appointment only, bullet-proof clothing.

I had been looking forward to wandering through the racks of Kevlar vests hanging on the racks next to the Hermes scarves, but apparently that isn’t how the department works. Besides, the Hermes department was four floors down from Bullet Proof Clothing.

The clothing and accessories are famous names. Even I have heard of some of the names. But really, fashionable shopping is wasted on me. I love the idea of looking elegant, but I love my flannel shirts and jeans too much to do anything about it.

So there I was, wandering through the most famous department store in the western hemisphere, wondering if I would get kicked out for violating the dress code. Jeans, scuffed-up muddy Eastlands, and a Goodwill purchased shirt boasting a Cabella’s label. Other than being ignored at the food sample stands, though, no one seemed to care how I was dressed. While I drooled over the $4000 fountain pens, I actually had two sales associated ask if I needed help. Maybe they were just concerned I was in the wrong store and were willing to give me directions to the nearest Asda. “You know, there’s an Ikea just down the street,” they were thinking.

While having this fascination with seeing the famous London department store, and wondering how the upper echelon lives, I hate paying for a name. I have an aversion to paying grandiose amounts of money for anything, unless the quality is such that the price covers the long years of use I will get out if it,. My favourite purse, for example. I used it for almost ten years. Of course, I spent almost $100 on it. I about died handing over that much money for a purse. But I used it for years and years.

And there I was in Harrods staring at purses costing 10 times that.

I do not understand fashion, and I confuse it with quality. Are the goods in Harrods worth their price? Or even, taking into consideration a typical 30% mark-up, are they worth two thirds of their price?

Are customers paying for a name? It is a famous name. Are customers paying for quality? Famous does not necessarily mean quality. But, sometimes it does. I guess I’ll never know until I try.

Harrods. I went. I saw. I bought.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

November 8: Stonehenge and Bath

Part 2: Stonehenge

Rising up out of the tunnel into the field, the first thing I notice is their size. Stonehenge is huge. Enormous. I am used to seeing them on television; in books. Size is deceptive.

The second thing I noticed is how amazed I am by their size. I had just been there two years before. I should not have been this awe-struck. But that is Stonehenge. It does not become less impressive by familiarity. It just gains in mystery and grandeur. The more I study it and learn about it, the more magnificent it becomes.

New studies of the area are always being undertaken. New theories tested. New evidence being found. Nearby at Durrington Walls is the site of a settlement. Archaeologists believe it might be the settlement of workers who built Stonehenge. Who were they, and why here?

Within the last few years, evidence of another stone circle has been found nearby. Research points to the existence of another circle at the end of the ancient avenue leading out from Stonehenge to the river Avon. Are they related? Were they two parts of one ritualistic journey?

The stones at Stonehenge come from two places: The smaller inner circle of stones are from nearby fields, no more than twenty miles way, The larger stones are from Wales.150 miles away. Why not just build the circle in Wales?

I drug David to every possible stone circle in bussing distance all over Scotland. All equally impressive and equally mysterious. Yet, none like Stonehenge. I haven’t done my research yet, but our guide yesterday told us it is unique in Britain because it is the only one that used sculpted stones. The other circles were made of natural stone, but stonemasons shaped Stonehenge’s boulders into the uniform monoliths we see today.

While research is carried out all over the surrounding area, Stonehenge itself is rarely a dig site. Although I do not know for certain why that is, I do have my guesses. Archaeology, while being beneficial to our knowledge of the past, is invasive surgery. In order to get under the ground, we have to dig up the present. There are ways of minimising damage, such as using radar to search for clues underground before digging pell-mell. It does not seem difficult to dig in small sections, and carefully replace dirt to put things back to normal.

However, a clue from a Smithsonian article in 2009 provides insight into views on Stonehenge. Before beginning the first dig on the Stonehenge in 44 years, prayers were spoken and blessings were requested. Even today, Stonehenge is still a holy place. Druids worship here at the Solstices. The mounds surrounding the area are the burial places of hundreds of people.

Yet, we do much research and digging across the middle east and the cradle of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We want to know our history, including our religious history.

That leaves me to agree with Geoffrey Wainright, President of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He was involved in the research at Stonehenge in 2009. He told Smithsonian,“I think what most people like about Stonehenge is that nobody really knows why it was built, and I think that’s probably always going to be the case. It’s a bloody great mystery.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/light-on-stonehenge.html#ixzz1dHkr1ACk

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

November 8: Stonehenge and Bath

Part 1: Bath

On Tuesday David and I joined a day trip tour to Stonehenge and Bath. My two favourite historical periods: Neo-lithic and Roman Empire, although, both Stonehenge and Bath had histories longer than I thought, Stonehenge stretching to Bronze Age, and Bath’s turn-about in Victorian times.

The pool, the actual Bath in Bath, is quite impressive. I know the water isn’t supposed to be green; that it only is green because of algae and the fact that the pool is not treated for human use. But it looks like tarnished copper. Magnificent, yet hiding its glory. Old, but recognisable.

Because we were on a day tour, I knew we would only have a couple hours in the town of Bath. I did not know the tour of the actual Baths would take me the whole two hours. I wandered the through the displays without being able to fully enjoy them due to our being chronologically limited. In spite of time constraints, I lingered over the audio tour. One of my favourite authors and hero of travelling, Bill Bryson, has been given the honour of providing commentary for parts of the audio tour. I used up much of my time listening to him!

I walked quickly past gravestones, past coins, past lead pipes (the Romans loved their lead), past stone-carving demonstrations and over the courtyard of what was once a grand temple. Apparently only two temples have been found in Britain, this one for the goddess Minerva. The temple was dedicated to Sulis-Minerva, the hybrid of the celtic goddess Sulis, already being worshipped at the site before the Romans came in.

Any good conqueror knows the way to assimilate people is to convince them to keep doing what they had been doing before the conqueror showed up: “Hmm, you worship Sulis in these relaxing and healing waters? Okay, we’ll do that, too. This Sulis sounds just like our goddess Minerva. They must be the same goddess, don’t you think? We’ll re-dedicate the temple to Sulis Minerva.” And life continues as normal.

Bath the city is not at all what I expected. Built between seven hills, I did not expect the city to have grown so large as to be built on, over, and around the seven hills. The hills are lined up and down with Georgian townhouses. Ringing the tops of the hills are the luxurious Crescents, houses for wealthy residents to have sweeping views of the valleys.

Bath was in Roman times and in Victorian times and is again now, a resort town. For many years it was not. Bath housed woollen mills and factories, driving away respectable residents and in the end giving the town a bad name, one known for carousing, drunkenness, and crime. It is hard to imagine that, today, given all the glitz and sparkle in the city now saturating the city. Boutiques and movie stars and royal residents and spa treatments all shine in today’s Bath.

