Jaeger woke us up at the crack of dawn. Ok, not really but it felt like that to me. However, we did manage to get up and eat earlier than we had the last couple of days. Today I ordered the porridge for breakfast and then promptly Americanized it by adding sugar and dried fruit (I surreptitiously grabbed sugar cubes that were meant for tea).

After breakfast we headed out of Inverness to Aviemore to ride a steam train. With the Scottish countryside passing by, the steam from the train drifting pass our window, and the whistle at crossings I could almost hear the opening music from the BBC’s production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

We got back to the station around 12 and decided to eat lunch. In one of my desperate searches for vegetarian food “around” Inverness, I had stumbled across a review of a cafe in Aviemore called The Mountainside Cafe which claimed it had a good number of vegetarian options. We went in and I was impressed by the labeling. They had labels for vegetarian, dairy free, wheat free, and gluten free. They also noted that they could try to prepare food nut free but couldn’t vouch for their suppliers. They had a number of good lunch option. Jaeger and I both ordered a Red Lentil burger but I got seduced into ordering a spicy hot chocolate and a rhubarb and white chocolate scone with Cornish clotted cream. I was thinking of the scone as dessert but it came before my entree. The scone with clotted cream was wonderful. Jaeger said he could see me having an experience. The rest of the food was very good too but I kind of wished I had just ordered another scone :)

We took a brief detour after lunch to mail a postcard to Calvin’s classmates. On the walk back to the car I was stopped by a guy with an English accent who asked if I was a local and was quite disappointed to hear that I was not.

Once we got back to the car we drove to Cairn Gorm mountain and took the Funicular Railway up the side of the mountain. That was pretty fun. At the top there wasn’t a huge amount to do because they weren’t letting tourists out on the tundra (to avoid damaging it). We saw some impressive views and then caught the ride back down. The ride back down was very full but Calvin continued his theme of charming grandmothers from all continents and got a seat at the front so he could watch our descent.

After the mountain ride we drove about a half hour to the Highland Folk Museum. This was an absolutely fantastic place. Unfortunately we didn’t get there till 4 which didn’t leave nearly enough time prior to closing at 5:30. If I had the ability to do it over again I would have spent the entire afternoon there (guidebooks do offer suggestions but they rarely know how long Calvin’s interest can be captured). The museum covers several acres and recreates the dwellings of the highlands from the 1700s and on. The day started out rainy in Inverness but by the time we got to the museum it was fairly warm and mostly sunny.

The first thing you see when entering the grounds is a playground for children. They have the biggest tire swing I have ever seen. It was fantastic. They also had several other pieces of playground equipment (pictures to be posted later). Once I pried Calvin away from the playground we wandered down the various paths. The first building we entered was an old school where a staff member let Calvin try to write with a old pen, ink, and blotting paper. What I particularly liked about the buildings is they are fully furnished like the original owners would have.

We ended up at the little 1700 village right around closing time. As we approached one of the staff members asked Calvin where he was from. He replied “The United States” and the other staff member laughed and said the first one had guessed we were French because the French always show up at the end. The building was really interesting. Apparently the inhabitants slept 5-6 to a bed and slept sitting up. According to the guide they slept sitting up because they tended to have pretty bad breathing problems because, among other things, they didn’t have any chimneys and so the smoke just stayed in the house with the warmth. She also pointed out that what we were seeing was fairly luxurious for a normal person and a family who lived in a fine house like this was probably fairly educated and could read and write in Gaelic and English.

As we were walking down the path toward the gate we saw another couple rushing toward the cottages. Jaeger murmured “I wonder if they’re French” and, sure enough, they were definitely talking in French.

Since it was now 5:30 everything was closed. We headed off to the airport to return our car rental. I was relieved when Jaeger handed over the keys. It was really useful to have a car but slightly nerve wracking also. We got a taxi to take us back to the hotel. Our taxi driver was originally from Romania and when we got in asked us if we were English. I’m mainly amused by this because I had gotten the impression on my high school trip that Americans were easy to spot miles away because of how we dress. Apparently that isn’t the case anymore. (In case you’re wondering, I was not trying to blend in. I had my good hiking shoes, straight leg jeans (not skinny), and my REI fleece and raincoat.)

