thoughtspot

Our time in London was short but not final. Once Steve finishes his tests next week, we are hopping on a RyanAir jet straight to his flat. There will be rubble everywhere.

The days in between have been filled by Scotland, England’s rough & tumble, deep-fried northern neighbor. During our roughly two hundred hours there, we stayed in four hostels, saw three cities, took two whisky tours, watched one UEFA Cup Championship, and found zero Loch Ness Monsters. Also, we found the WORLD’S BEST BABY.

The city of Edinburgh used to be one mile long and a quarter mile wide. Marking the extremes of the old city are Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood. The first is where they hid the crown jewels from the Nazis and the second is where they hide the queen from the public.

As a tourist, knowing the Royal Mile is an actual mile is helpful insofar as I can confidently say I walked about 8 miles everyday. For citizens from the last few hundred years, the small space meant living stacked a dozen stories high. When those wooden skyscrapers inevitably caught fire, it meant being buried in the graveyard a dozen people deep. In this very direct way, death has been historically inescapable in Edinburgh. Modern tourism reflects this with numerous ghost tours lining the streets. Led by theatre geeks in black dusters, are full of facts like, “Grayfriar’s graveyard has as many bodies as Gettysburg but takes up 1/500 the space.”

Along with mostly apocryphal history lessons, the ghost tours offer the chance to walk through underground tunnels and take blurry pictures. On our second night we thought going underground would be a way to escape the rain, but it just meant we were walking where all the water ends up. Starting with that evening, we alternated days forgetting to bring our waterproof jackets. My shoes didn’t fully dry for a week and Stacy’s purple hoodie has never been the same.

Before learning all this, we climbed Arhtur’s Seat. This semi-sacred hill at the edge of the ocean overlooks seemingly all of Edinburgh. The queen’s stronghold sits at the base. At the top are birds sailing the jet streams and Mormons starting their missions.

Fittingly Edinburgh Castle was the most impressive thing in Edinburgh. We spent half an hour in line and then nearly four hours inside.

There were more than twenty exhibits inside. Most of them focused on the military:

• War Museum
• History of Soldiers
• War Memorial
• Scotland First Cannon

And my personal favorite PRISONS OF WAR. Imagine going to Disneyland and riding The Pirates of the Caribbean. Instead of staying on the boat, though, you grab the keys from the dogs mouth and unlock the doors. Inside is an entire world of animatronic pirates, pre-recorded dialogue and shadow plays. Such was the magic of the prisoners of war display. There is music and arguments, debates of American bravery during the Revolutionary War, and long discussions of the best way to avoid scurvy. Thanks to vimeo, you don’t have to just imagine it, you can live it. Thanks to slow upload speeds, for now you will have to imagine it.

Aside from all the death and violence Edinburgh has much more to offer. Ignoring Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the rest of their literary heritage, the city’s history lies in its consumables. Nothing makes you need a drink quite like a Wolf Dog, which is a hot dog filled with cheese, wrapped in bacon, and then fried in a heart attack.

Cheating the death that such a meal promises should always be celebrated with a stiff glass of whiskey. Thanks to The Whiskey Experience, we were able to celebrate all afternoon. We boarded a mechanized whiskey barrel and went on another Disneyesque ride. Instead of Pirates of the Caribbean, though, this ghost (or SPIRIT – haha) leading us through the fermentation process was straight out of The Haunted House. This mildly entertaining ride led to the tasting room where we learned about Scotland’s four distinct whiskey flavors. Divided geographically into

• Highlands
• Islay
• Lowlands
• Some Other Place

They are all delicious in their own way. Check out these photos of Stacy for further proof.

While this isn’t the whole story of Scotland, it will have to do for now. Tune in soon for more exciting adventures set in Pitlochry, Inverness, Dublin, Cork, and Galway.