We drove past 4 Sydney Road, Jane Austin’s former residence. 8 Circus Crescent, Nicholas Cage’s former residence. Rumour has it Johnny Depp recently bought property in the town, but I didn’t see a gaggle of women with cameras lingering outside anyone’s door, so I assume we didn’t pass it.

Nobles and Stars. Millionaires and the merely wealthy. They live among the blue-jeaned tourists who come for the day. On the other hand, someone has to work in the shops and coffee houses. People have to clean the mess tourists and rich people leave behind. I wonder where they live? Someone asked our driver about how people make a living in the town, and he said it’s all connected to tourism. But tourism doesn’t usually pay individuals well enough to live in a resort.

We only saw one side of Bath, but we were not there long enough to discover if there was a “wrong side of the tracks.” The train connects the town to others on the way back to London. Perhaps they live in other towns and commute in. I wonder if I had time, would we have found where the normal people live? Or is it so well hidden that we never would?

November 5, 2011 : Westminster Abbey

Every tour book, advice guide, and review blog warns tourists to arrive early and even so, be prepared for a very long wait to enter Westminster Abbey. Some reviewers claimed to stand in line for an hour, or not quite, because they left before they were allowed inside.

David and I ended up at the Abbey just out sheer necessity. We had several hours until Wicked began, and an afternoon with nothing else planned. We were ready for an hour staring at the old stone walls.

However, 12:30 on a Friday afternoon in November is apparently not a busy time at the venerable church. The line to enter the building was approximately three people long. The audio guide kindly tells people to “keep walking” through narrow points and bottleneck passages, but I found I could linger as long as I wanted around the tombs of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and St Edward the Confessor. Except St. Edward the Confessor’s tomb is on a dais behind King Henry III and a couple other medieval kings. I just had to stare at the tombs in a circular shape, and know the top of the platform was built for the saintly king seven centuries ago.

I love to visit cemeteries and read gravestones, but I try to avoid walking across the graves. It feels disrespectful to me. Yet, here in the abbey, every floor stone is lined with writing. Under the floors are vaults where the former inhabitants and a few national heroes are put for their final resting place. It is impossible to walk through it without walking over graves. I soon did get over the feeling of disrespect because there was so much to read!

I am glad the crowds were manageable, because then I could stop to inspect the stones. Every nook, every inch of floor, and most walls, are filled with tombstones, memorials, markers, commemorations. Charles Darwin, whose plain tombstone simply lists his name and dates, lies a few feet from Ralph Vaughn Williams, whose smaller and newer stone also lists only his name and dates. It was fun to go through and see who I recognised.

Dukes, duchesses,non-monarchs of the royal family. All the names who once would have been well-known now are written in Latin in forgotten alcoves skipped over on the audio tour. But at least when I stumbled in them by accident, I knew they were important people at one time. They have elaborate marble tombs and memorials; statues and likenesses. Gilt or painted decorations.

The floor is also covered with stones, many worn smooth from hundreds of years of monks, worshippers, and tourists. Abbots, organist and choirmasters, headmasters of the school choir, the monks themselves, and even people who worked for the Abbey in any way, were all buried here. Their stones line the cloister and the halls.

600 years ago, a poet and royal bureaucrat rented rooms in the Abbey. When he died, as was customary for their tenants, he was buried in the Abbey. As it turns out this was not just any poet, but Geoffrey Chaucer. Instead of becoming a forgotten book-keeper, he became the first person buried in Poet’s Corner, and immortalised by his Canterbury Tales. Poet’s corner was expanded to included other artists. Now Rudyard Kipling, George Frederick Handel and Laurence Olivier, among others, rest near the former scribe.

In one alcove is a memorial to James Watt, not buried in the Abbey, but commemorated by a “grateful king for his work on the steam engine.” I had recently been studying his steam engines in museums in Scotland, and visiting what remains of his house near Edinburgh, so I was pretty excited to recognise his name.

The grandest tomb in the Abbey does not belong to a king, although George III tried; nor to a queen, although Elisabeth I also tried. One marble carving of an old man holding a scroll, sitting next to a globe, and surrounded by cherubs and clouds is large. Very large. And sits in the middle of the nave, on the right hand of the altar used for daily prayer services. The base of the statue is a foot tall, trying to get in all the important reasons why this man is buried in the Abbey. The tomb marks the grave of no less an imposing figure than Isaac Newton. The weighty tomb does seem fitting for a man who taught the world why the statues will not move unless presented with sufficient force.

Yet, with all the famous people, I found myself drawn to the simple stones. The ones who are not on the audio tour. Faithful worshippers, canons, the names who no longer hold meaning for us. Who were they? Do they still have family come to visit their graves? There are newer graves, of course. I saw a few from the 1980s and 1990s, but what about the stones whose 17th century death date can only just be read? Are they forgotten? In the hubbub to see the grandest tomb in the Abbey, their names and epithets are worn off by millions of feet.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

November 4: Being a Tourist

We walked from Piccadilly Square to Wesminster Abbey, passing theatres lit with their show advertisements. I longed to take in Phantom of the Opera. However, the reason we were walking to Westminster was because we had seven hours to kill until curtains opened on Wicked at the Apollo Theatre in Victoria, with us in row 6.

Wicked and the Abbey on one day -- what a day! I was looking forward to being a tourist. Museums are my favourite places to visit, but every now and then I have to get out the camera and just be in the way of the locals.

With that in mind, our walk became one large photo opportunity.

At one point along our walk, a crowd of people was gathered at an iron gate. Snapping pictures, I turned to see what it was, but it was a guy on a horse out in front of a museum. Young guy, obviously looking out at the tourists and posing for the camera. Not a palace guard. Though I am not sure why a palace guard would be sitting in front of a museum.

A few blocks later, another crowd gathered. Not as big a crowd. Only vaguely curious, I glances at the fence. Standing just inside the gate were three men in army uniforms, one touting a large gun. Huge -- I don’t know anything about guns, but this one was meant to say, “Step back and no one gets shot.”

What on earth?

I knew we were not at Buckingham Palace, which was my first thought. That’s the American tourist coming out: “I’m in London; must be royalty!” But again, no red coats and fuzzy hats. And these weren’t tourists with their Canons and Nikon, 300mm zoom lenses. These were Londoners, with their cell phones poised and ready, I figured they must have spotted Princess Kate or someone.

The gate covered a long driveway or alley. Then the street sign caught my eye. Not an alley. Downing Street. Looking down the gated street we could see a crowd of men in dark suits. The crowd snapped away, not caring that their cell phones were not going to zoom in enough on this crowd to pick out individual members.

Tourist I was playing, not politics. Not really wanting to bring home photos of politicians, I turned around and saw the most picturesque scene of the London Eye against a backdrop of orange leaves. Here was my moment. Downing Street at my back, autumn in front of me.