Back at the hotel we decided to go back to La Tortilla for supper. It was already 7:20 and we needed somewhere close by because we have to get up early tomorrow to catch our train for York.

Coda
I forgot to mention kind of a weird experience we had while driving to the airport to drop off our car. We were blithely driving down the rode when all of a sudden the car in front of us put their brake lights on. It was a dual carriage way so we moved over to the right lane just in time to see an entire wheel from a Porsche rolling around on the shoulder with the Porsche continuing to drive, though slowing down, on it’s rim. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that before. Tire blowouts, yes. Tires detaching and rolling away from a car, no.

Our grand adventure continues! Today we wandered around the country side with Jaeger staying firmly on the left side of the rode (when the road was wide enough for sides anyway).

After breakfast we took a quick walk into town to procure a raincoat for Calvin. I brought a raincoat for him but only belatedly realized it was at least one, possibly two, sizes too small for him. The previous day I had seen pretty decent looking raincoats at a reasonable price in a store that had already closed for the day (did I mention that even the mall closes at 5!?). So we went back this morning for the jacket.

Today was gorgeous. It was warm and sunny most of the day. A perfect day for a country ride. We started by going the long way around to a town called Cannich. We were planning to take a short hike there at a place called Dog Falls. While Google maps worked well yesterday, it didn’t work well today because Jaeger’s phone didn’t have a good connection most of the time. Upon entering the town, the guidebook said to take a right so we did. We drove and drove and drove with the road getting smaller and smaller till it was a one lane track. Eventually we figured out we were on the wrong road and turned around. However, the scenery was lovely and the weather so mild that we had the windows rolled down so it wasn’t a wasted drive.

Once we got back to Cannich we realized that what they considered right, I considered straight. Now that we were on the correct road we had another pleasant drive that once again narrowed down to one lane but this time they had more areas for cars to pass one another. We made it to the Dog Falls trailhead and set off. There were two options for the hike. The first was to go straight to the falls and come back the same way. That was about a mile hike. The other was a two mile loop that also went past the falls. We intended to take the one mile option but eventually, about one mile into the hike and at the top of a hill, we realized we had taken the trailhead for the two mile hike instead. Fortunately the weather was nice and Calvin only complained a little.

Because the hike was longer than expected it was around two in the afternoon before we arrived at our next destination: Urquhart castle on the banks of Loch Ness.

Upon arriving, we headed straight for the cafe in the visitor’s center. I had bars with me but they don’t really take the place of a real meal. We ate our food and then went and watched a short video on the history of the castle (contentious and a lot of feuds). Then we went down to wander around the ruins. It was pretty interesting and Calvin in particular seemed to like it. I think it’s because since it was in ruins, he was allowed to run and explore the place instead of dutifully trudging through a touring line. The castle was mostly in ruins but they did stabilize some of the areas so we could go up into one of the towers and look over Loch Ness. As expected it was very beautiful.

After leaving Urquhart Castle we headed down to where Fort Augustus use to be. The main thing of note here is they have locks for boats going to/from Loch Ness. Unfortunately, we were caught in traffic when the boats went through and the next time wasn’t till 8:30 so Calvin didn’t get to see the locks in action. By this point it was already pretty late (i.e. past 5) and shops were closing up so we headed back to Inverness for supper.

For supper we decided to try a restaurant called George’s Thai and South Indian food. We had looked at the menu out front yesterday but had passed because we’ve been eating a lot of Indian recently (the same thing happened in our 2006 trip to London). However, once we got back to the hotel and were desperately looking for more vegetarian food we figured out they served dosas! This was not on their outside menu. We went there tonight and they do indeed have Dosas and vada. It was very nice to eat something other than pizza.

