Scotland

The only photographic proof that I was in the Highlands- I forgot my camera at home this trip, don't worry I've already kicked myself.

Here at last is a slightly belated Scotland post- of course, so much has happened since returning from Scotland on Saturday morning (it is now Tuesday night) that I feel impatient to skip over it and rush on to the more immediate things, but I will be good and force myself to stay in one place long enough to remember that beautiful land- I know I will not regret it.

I arrived in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland with five of the coolest CMRS girls on a very wet Wednesday night. The city was all dark, and enclosed in curtains of rain, but shining forth like a beacon of history was the Edinburgh castle, high up on a tall, rocky crag. The stone walls were lit dramatically from underneath, but the highest ramparts stretched up beyond the reach of the floodlights, out of sight. We found the High Street, and then our little hostel, which was clean, warm and cheap, and therefore more than adequate (we did have some unexpected Portuguese bunk mates... of the male variety... but once we established an insurmountable language barrier, both parties were happy to ignore the other with all due politeness, and it worked out well). In the morning, we set out immediately for the castle, walking past dozens of touristy shops selling tartans and shortbread in kilt-shaped tins. The castle itself was amazing and formidable, and completely covered the hilltop. Even though it was pouring rain, I enjoyed spending the whole morning climbing over every inch of it, imagining what it would be like to live there (main conclusion: cold). Of all the medieval anomalies I witnessed that morning, the most memorable item for me was the old wooden door to the dungeon where they kept American POWs from the Revolutionary War (still unclear why they were being kept there... that was one placard I did not read close enough). The door was covered with really high quality graffiti: names, dates, beloveds, prayers, and even a detailed engraving of a ship bound west were all scratched in with care. I tried to imagine the men who lived there as I heard all about the gruel they ate, and felt the cold and the damp of the sunless dungeons.

The castle also houses Scotland's crown jewels: a rather normal looking crown, and a sword as big as me, and The Stone of Destiny. This last is worth googling if you have the time. As I learned in more detail on our three hour walking tour of the city, the Stone of Destiny has been used as a coronation throne for Scottish royalty since the 9th century. The king does not become king when he receives the sword or the crown, but only when his royal bum touches this neolithic stone. In 1296 King Edward the first of England gained control of Scotland and forcibly took the stone to Westminster where it has remained ever since to be used in English coronations. The Scots abided this injustice and act of English domination until the 1950's when a seedy little law student from Glasglow (Ian Hamilton) got a few buddies together, broke into Westiminster with a crowbar, and stole the stone back in a classic act of patriotism. The full story involves breaking the stone, repairing the stone, losing the keys to his getaway car, shredding his coat, burrying the stone hastily in a British field, coming back for it and making friends with gypsies, and finally, after reviving British patriotism and reminding the bloody English that the stone is really Scotland's, returned it to Westimnster. It is now in Edinburgh "on loan" and will need to be returned for the next English coronation. It was SUCH a good story, and our tour guide was downright fanatical about it. He was top notch in my book, actually, because he was able to talk at length about two of my chief interests: Scottish history, and Harry Potter. He took us to the cafe where JKR wrote the first of the Harry Potter books, and also to a creepy old graveyard where she took some of her characters' names off the tombstones (we saw McGonagall, Tom Riddle Jr and Senior, and also Mad Eye Moody).

The second day was less rainy- we took a little tour bus to the highlands. This part of Scotland is less easy to articulate. The slopes were steep and created tiny, narrow ravines which we drove along, craning our necks to look up the rich brown hills to the tops- so white with snow they disapeared completely in the clouds. Our bus driver was also very excited about history, especially about dispelling the Hollywood myth of Braveheart. Much to the chagrin of the French and Belgian tourists sitting in front of us, he spent the entire four hour drive home performing a dramatic monologue over the loudspeaker about the true history of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce- the real braveheart (Bruce was a national hero who actually requested that his heart be removed from his body and taken on crusade after his death. When the crusading party met an army of Moors that outnumbered them 10 to 1, the small casket with Bruce's heart was hurled ahead into the opposing army just before they clashed in battle, with the accompanying cry, "ride forth, brave heart!" This was about a quarter century after the gruesome murder of the real William Wallace... the bus driver described his English-style traitor's execution with shameless relish and detail). The tour ended at Loch Ness, which is beautiful, but also sad and lonely. I regret to say that although I saw some billy goats climbing the steep slopes, Nessie was too shy to come out. The bus ride home was long, and as I said, infused with a true Scotsman's account of Scotish history. We came back in the dark, and I saw the huge, full moon rising over the highlands. It was supernaturally enormous and bright, and I realized later that it was the equinox moon, but at the time, I was actually afraid that something weird and apocolyptic was going on.

I didn't get to spend nearly enough time in Scotland. I loved the city of Edinburgh, and the highlands were eerily beautiful and old, though I would never want to live there. This weekend my adventures continue with a day trip to Wales (800 year old monastery is on the list!) Hopefully before then I will have time to do a post on how I got myself into trouble with a (highly relevant and illuminating) Harry Potter reference during one of Dr. Crowe's lectures on John Milton. The fun just never stops.