Politicians, go about your business, do your work, and by all means, enact fair legislation. Just don’t expect me to photograph it.

Friday, November 04, 2011

November 4: Reminiscing at the British Museum

I remember walking into my fifth grade social studies classroom and seeing my book leaning up the blackboard. I sat in the front row in the aisle next to the window. Throughout class I sat there looking at it, in an attempt to remember leaving with it this time. It was only sitting up there because I had forgotten it in the classroom the day before.

The book, Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, had a blue cover with a photo of King Tut on the front of it. The cover was worn by this time, I was on at least my second re-read. This was at least a year before writing a sixth-grade tome on mummification in various cultures, but well after declaring to my family I was going to be an archaeologist and travel the world.

One summer I joined the ranks of other wanna-be Egyptologists in a class at College for Kids. I learned how to read hieroglyphics. I marvelled at the Rosetta Stone, and how important it was in learning about the Egyptians of old. I re-read that book (again), and read stories of Jean-François Champollion struggling by mid-night oil over the stone, using the Greek to translate the hieroglyphs.

Walking in to the British Museum brought all the memories and childhood dreams crashing back. The statues, the mummies, the hieroglyphs, and right in the middle of it: the Rosetta Stone. The very stone which change our understanding of history. I walked through the room, breathless. Graceful stone gods, kings, queens. I had not expected them to be so huge. Some life-size statues of the gods seated in tombs. Some larger than life heads sitting up on pedestals, towering over us as we walk through.

Papyrus scrolls, sarcophagi covered in writing, colourful paintings, texts to accompany the dead on to the next life. Cases full of brightly painted death masks. Gold, lapis lazuli. The mummies of cats and other animals.

This all a far cry from my first mummy: A dark wrapped figure in the basement of the local museum when I was ten years old. There was none of the colour. None of the prominence. But, still, all of the excitement. I remember hoping that in a few thousand years, my body could be on display in a museum. I hoped that I could somehow contribute to future generations understanding the time in which I lived.

Life for me lead in other directions than ancient Egypt and the dirt of archeology. Sometimes walking into a place of such excitement; sometimes standing in front of history; sometimes being in the presence of greatness, marvelling at the Rosetta Stone...sometimes I wish it hadn’t.

Friday, October 28, 2011

October 25, 2011: Kinneil Estate

“I remember when there used to be a city here.”

With that facetious saying, my brain took off. David and I were in the small town of Bo’Ness, looking out over a field where used to stand a medieval village. The village built up around the Kinneil Estate, the home of the Dukes of Hamilton.

Today, and for the past two and a half centuries, the ruins of the village church and the moss-covered, weathered gravestones are all that remain of Kinneil village. The village was cleared out in the 17th century and the land turned into a park. The church burned down in 1745, during its occupation by Scottish rebellion soldiers, but the wall which does still stand is part of the original church built in the 12th century.

It is odd to think about, backwards even. Today the expression is so overused as to become cliché: “ I remember when this city used to be fields.” Even I even find my self aching to utter the words aloud when I go back to Dubuque, though I was only there less than ten years ago, and hardly qualify as an old-timer in that city.

Standing in a field seeing the results of entropy rather than progress, is a little disconcerting. No, even entropy is expected. The Kinneil village church burned down in 1745, and was left to its own decay. The village itself, however, was torn down. The people forced to move, the buildings razed, and the land turned into a park.

Decay happens, old buildings are torn down to make new ones, trees are levelled in order to accommodate population growth. Yet, rarely do I see a city torn down and recreated into a park. “I remember when there used to be a city here.” The shock of the empty field is, I suspect, because the field is empty. Usually, when history is cleared away, there is a new purpose for the land.

Haweswater Dam, in the Lake District of England, holds back the Mardale Reservoir, so named for the village of Mardale now buried under 18.6 billion gallons of water. The tourist board has stated when reservoirs have had to replace villages, the new lakes were created with special attention to how they would look in relation to the natural beauty people expect of the Lake District. Destruction, but with a new purpose for the land: water for Manchester and scenic beauty for tourists.

Rarely is it possible to stand somewhere completely empty and wonder if this used to be someone’s house, or a road, or am I standing smack dab inside a wall? I stood looking out over the field, wondering what the buildings looked like, how many people lived there, and whether they were glad to leave when it was time to move. Did they bring their children and grandchildren to the empty field? Did they stand in one spot and say, “This is where I was born”?

“I remember when there used to be a city here.”

My friends and family have always joked that I was born a Little Old Lady, but no matter how old I feel, even I am not old enough to remember a 15th century village in Bo’Ness, Scotland.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

October 27, 2011: City Tour by Public Bus

The best way to learn about a city is to hop on a city bus. Any bus, going any direction. Buy a day pass, and then ride to the end of the line. When there isn’t a schedule, you can stand at the bus stop and wait for a bus with good seats, you know, the front ones on the top of a double-deck bus.

David and I rode from our stop, already near the edge of town, out to the end of the line. Turns out the bus ends at a university hidden in trees and ponds and fields. The trees were gorgeous, right in the height of their annual makeover. The area was picturesque and quiet, as far from the bustle of Edinburgh as is possible to be. And nestled in one corner of the bus route was the Scotch Whisky Research Institute; that’s a place worth knowing about!

Catching a bus the other direction, we found a new bus, taking a different route from the school, past the grocery stores at which we shop, through City Centre, around neighbourhoods, and finally to the end of the line in the northeast of Edinburgh. Ocean Terminal is the stop -- a three-story shopping mall and the Royal Yacht. A tour of the boat costs more than either David or I care to spend on a tour of a boat, so we wandered out to see if I could get photos of it without paying, but there’s a fence keeping cheapskates like me at a distance. To top it off, we were there late in the afternoon, with both the Royal Brittania and the setting sun to our west. Still not quite knowing how to operate my new camera, it does nonetheless forgive me many faults. Taking pictures of a silhouetted boat straight in front of the setting sun is not one of them.

The mall was...a mall. The highlight of the mall was lunch at Pizza Express. From the name, which have seen all over Scotland, I was not hopeful. It turns out that Pizza Express has delicious pizza. The crust not to thick or thin and not greasy. It makes me wonder why on earth I have seen lines stretching outside Pizza Hut in other places.

It was a fun day: watching Edinburgh pass by the windows, watching for shops with fun names, and learning about the neighbourhoods; pretending I live there, and working out where I would have to buy groceries if I did. The city buses take us to places not in the tourist guidebook: from seedy-looking convenience stores with bars over the windows and graffiti along the walls to the neatly trimmed lawns of detached houses separated by short stone walls. From Pound-Stretcher (like a Dollar General) to Marks and Spencer. From college campus to Royal Yacht.