Coming back to the hotel I stopped by the front desk because when our rooms had been cleaned they took away the washcloths without replacing them with anything. I mainly use my poof ball but it’s handy to have washcloths for Calvin. So, I went to the front desk and requested a washcloth. The clerk looked at me blankly. I explained that we had received fresh towels but the washcloths hadn’t been replaced. He continued to look at me blankly. So I hazarded “face towels??” His face cleared and he said, “oh, do we give those out?” I told him I wasn’t positive but there had been some when we arrived (our hotel in Edinburgh had not had any). He went and rummaged around in the back and emerged triumphant with the requested washcloths. He handed them to me with the comment that he learned something new today. Upon getting up to my room I looked up washcloths and learned 1) that they aren’t called washcloths here and instead are called flannel, or possibly face flannel¹ and 2) it’s pretty common for hotels not to offer them (source).

I’m not entirely sure what we’re doing tomorrow yet. Jaeger is industriously typing away creating a plan while I write this. I think a train may be involved but I’m not sure.

Coda
It turns out my day was not quite as finished as I first thought when I wrote about our day last night. I had just drifted off to sleep when the fire alarm went off. I jerked out of sleep completely disoriented. I picked up Calvin, looked around vaguely for my shoes and decided it wasn’t cold enough to actually require shoes, wrapped Calvin’s blanket around him and headed out the door. I didn’t actually take the correct exit because I went by rote down the main hall exit. I got all the way down the stairs when the word went out that it was a false alarm. I got the impression that someone might have been trying to get out, or get in, and triggered the fire alarm instead. I groggily retraced my steps and got to the room door only to realize I had not grabbed my key card before leaving. I took nothing but Calvin and a blanket for him. Fortunately, Ted was a bit clearer headed and had dressed and grabbed his wallet. He also took the closer exit which I think means it took him longer to hear that it was a false alarm. In any case, while I was trying to decide what to do next he arrived and let us back into the room.

I put Calvin back to bed and he went to sleep again with only a faint complaint about me waking him up. I also went back to bed but it took me longer to fall back asleep.

We seem to be making a habit of waking up fairly late, dragging ourselves out of bed around 9 and then rushing to get the last 1/2 hr of breakfast. I think that’s how I react to jet lag. I have very little problem with waking up in the middle of the night but I like sleeping even more than normal. This doesn’t hurt our schedule too much because most tourist sites don’t open till 10 anyway.

After breakfast we drove to Cawdor Castle. Jaeger has gotten significantly better at driving on the left side. I no longer fear he’s going to scrape me and my side of the car off a building. Also, we have learned that Google maps work fairly decently in Scotland in terms of showing roads but you can’t trust the navigation. Thus, an official navigator is essential for getting around the roads in Scotland.

The drive out to the castle was very scenic. Having worked in Greeley/Weld County I’ve seen a fair number of farms but none are as picturesque as the ones I see here. I’m not sure if Scotland/Uk/European Union actually restricts large scale farms or if they exist elsewhere but I haven’t seen any yet. We were also fascinated by various road conventions:

• They have what seem like fairly symbolic roundabouts: small (2 meter diameter) painted circles that you obviously are suppose to treat like a full round about.
• We had a one-lane underpass where one lane was signed as the yielding lane.
• We also came across a one-lane bridge with a stop light to indicate which lane was allowed to cross.
• As a way to limit traffic speed they sometimes purposefully narrow the road to one lane with one side designated as having to yield to the other.
• Quite a few of the backcountry roads have one-lane stretches with pullouts and the UK drivers very politely signal with their lights to give way to you.

One of the primary reasons we visited Cawdor Castle was because Calvin wanted to see more castles. Cawdor Castle was a different type of castle than Edinburgh. Cawdor Castle was never designed to withstand a true siege. It had a drawbridge but I think that was more for show than anything else. The insides of the castle were nicely furnished with a mixture of old and modern. Apparently the Dowager Countess lives there in winter when it’s not open to tourists. I was amused when we were ushered into the “old” kitchen to see a collection of good quality copper pots with a note that when the cook was informed the copper pots were going to be replaced with “better” modern pots, she quit. I can’t blame her the pots looked like they were in perfect shape. I was amused by a lot of the explanatory signs as they seemed to be making sly remarks and obscure in jokes. For instance, when discussing the modern kitchen, which use to be the school room, it noted the school room had done an excellent job of creating spinsters and invalids. I bet there’s some stories there.