Visiting museums and historical sites rank among my favourite things to do in any country, but riding a bus, “just to see where it goes” is even better.

Friday, October 21, 2011

October 20, 2011: Arthur’s Seat


This morning dawned - amazingly bright and sunny. Blue sky, sunshine...? It was supposed to begin raining during the night and not stop for the next year. I woke up David and told him we were off to climb a mountain.

We packed up a lunch and took a bus to the Parliament building, and the nearby hill containing Holyrood Park, The summit of the hill is known as Arthur's Seat.

At the bottom of the hill, there were two choices, one looked boring, and one looked exciting. We did not take the road less travelled by, as the exciting path was getting far more traffic, however, being more exciting, we joined in at a fast clip. It only took about thirty steps for my legs to realise what my brain had gotten them into and they immediately went on strike. “No, you don’t! they said, “We are NOT climbing up that thing!” The path was very steep here at the beginning, but I knew once we got to the top it would level out. So brain convinced legs to keep going with the promise of frequent rest breaks to take photographs.

Up and up, steeper, and steeper. It was not very long before the path did, indeed, level out, and I could see a road ahead of us (I say not very long, but it felt like three days). I was sorely disappointed; there was plenty of rock above us yet. All that steep grade, yet this is the end? It couldn’t be!


Then, like a detective in a movie looking for clues, a glint of sunlight caught on someone’s camera high up on the next hill above us. Ah hah! There is a path! Veering off - this time onto the road less travelled - at first down, and then up, we hiked over rocks. Up, down. Gently climbing upward. I could have done this all day. If the weather had decided to stay warm, that is. The clouds started rolling in, the wind picked up, and suddenly we were freezing.

We sat and ate our sandwiches on a rock in a gully. After reading about how seriously the English are about their hill walking - eating their picnic lunches on a hill in the freezing wind and taking sips of tea to keep their fingers from falling off with frostbite, I thought we might just make it in this country after all!

Then the climbing got rough. Nearly twisting ankles on loose rocks and clambering over boulders wasn’t the “rough country” mentioned in the guidebook. Apparently, the path just gets washed out and over the side of the cliff. For a few yards the “path” is a patch of loose gravel with a tell-tale sign of a landslide leading off into the unknown.

When the path returns, it returns with a vengeance. Straight up (who thought that grade at the bottom of the hill was a steep climb??), grabbing rocks and handholds in front of me to keep going and not fall backwards.

At one point, I was convinced that even if by some miracle I made it to the top of the hill, there was absolutely no way I was coming back down -- sliding down a pebbled descent right off the edge? I don’t think so. I figured I could just sit up at the top of the hill forever, becoming part of the attractions, accepting chocolate bars from tourists. They could call me the American on the Hill.

Finally, gasping and terrified, I peered over the edge of a rock into the eyes of a three year old. What? How? The top of the mountain was crowded with teenagers, families, small children, dogs.

The view was fantastic: out across Holyrood Park, the firth, all of Edinburgh. It was certainly worth the climb -- especially after I found the nice easy path the three-year-old took.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

October 19: Cable Installation in Edinburgh

October 19, 2011

Today the cable company came and installed both cable and broadband internet -yippee! I am very excited to have real internet again. However, I am here to say that waiting for the cable company in Edinburgh is just like waiting for the cable company in Chicago.

The notice arrives: “We will be at your house between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm.” Someone has to be here to let them in. This week is fall break at every school in Scotland, so our landlady, her kids, and various other family members of theirs are out of town on holiday. Our landlord is at work.

That’s okay, I tell Leanne, our landlady. We can stay here and wait for the cable company, after all, it is for our benefit, and I am looking forward to being able to watch more Pointless shows about potatoes.

So I make sure I am ready by 10:00, in case he comes early. Someone has to be first on the list. I want to know how to make sure I am first on the daily list. When it says, “We will be there between 10:00 and...” who gets the 10:00 slot? It wasn’t us.

At noon, I ate lunch. At 1:30, the phone rang, it was Leanne. She says (to the distant music of screaming children in the background), that the installer is running late, and he’ll be here by.... what did she say? I think she said 2:00. Oh, and she’s having a marvellous time with her kids. What with all the screaming in the background, I am not so sure about them. But she sounded happy enough.

At 2:10, I realise I mis-heard her. Not 2:00 -- that was on a good day. She must’ve said 3:00.

I looked out the window. Sigh. My one sadness for today. It was sunny. Brilliant, blue-sky sunny. The only day all week we are supposed to get sunshine. I had planned to climb Arthur’s Seat today, the hill just outside Edinburgh with views all the way to... well, it doesn’t matter now.

Sometime between 3:00 and 3:30, someone finally showed up, but by then I had stopped looking at the clock. I wasn’t going hiking today.

He spent a few minutes fretting over cords that didn’t make sense and trying to remember our landlady’s instructions, but that didn’t take very long. As it turns out, he was both friendly and knowledgeable. He apologised for being so late and explained the house he had just come from had Tivo installed, which takes forever to do, and is complicated, and please don’t say we’re having it installed also, because he’d really like to go home and eat dinner with his girlfriend, which he hadn’t been able to do yesterday since he worked until 9:30 last night.

Then he started pulling boxes out of boxes and a unrolled a roll of cable and opened a tool bag David was drooling over. And it was all over in a matter of minutes. Our internet is brilliant, and the television now has more channels than I could ever care about.

At 5:15 I turned on Pointless and prayed for potatoes (I’ve been reading up). And then came my other all-time favourite category: Sports commentators and their sports.

Sigh.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

October 16, 2011: Potatoes

I have come to love the game show Pointless. It is rather like reverse Family Feud. The announces tells us “We gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many______ as they could.” The contestants’ job, then, is to find the answer not one person in a hundred could come up with. The team with the lowest score at the end of the game wins. The topics in the first round are nice and easy: measures of weight, types of rock, types of potatoes.

Potatoes?

When I go to the store, I choose between small round red potatoes known as “red potatoes” or large, longer brown potatoes known simply as “potatoes”. Here in Britain, though, they apparently browse through potatoes as though they were apples. I know there are a million and a half different names for apples, mostly from going to the farmer’s market. However, every small child learns that Red Delicious are red, though not delicious. And Granny Smiths are green, though when I was a child, I never knew anyone who ate them.

On the game show Pointless for the first round, contestants get a multiple choice list to work from. There are sixteen answers. Some of the answers are wrong, thrown in to mess people up. There are 10 contestants. Each person chooses a potato from the list, hoping that it is so uncommonly known so as to produce a low score.