Calvin liked the idea of the castle but seemed to get restless going through it. He enjoyed the grounds a lot more. They were very beautiful. Unfortunately, the holly maze was off-limits because all the visitors were bad for the holly roots. However, we still enjoyed strolling around the grounds. We had to leave sooner than Calvin would have liked because we had a very full schedule.

The next stop was site of the Culloden battle. Before going into the museum we ate lunch at their cafe. After lunch, we went in the museum and wandered around. Calvin didn’t seem as excited by this museum as he had for the one in Edinburgh castle. However, he really liked the war video reenactment. We went into a room that had movie screens on all four walls. There were no chairs, I think you were suppose to just stand in the middle. They showed a reenactment of the Jacobite troops advancing on the “government” troops and the massacre that followed (around 50 government soldiers killed versus 1500 Jacobite soldiers). I was a bit nervous about letting Calvin see it but he didn’t seem to mind (it was shot in black and white and showed men falling down but no obvious blood). In fact, Calvin wanted to watch it again but I thought once was enough. After we went through the exhibits we went out onto the battle field where it showed where the government lines were (with red flags) and the Jacobite lines (blue flags). It also noted that due to development the grounds were a a lot less marshy than they’d been for the actual battle. The Scottish clans tended to fight together so they had grave stones where the various clans were believed to have died.

After wandering around the battlefield we got in the car and drove a short distance to the Clava Cairns which I think archaeologists believe were old burial grounds. It’s not really big enough to be worth visiting if you’re not already in the area but it was interesting. Also, like pretty much everything else, very scenic. We took a short detour as we were leaving to gawk at a splendid viaduct that we believe our train to Inverness went over. Viaducts are a bit harder to gawk at when you’re riding on top of them. Jaeger took some pictures but we had a lot of very atmospheric mist so it’s unclear whether or not it’ll turn out.

After the Clava Cairns we had hoped to go up in the mountains and ride the Jacobite steam train. However, we didn’t have nearly enough time for it today (and now that we’re back, it appears we would have had to get tickets weeks in advance anyway). So instead we drove back to our hotel, parked, and got out to wander Inverness. The one thing I especially wanted to see was Leakey’s Bookshop and Cafe, a large used bookstore located in an old church. The atmosphere was everything I had hoped but the selection wasn’t what I was looking for. It seemed to specialize in old books and printings, some first editions, and what I really was looking for was something like Powells, some old stuff but newer stuff too. That being said, I was very happy to find a newer edition of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree (complete with updates to remove potentially offensive language).

We left the bookstore right before it closed at 5 hoping to find a cafe to grab a bite to sustain us until we could find a proper restaurant to eat at. Unfortunately, it turns out that almost everything in Inverness closes at 5. We eventually got lucky and found a Costas (like Starbucks) which closed “late” at 5:30.

With some calories in us, we went looking for dinner only to have my fears about vegetarian food in Inverness confirmed. Before coming I had looked online and hadn’t found very many options but I hoped that more would appear that just didn’t have their menus online. No such luck. Most of the vegetarian options seemed to be somewhat dubious. As in, you can have good quality food or vegetarian food but not both. We walked to one restaurant that was rated well on TripAdvisor and a commenter had mentioned his vegetarian daughter had “plenty of options.” We were hesitant since “plenty of options” from a non-vegetarian seems to often mean there’s a salad you can pick meat off. However, our options were limited so we walked over to look at the menu. Plenty of options in this case meant 3 vegetarian starters (one vegan, probably) and a vegetarian frittata (note, I’m not a huge fan of eggs). We passed and, out of desperation, went to Pizza Express for supper. This time I got an interesting pizza with beets, salad greens, pesto, and onion. It was good but I’m hoping we can find something other than pizza tomorrow.