The list came up, and no words I knew associated with potatoes was on the list. No “red” nor “Idaho” nor even “baking”was on the list. I was out of the game. However, every single person said, “Well, I see at least three I know for sure are potatoes, but they are so popular... I’ll have to say _______.” And there would be a flurry of activity around names such as King Edward, Charlotte, and Maris Piper.

What? Every single contestant.

I thought this was some kind of miracle, until I read Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island. In it, he chronicled his trip around England, Wales, and Scotland -- his farewell tour before moving back to the United States. He mentions renting a car, and then getting lost. He stops to turn around in the car park of the Potato Marketing Board. The building is four stories tall, and employs a few hundred people.

Ah hah! I all but yelled in triumph: The Potato Marketing Board! I now understand why every single contestant on Pointless could name a Maris Piper at the age of three.

I have since learned that the Potato Marketing Board is now called the Potato Council, which sounds all the more likely to mount a “Name That Potato” Campaign in earnest. Watch out Deriree, here comes British Queen!

Monday, October 17, 2011

October 13, 2011: The Real Mary King’s Close

I know I said I was in Scotland to visit old stuff. Really, really old stuff, from the Roman times and even earlier. And I have enjoyed that very much, for there were many places along the way: a 5,000 year old house in Orkney, a 1,200 year old church marker in Rosemarkie, and in between visiting the leftovers of when Romans and Vikings roamed the countryside.

Today, though, we detoured into the 17 and 18th centuries, travelling underground to Mary King’s Close.

Stand at the top of the Royal Mile in almost any given doorway along the north side of the street. Look down. There will be a narrow path. It is dark, either covered by the wing of a building, or simply because the buildings are so close together. After that come the stairs. Sloping, the ramps and stairs wind their way between buildings and out to Princes Street Gardens. All the way down the side of the cliff upon which sits the castle are other buildings and narrow walkways.

The narrow walkways are called closes. Mary King’s Close is a narrow street that is now several stories underground.

Just a short jaunt down the hill from Edinburgh Castle is a vast structure with Greek columns and a paved courtyard. It was designed in 1765 to house the merchants guild, although once built, the merchants did not use it (I am still not sure why). Today it’s called the Chambers.

In order to build such a grandiose edifice, and in order for it to be level with the street looking grandiose to someone travelling along the Royal Mile, certain construction had to take place.

The buildings along the Royal Miles are, five, six seven stories above street level, and usually extend as far below street level into the side of the hill. To build the Chambers, 3 or 4 buildings were knocked down, just to street level. On top of that, a floor was laid.

Voila! In no time, they had a neo-classical Merchants Chambers, complete with built-in basement vaults and storerooms, those which used to be houses and closes. In the end,the northern end of four closes and their buildings were turned into the basement vaults of the Chambers.

Underneath the Chambers, life continued as usual, As it was built into a hillside, there were still houses and shops even further down, with entrances to the close at the bottom of the hill.

Under the chambers today is still a subterranean world of rooms and passageways. We stopped in the middle of the close, four floors beneath the Chambers. Looking up we could see the floor above us, see where the houses had been cut off the build the Chambers. Before it was built, the tall houses kept going up. The close is narrow, so that one person could almost, with arms outstretched, touch on the walls, and the open sky was at least eight floors above. In the 1500s, it might have been open to the sky, but I am not sure that was beneficial to very many people.

It is an amazing tour to take, and a refreshing glimpse of reality. For one who often reads novels and watches historical movies, the “happy ending” books never mention the nastiness of open sewers and diseases. They never dwell on the prevalence of crime in a neighbourhood without proper light or law enforcement. It can be difficult to convey the overcrowding, the smell, the dankness.

The close was at one time full of people and animals and garbage and sewage, and a dirt (mud) floor. People lived here. People worked here. The poorest of the poor crowded into rooms several families at a time. The richer ones lived at the top, near the sky, the fresh air, and the light. But down here, was the dark and the crime and the muck. Standing underground in a tiny room with twenty other people, an oil lamp the one light in the room... at least the guide didn’t recreate the sewer.

The building of the Chambers inadvertently elevated the status of Mary King’s Close, giving part of the close a roof, and by the 1890s, there was stone pavement and a sewer. Andrew Chesney lived and worked on Mary King’s Close in the late nineteenth century. He was a saw doctor (as in one who repairs saws, not the music group). By the time he lived there, it was a fine address indeed.

Until the Chambers wanted to expand. In 1892, Andrew Chesney became the last resident of the close, forced to leave his home and shop. All entrances to the close were blocked up; the Chambers added onto the back of the building. Except Andrew Chesney’s home was not demolished. It is as he left it in in 1892. Because it is decrepit and dangerous to enter, we were only allowed to see it from the close, looking into the front door.

It is strange to think that this underground still can only be reached by going through the back of the Chambers. These used to be streets and and shops and houses, but now all that’s left are myths and stories and the empty rooms.

Friday, October 14, 2011

October 12: Old and New Towns

We are staying in a place whose “New Town” was designed in 1766. A 22-year old named James Craig won a competition set forth by the city to design new housing for the overcrowded Edinburgh, all piling up on top of itself in the medieval walled city. The plan of New Town was a grid (a grid -- all nicely laid out!) of houses, streets, and public squares, providing for the wealthy a place to move out from the congestion of Old Town.

I can’t imagine the reaction of people moving in to New Town for the first time: The Old Town is as full of warrens and overhanging roofs and narrow passages as the books tell us. In the 1700s, the congestion and dirt, the over-crowded buildings and lack of discreet waste disposal would have made New Town that much more impressive.

Princes Street, Queen Street, Rose Street, Thistle Street: the thoroughfares are broad, allowing the paving stones to bathe in light. Buildings are tall, but not as tall as necessity built them in the medieval city. When the first families moved in, the area would have been quiet, off-limits to many. Even today, the difference between them is striking.

Towns do change, of course. They expand and work always continues. Princes Street has been closed on and off to traffic while a tram is installed. While the stores in New Town have new storefronts, containing fashionable clothing stores and Starbucks, above the awnings and painted windows still stands the the stone designed by James Craig.

Old Town saw itself ricochet back and forth between prosperity and slums, settling into a respectable tourist haven and student housing (I was overcome with envy when I first saw the University of Edinburgh sign on the door of a residence. Staying in a 300-year old dorm, even one that has been remodelled inside, would have been amazing!).

I walk through streets that haven been in place for centuries. I walk through living neighbourhoods, evolving through the seasons. The flagstones beneath my feet witnessed wars, prosperity, sandals, buckle-shoes, bobby socks, and sneakers. The ever-lasting stone buildings housed tenants of every ilk, their stories varied, their names mostly lost to history.
In both Old and New Towns, history lives in its walls while the future seeps out into environs. Together harmonising into the essence that is Edinburgh.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

October 7: Cities

In Edinburgh for all of October. I had forgotten just how many people can try to cram themselves into one area. No stranger to some of the world’s most populous places, living in the heart of Tokyo and Chennai and in Chicago (albeit on the fringe of that one) -- every time I return to a city the sheer number of people takes me by surprise. How could I forget? I ask myself. But I do.

I find myself attempting to discern whether I prefer cities or towns? After a blessedly quiet time at Greenbrae Farm B&B, surrounded by (as the name suggests) fields, I find myself in Edinburgh listening to the sirens and the traffic and the shouting and the doors and the car alarms and the neighbour’s oven timer. The sounds are jarring, difficult to ignore. Trains and airplanes fade into the background, but are always there, an incessant buzzing.

Last night around midnight, I was startled from sleep to the sounds of a mob ... singing? A large group from the sound of it, serenading at least our whole block with melody and percussive hands and garbage dumpsters.

I have, in other times and places, heard one or two people, their drunken song alighting on my window for that brief moment they stagger past. But the last time I heard such a forceful refrain was in Antwerp, the night Belgian won a match in the World Cup. Last night, I found myself wondering who had won? And won what?

There were times this week when I longed for the fields, the wind through the (wheat, corn, barley....fill in the blank with crop of your choice). The crickets, the cows, the “silence” of the countryside. Or I longed for the sounds of the ocean’s silky waves, hitting the shore as fabric against fabric. Soft sounds. Even when the waves crash and the wind stirs in the trees, the noises are unobtrusive. When the lightning and the thunder roll earthward from the sky crashing into the air around me, I feel soothed, comforted.

Then I go shopping. In Edinburgh, as in Chicago, Tokyo, and many a major metropolis, the local dishes are only part of the grocery bag. To complement delicious Scottish cheese, biscuits, beef, milk, fruits and vegetables some additional stops take place. Sausage from the Polish deli. Spices from the Indian market. German chocolate spread. Mexican tortillas. How I soon crave the variety when I do not have it.

Stepping out the door into the city is to to hear a dozen languages being spoken. Being a bus ride from the City Centre is to be twenty minutes from free museums and street festivals (Truthfully, I think Tokyo may have the market cornered on summer festivals, but I was not in Edinburgh during festival season).

Look up in Edinburgh and see the ancient and the modern jostling for place among the skyline. History and modernity live side by side. The city does not forget its roots, but proudly displays them.

People flee from country to city. And from city to country. They each have their virtues, each their downsides. Neither better than the other. Each one needed for what they can provide.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Return to Inverness

Two years ago, when Kimberly and I arrived in Scotland, we fell off the train in Inverness. It was the first stop on our tour of Scotland. Everything was new. New country, new city, new adventure! Of all the places we went in Scotland after we left Inverness, none could compare with the amazingly lovely time we had here.

When David and I arrived in Inverness, it was getting late. We had been on a ferry and a train since 11:00, and we didn’t arrive at our B&B until almost 21:00 that night. We’ve travelled further, but only across an ocean. It was dark, and to arrive back at the same B&B I left two years earlier, we were working from an incomplete map and my vague memories of how to get there.

The next morning, while David stayed in to get some alone time and catch up on sleep, I went out to try and refresh the memories of how to get around. It is the same town. I remembered many places we walked, stores we visited, restaurants, photo opportunities, the streets and even Galbraith Parking Lot. Why I remember it, I do not know, (it is, indeed, a parking place for someone’s vehicles, not even at a store). But as soon as I walked past it yesterday, I knew I was on the right street. I found the castle, the tourist information centre, the cheesy tourist shops. After a couple hours, satisfied that I could still navigate the city, I went back to get David.

We ate a late lunch at an Italian restaurant I wish Kimberly and I had known about. Then we wandered around, getting to to know more of Inverness in the evening.

All the while, I felt something was missing. Inverness is equally as charming, the river equally as beautiful, the shopkeepers equally as friendly, as it was two years ago. I have dreamed about coming back to Inverness since I left. What could it be?

Then I realised: it is not new. The feeling of new adventures and exploration is not here. Two years ago, I was seeing it for the first time. David and I arrived in Aberdeen and in Orkney, the newness was with us. Here, though, I am rediscovering. Inverness is not home, so I am still unsure where things are. I am still lost all of the time. I still don’t know where to buy groceries. But, since I have been here before, I have a nagging feeling that I should know all this (which is unreasonable, since we were only here three days in 2009 -- not long enough or recent enough to answer the demands my brain is putting on my memory).

Inverness is beautiful town on the River Ness. With 100,000 residents, and the largest shopping area in the whole of the Highlands, I should call it a city, but it has such a smaller feel to it. We spent today out of town at the ruins of Urquhart Castle, but will be back to continue exploring Inverness tomorrow. or Tuesday. In a couple days, I expect Inverness will be again, the city I loved from two years ago. Only this time, I expect it will be even better, as it will feel just a little more like home.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

September 20: Outings

In addition to food food, we were shown great hospitality. Yesterday, Malcolm and Stuart, along with Malcolm’s dog Sam, drove us out to Scapa Flow. A large harbour in between the Orkney islands, it was used as a base for the royal navy in the early twentieth century.

Near Kirkwall is a beach where Stuart takes his metal detector and goes treasure hunting. We hiked along a cliff near the bay, then down a trail to the shore then decided to walk back along the shore. Until we ran out of shore. We could turn around and go back. It was no more than an extra mile out of way. But, as is the way of things, we decided to keep going. Across the slippery seaweed, onto a small ledge of rock, and across to climb the rock wall back to the trail on the cliff.

Whew! We made it.

Today Malcolm drove us -- and Sam -- to see the barriers and the “Italian Chapel” built by Italian POWs, during WWII, in their spare time. What spare time did they have? Most of their time was spent building “Churchill’s Barrier”, rock wall (cement block walls) in between the islands surrounding Scapa Flow. A massive project, and one I cannot even imagine the work that went into it. Dropping cement blocks into the ocean, where the current might catch the block and drag it seventy feet from where you put it. And at night, or on Sunday mornings, scrounging leftovers or garbage, begging or trading for materials to create a chapel. Photos of it will be on Flickr soon. It is a metal shed, painted like a Cathedral, and with handmade wrought iron gates and a stone baptismal font. It is even more amazing than the Barricades.

We continued on along the coast until we came to the Tomb of the Eagles. In the 1950s, a farmer discovered on his land a Neolithic tomb and a bronze age building. Today they are a heritage site, but still on the family’s land. The family runs tours of the area. The tomb is so named for the eagle talons found buried in the tomb. Several bodies were also found in the tomb, along with tools, ornaments, and pottery. The tomb is around 5,000 years old.

Such wonders! The oldest of the old -- my favourite things to study. Many things found in the tomb we can only imagine what they were used for. A stone cube, for example. Black stone, smooth, rounded edges, about five inches on a side. Small indents on four of the sides. It remains a mystery.