Tomorrow we’re planning to drive around the Loch Ness area. According to several websites days 2 or 3 are the days tourists are most likely to get in an accident because they’ve gotten overconfident, relax, and their instincts from driving back home kick in. I planning on practicing my frantic shout of “left!” some more in case it’s needed.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 19.

Last night we spent repacking our suitcases. It’s amazing how much disorganization only a couple of days of traveling can result in. It probably doesn’t help that we packed tight to reduce the amount of luggage we took.

This morning we woke up bright and early, finished putting stuff away, and went down to breakfast. After breakfast we took our luggage and hiked down to the train station. We arrived a half hour early and saw that the train to Inverness didn’t have a platform yet. We went and sat down and waited about 15 min till they finally assigned it to platform: #14. Just as we were getting up, we noticed the number had changed to #16. We waited a minute more and heard a “platform change” announcement for #16 and decided it was probably safe to go.

The train seats were setup with two seats on each side with rows facing each other and tables in the middle. We shared our section with another man. As promised, the scenery was spectacular. It reminds me of a lot of Washington except more sparsely populated and with more scenic buildings. Calvin did very well on the trip and spent most of the time listening to an audio book while coloring.

The train restrooms were interesting. The doors were mechanized and required pushing a button to open. Then you went inside, pressed a D button to close and then the L button to lock (at least I think that’s how it’s suppose to work). It’s a little nerve wracking not knowing for sure how to operate the door. It doesn’t help that they have an emergency button right above all the other lettered buttons. I think they need better instructions.

We arrived at Inverness and I felt we should take another bathroom break. I wasn’t prepared for the 20p cost per person (automated with turnstiles) but fortunately Jaeger had change. The plan was to get a taxi to take us to the airport where we were to pick up the rental. However, we decided we needed to eat before doing anything too involved. We walked around the corner from the train station, with our luggage, and found Pizza Express which is a chain pizza restaurant we had eaten at in Hong Kong. We got food and had a yummy lunch.

After lunch we got a taxi to take us to the airport. We walked up to a row of taxis and managed to get the attention of the first in the line. It was harder than it sounds since she was engrossed in a book. Unlike the taxi drivers in Edinburgh, this driver was pretty talkative. I think the most useful thing we learned was that a large cruise ship is scheduled to drop about 6000 passengers tomorrow so we should avoid Loch Ness and the city center tomorrow (sounds like they are suppose to be here only one day).

The taxi driver also had an amusing story about another American tourist who had hired her for a full day once. They had spent most of the day wandering around the various sites and were currently on a fairly boring stretch of the road. The tourist fell asleep only to wake up and start screaming. It gave the taxi driver quite a start until the woman calmed down enough to stop screaming and explain that she thought they were driving in the wrong lane because they were on the left side. This has apparently made the taxi driver very wary of letting Americans fall asleep in her taxi.

We made it to the airport car rental stand and after an eternity of tapping Jaeger was issued keys to a car and a car seat. We had expected a choice between a high back or low back booster and at first glance we thought we got a high back booster. However, upon further inspection, it turned out to be a full car seat that was borderline for Calvin’s weight and with twisted straps I couldn’t figure out how to untwist. So we took it back and got a high back booster instead which proved to be satisfactory.

Fort George is really close to the airport and the roads aren’t busy so we felt that would make a good practice run. Jaeger seemed to adapt to left side driving fairly well except he had a tendency to hug the side more than I was comfortable with. It doesn’t help that the roads are narrower than I’m use to. However, we made it to Fort George unscathed.

Fort George was pretty impressive and was built using a more “modern” star design instead of old-style castles. This design works much better once cannons started being used. It has a moat and high earth walls and originally had a couple of draw bridges. You could tell we were’t in the US because they had terrifying drops off the earth walls that were nicely signed as dangerous but not fenced in anyway. I insisted Calvin hold my hand when he went near the edge, much to his disgust. The fort sticks out onto a peninsula so has very good views from most angles.

We wandered around the fort for quite a while and ended up in the Highlanders’ Museum which is all about the Highlanders’ history of serving in the armed forces. We didn’t get much time at the museum because it was closing time.

The drive to our hotel was a bit more adventurous. Most of the adventure was Google’s fault. It didn’t seem to be aware that a good number of the roads were pedestrian-only so we ended up going in a circle. Once we turned off navigation it went a little better but we still had to do one u-turn where Jaeger temporarily forgot we were in a left-lane country. Fortunately, we’ve been married long enough that he figured out what my incoherent shrieking meant before any cars appeared on the road. I had been practicing a terse, but informative, “left” if this situation arose but when it did, speech deserted me.

We did make it to the hotel and checked in. Jaeger reserved a suite at the Glen Mhor Hotel which is very nice and spacious. There’s a sofa bed in the main room which connects to a very large bathroom and a bedroom with a king bed. Weirdly, the furniture looks like it could have come from Room & Board which is the only place that has furniture Jaeger and I can agree on. In addition, the main room windows overlook the river Ness.

For supper we hiked just a couple blocks to La Tortilla which is a Spanish-style restaurant (I wasn’t ready to get back in the car yet). Jaeger and I got vegetable paella and a potato tapas with a mildly spicy sauce on top. Calvin got a “Spanish omelet” which looked more like a frittata to me. However, the name wasn’t important as he devoured it.

While I like our new accommodations, Calvin doesn’t because his bed is now in a completely different room from ours. So I’ve told him that if he falls asleep and wakes up in the middle of the night (after we’ve gone to bed), he may come sleep in our bed. It’s a king size so there theoretically should be room . . .

Jaeger’s currently working on figuring out what we’ll do tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll figure out something that skips most of the cruise ship tourists. I do feel somewhat self-conscience complaining about the tourist other potential tourists :)

For a parallel account of our fourth day in Scotland, see Star Fort.

We woke up, had breakfast in the hotel, and set off for our last full day in Edinburgh. Our first stop was the National Museum of Scotland. There were a significant number of technology-related exhibits. I believe Jaeger’s favorite exhibit, and the main reason he wanted to go to the museum, was Dolly the cloned sheep. They didn’t seem to have as much about her as I expected. Not even a children’s book in the gift shop!

Calvin seemed to find a fair bit to keep him interested. They had a good mix of adult and child-oriented exhibits. In addition to a lot of technology they also have exhibits devoted to Scottish history. Even then, by the time you progressed to modern day, it was all about Scottish contributions to industry and technology. We spent the whole morning at the museum.

After the museum we stopped by the National Library of Scotland. Calvin was fairly hungry by this time so we didn’t get a chance to look at many things in depth. We spent most of our time in the John Murray exhibition which was pretty interesting. He was a publisher for various famous authors such as Jane Austen, Washington Irving, etc and the library set up a very nice exhibit to display his collection. The room was fairly dark with one wall containing a bookcase and a fireplace. Overhead was a chandelier and then scattered throughout the room were glass encased costumes representing various authors and then digital screens that allowed one to scan some of their correspondence and pointed out various relevant details of their lives.

For lunch, we grabbed pastries at the Piemaker. They had a variety of pie sandwiches (kind of like turnovers) with various fillings inside. I got a Moroccan vegetable filling, Jaeger got the vegetable filling, and Calvin got the Mac & Cheese filling. Then we got Apple and Cherry pastries for desert. The entree pies were pretty filling so we just shared the apple pastry and saved the cherry one for later.

After lunch we retraced our steps as I had seen that Edinburgh’s public library was right across the street from the national library. We first went in the brand new children’s library. The library just opened on Thursday. Such luck :) It still had the new library smell. The rooms were bright and cheery. I made Jaeger get pictures so you’ll see bits of it when he gets around to posting them. It consists of 3 main rooms: juvenile books, easy books, and a crafts room. I read Calvin a story written and illustrated by Quentin Blake and then we left to find the adult “Central Library.”