In between exploring the perimeter of Scapa Flow, we visited the Orkney Wireless Museum, where David taught me about Crystal Radios, transistors, and where I beat him playing Pong. We read the log of Gunther Priest, a U-Boat captain who snuck into the harbour and sank the HMS Royal Oak. It was this action which caused the building of the barriers already mentioned, built by POWs.

One of two places I wanted to make sure I visited on this Orkney trip is Scotland’s northernmost distillery: Highland Park (The other place is a well-preserved Stone Age village called Skara Brae. We’ll get there on Thursday). The distillery opened (legally) in 1798, and early drawings of the site show not much has changed since then. It has expanded, though not in a jarring way. It is still a small/medium distillery by Scottish standards, and it blends the two well-known tastes of whisky in a compromise most people can agree on.

Many island distilleries, most notably, on Islay, add peat smoke to their production, making the resulting whisky taste like campfire. The north-eastern area of mainland Scotland called Speyside makes a much lighter, and often much sweeter whisky. Highland Park takes some peat and some sweetness, making a perfect mix of the two regions. It is not my number one favourite of the whiskies, but it is a close second (more on the number one favourite next week when we visit that distillery).

As this entry is already longer than all the others by half,I will close for now. The past two days have been very busy, and without internet. The next couple days will slow down again, and perhaps will give you time to catch up on all this reading!

September 20: Seafood for Breakfast?

Lobster for breakfast? It seems decadent, even unreasonable, to be eating lobster for breakfast, yet there we sat with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and lobster surrounded by sweet tomatoes plucked that morning from the garden. Come to think of it, the lobster had been pulled out of the ocean only the night before, also.

At Eastbank House B&B, our host was Malcolm, and the chef Stuart. Stuart works on fishing boats at night, and cooked for us in the morning. Monday we woke to freshly caught haddock, sautéed in butter, served with a poached egg. That was good, and a local dish. However, last night, Stuart was out catching lobsters. Most of them get shipped off to fancy places in London, but any that look as if they won’t survive the trip to London get to stay right here in Orkney. It was delicious. The salmon, also, came from Orkney. Thinly sliced, and lightly smoked -- it melted in the mouth, just the way salmon should.

Although I have had many delicious breakfasts, and many strange combinations of food early in the morning, I have never had a breakfast so delightful. I probably never will again.


September 18: Ferry

Anyone who has known me long enough to be with me on a bridge knows that I am not a fan of water. The way most people would describe my feelings toward water include the words “phobia” or “paranoia.” I beg to differ, as I tend to reserve those words for my feelings towards bees and wasps.

It is true that I do not like swimming. I have failed beginner swim lessons more times than I care to remember. It is also true that I do not like aquariums, especially those tunnels in which fish swim above my head. I do not even like bridges which have holes in the floor and I can see the water under me. Admittedly, now that I write it out, those characteristics all reek of phobia.

In spite of all that, I love boats. My dream is to take a transatlantic cruise, or even an around-the-world cruise. David and I contemplated taking a cargo ship to Scotland, but the price was twice what it was to fly, and I thought flying was too expensive. Even waiting for last minute deals on cruise ships proved to be only beneficial for people sailing in October.

Perhaps it sounds crazy -- even crazier than merely being scared of drowning. But, for some reason, boats are not included in this phobia.

Because I do not get the opportunity to travel by boat very often, when I have the chance, I travel by ferry. This morning, we said good-bye to beautiful Aberdeenshire, and boarded the ferry for the northern isles of Orkney. It is a six hour journey up the coast of Scotland. The “ferry” is huge, having cabins for the longer journey to Shetland. Several restaurants and lounges occupy the same level as us. We are confined to level six, as level five is only cabins. Below that, I am assuming, are the automobiles and luggage and such.

The lobby where we entered is all wood panelling and glass chandeliers. I imagine we are travelling in the twenties, in the heyday of the transatlantic passage. I expect to run into Bertie Wooster anytime I turn the corner. But, as this is a ferry, not a grand Transatlantic Adventure, I suppose I won’t run into Wooster, Jeeves, or even Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

We are out to sea now, the coast just visible to our west. The gentle roll is enough to put me to sleep, except I am in a chair, and am too excited to sleep anyway. There is enough to do just watching out the window.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

September 17, 2011: Haggis and Other Scottish Foods

This morning for breakfast our hosts, in their hospitality, made sure we were able to try two Scottish dishes. They specially prepared two small portions for us to sample. On the plate were two rounds, like sausage patties. One a dark brownish-red: black pudding. The other a mottled light brown, looking much more like a sausage does indeed look: haggis.

I didn’t expect haggis to come pressed in a tube like Bob Evans. Why not? It is, like American breakfast sausage, ground-up animal insides, with added spices and a bit of oatmeal for filler. Of course, traditionally, it is cooked inside a cow’s stomach, which made me think we would be getting something that looked more like stuffing from inside a turkey.

And the results?

Haggis tastes like sausage. The oatmeal added a bit of texture that I did not like, but the taste, while different than Bob Evans, still reminds me of breakfast with eggs. I am not a fan of breakfast sausage, so I may be biased against haggis. Yet, it is all right. I may try it again, just to see the regional differences, but I do not foresee myself pining for it once we return home.

Black pudding, on the other hand, I have tried before. To be fair, I gave it another shot, but I still do not like it. It is a heavy food with a crumbly, meaty texture. The taste is difficult to describe, for if you have never eaten blutwurst in Germany or partaken of foods which include blood in their ingredients, then....there is nothing to which I can compare it.

I suppose I should not leave you with a bad impression of Scottish foods. Stereotypes and Hollywood do that enough as it is. If you are ever in Northeast Scotland (and are not allergic to fish or milk), try the Cullen Skink. It is a soup made with fresh Haddock. If you can see the ocean anywhere in the town, chances are, the Haddock came straight out of the water that morning. The soup is reminiscent of clam chowder, only better. I only say better because I am from Iowa, and the clam chowder, or at least the clams, would have come straight from the can. Here, though, eat the soup.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Week One: Aberdeenshire

Day four. (That was Wednesday -- I am behind in posting, though I write a little everyday). Don’t worry, though, I won’t be counting all the days of the trip; I’ll lose count around day eight or so. For now though, we are enjoying the beauty of Abderdeenshire. In the middle of farmlands, in the area called Buchan, is a 130-year old farmhouse owned by Beverly and Alan. They have made it their mission to make sure David and I are taken care of. I am sure they are as hospitable with everyone, but they treat us as if we are their only guests.

Yesterday. Alan drove us to the local bus hub of Peterhead. From there we caught a bus to Cruden Bay and Slains Castle, the inspiration for Stoker’s Dracula. Overlooking the ocean, Slains Castle is now a ruin, although some would say it was ruined 200 years ago when major renovations all but destroyed the original 16th century structure. Bram Stoker frequently spent his vacations in Cruden Bay, finding inspiration, not only for Dracula, but other writings as well.

The cliffs, overlooking the North Sea, are both gorgeous and treacherous. David had no fear, traipsing straight to the edge and photographing the Bullers of Buchan -- rock formations jutting out from the cliff walls. I stayed firmly on terra firma, watching the waves from a safe distance. The weather was in our favour yesterday, staying sunny and even warm clear up until evening.

Thursday, however, was not so warm. Today has been chilly and rainy, as we imagined Scotland would be this time of year. We spent the day in nearby Mintlaw, which means not that doctors were once required by law to only prescribe peppermint for ailments. No, “Mintlaw” is Gaelic for “flat place.” The draw is a place called Aden Park, with a farmhouse museum, replica of a farmhouse, ruins of many historic buildings and easy walking trails through the woods.

As the internet is slow in our B&B (the only inconvenience in an otherwise fabulous place), I have only uploaded two photos to flicker thus far. When we are somewhere with faster internet, I’ll put more on, and will be able to mess about getting them straight to my blog. In order to save time on an already slow connection, today is just text. Again. Sorry! Until I can get things on the same page here is where to go: www.flickr.com/photos/stsebald

Friday, September 09, 2011

September 1: The Trip Begins

The trip began on Monday with a thunderstorm. We loaded up the back of the pick-up truck, "And the rain, rain, rain came down down down in rushing, rising rivulets". So, we unloaded the truck and let our things dry off. Thankfully, our electronics were fine, but my old-fashioned notebook needed some time in the sunshine. When Megan got off work, we headed out for eastern Montana and Grandma Green s house for a couple days.
On Wednesday, we packed up the truck again, on the road to the train in Williston. It was only two hours late, which is normal for arrival in Williston. It is common for the train to gain time back in North Dakota overnight.
When the station attendant announced the train was only 8-10 minutes away, everyone piled outside, watching the lightning storm. As long as the rain holds off for ten minutes....but there it came. The storm blew in on winds that knocked us off our feet, sending luggage flying and rain pelting us through coats and hats. The train didn t arrive. The rain slowed down. The train didn t arrive. The rain tapered off. The train didn t arrive. We stood, dripping on the platform, waiting. After half an hour. people started wandering back inside. Finally, forty minutes later, we could see the train come around the curve.
Forty-five minutes after the train was 8-10 minutes away, the doors opened. Laying out to dry in the overhead luggage rack went the pillows and blanket David and I planned to use during the night. I managed a cup of hot mint tea, while we sat in the observation deck watching the lightning. By then, the storm was miles away, but the lightning put on a beautiful show. From inside and far away!
This time, though our computers and camera were still dry, all our books were wet. And my poor, old-fashioned notebook is almost past repair. One more storm and I think I ll have to throw it away!
Currently, we are somewhere in Minnesota, and about five hours behind schedule, which will not be a problem if the suburban trains are still running when we get in. We may be in for more adventures.
As long as it doesn t rain.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

August 22: Countdown

We leave Montana in a week. The rooms upstairs are alternately cleaned out and disaster zones as we clean, sort, pack, and pile things to go to thrift stores. Currently, the back bedroom looks great, but the living room is not to be found. I might be sitting on the sofa. Or, it could be a pile as yet unsorted. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. As a trade-off, though, the basement is clean and empty. Yippee!

Our UK itinerary is finally settled. While trying to arrange a few days in Paris, we learned all the inexpensive, but highly recommended B&B’s or self-cater apartments are all booked. Booked? Who goes to Paris the first week of November? I mean, other than us. I thought November is cold and wet and grey -- not exactly the high season. At least, that’s what all the tourism websites say. Apparently, all us cheapskates show up in time for low season, rainy season be darned!

In the end, though, it seemed to be cheaper to stay in London for two weeks than try to get to Paris. I found a great apartment in London for 12 days, a little out of the way, but good price and great reviews. Having booked it, though, the landlady came back and said she had accidentally looked at the wrong schedule. The one bedroom we wanted was already booked. She was looking at the two bedroom apartment. Yes, it costs more but she’ll give us a discount....I never did the math to figure out whether it was still cheaper to go to Paris or not. Maybe I just don’t want to know.

On the plus side, if you happen to visit London in the first 12 days of November, we have a free room available for you!

At this point, nothing in the schedule can change too much. All lodgings have been reserved, and the train tickets along the way. At least the card company finally believes that I am taking a trip to Scotland. I’ve had to call them three times in the last month to unfreeze my account or reassure them that yes, I am buying tickets to and within the UK. I know if it truly were fraud, I would be very happy with their level of scrutiny. As it is, though, their level of scrutiny seems over-zealous.

Three weeks until we get on a plane...the countdown is on!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Adventures in Scotland, the Second Draft

For the past year, I have been over the moon excited planning to spend a year in Scotland studying the ancient religious history of Scotland. Many months have been spent applying for scholarships to fund this grand venture. David and I have been packing and clearing out as if for an overseas move. We have told everyone we meet, casually, “Oh, we’re moving to Scotland.”

Unfortunately, the recession has hit the scholarship donors hard, and many of the ones I applied for had no funding. As of the middle of July, my total scholarship accumulation was £1500. That barely buys books, let alone a whole twelve months of classes, accommodation, food, shampoo, and research trips to Iona and Orkney where the ancient history is still visible.

With a deep sigh of sadness, but the sense to acknowledge that my path has wandered the wrong direction, I let go of that dream. However, having already purchased plane tickets, it seemed a shame to waste them. We could try to get a refund for the tickets, but as we bought the cheap tickets, we wouldn’t get much, if any, money back. We decided the more economical thing to do would be, of course, go to Scotland anyway.

Hence, here I am again with my blog. I will try to keep up on our trip here, the long-neglected site about sumo and sushi. Now, though, the stories will be about Celts and castles.

Adventures in Mission, still adventures -- only where the place has changed.


Outline of our schedule
September 12: Depart from Chicago
Arrive in Aberdeenshire, spending a couple days in the countryside.
Then to the Orkney islands, located just north of the mainland, visiting Neolithic villages and the world’s Northenmost whisky distillery.
Inverness: More history, more distilleries (hmm...I sense a pattern!)
Then to Edinburgh for a month for the many (free admission!) gardens, the historic architecture, the castle, and stories of Victorian era hauntings, body snatchers, and Jeckel and Hyde.
After Edinburgh, the following two weeks are as yet unplanned, though rumours of several days spent in London before the plane leaves from Heathrow would not be unfounded.
November 15: Arrive in Chicago