The Central Library was very traditional looking. It was pretty small but it looks like they have a fair number of branches so that maybe that isn’t surprising. (Plus, Jaeger keeps pointing out that Edinburgh only has about 400,000 people so it’s probably not fair to compare it to Seattle.) I’ve never heard of the ILS they were using. I’ll have to look up more info when we get back home.

After the library we went and wandered around in the graveyard of the Greyfriars Kirk. The graves were pretty impressive and I was a bit sad we don’t do gravestones like that anymore. The church itself was closed to the public today. We were debating what to do next when Calvin announced he wanted to visit a church so we went in search of another church.

The second church we went to was the St. Giles Cathedral. It had most of the components of a regular cathedral though it didn’t have as strong of a cross layout as I’m use to. However, it did have the arched ceilings so Jaeger explained the structure to Calvin while wishing that there was a reasonable ecopy of David Macauley’s Cathedral (apparently a Kindle copy does exist but all the negative reviews of the book are about the ebook).

After the cathedral we continued down the royal mile to the Scottish Parliament. The building was not what I expected. I thought it would be something traditional but instead it’s very modern. I’m not a huge fan of how it looks on the outside but the inside looks very light and spacious. We tried to explain the concept of parliament to Calvin but I’m not sure he got what we were talking about.

Calvin was definitely flagging by this point as, to be honest, so were we. So we decided to look for supper. We settled on a Thai Indian (?!) restaurant that worked out well for everyone. Calvin scored a free scoop of ice cream. After supper we trudged back to the hotel.

At the hotel I had Calvin sit in the bathtub and let him eat a good part of the cherry pastry which was now a bit smooshed (he won’t die of sugar deprivation today). I also learned that my really cheap $10 tablet did not survive the Atlantic crossing. It has taken to flashing random colors now when one tries to turn it on. Oh well, it was an interesting experiment.

Now I need to pack up because tomorrow we’re off for the highlands! Our train leaves at 9:30 so we’ll need to wake up a bit earlier than we have been.

For a parallel account of our third day in Scotland, see Devolution.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 17.

I slept pretty well most of the night, only waking up for a while around 1:30 am local time. Jaeger did worse though possibly because he got more sleep on the plane. The alarm woke us up at 9:00am. We got ready and went down to breakfast. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a huge number of vegetarian options but there were enough.

After breakfast we headed out. Our plan was to visit Edinburgh castle but we first needed to run a couple of errands. We wanted to get local SIM cards for our phones and Calvin needed a fleece to replace the one we lost at security. I saw a promising looking department store and headed that direction with Calvin while Jaeger went to procure SIM cards.

The department store turned out to only have adult clothes but a tourist shop a couple of doors down had a navy hoodie proclaiming “Scotland” in white letters that fit Calvin. Jaeger also had moderate success. The SIM card worked well in his phone but mine wouldn’t work. We’re not sure why yet. I was hoping we could both get local cards so we could communicate in case Calvin required a playground break and we didn’t want to tie down both adults.

We started walking again and meandered into Old Town and hiked up the streets to the castle. The hill it’s on definitely adds to the grandeur of the look. The ticket line was long (though I bet much worse in true summer) so Jaeger stood in line while I took Calvin to the restroom. Then Calvin drew a bit while we waited for Jaeger to get through the line.

Calvin adored the castle. He spent most of the time dragging us around or running ahead. There is a lot in the castle complex and we spent several hours there. Calvin really enjoyed looking over the wall which provided a spectacular view of everything around. He took a lot more interest in many parts of the castle than we expected. For instance, when we visited the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum Calvin insisted that we read almost every plaque. Rather than getting bored and making us leave early, he spent more time than we would have chosen to look at everything. When we went to the great hall they had some weapons on exhibit so Jaeger got a picture of Calvin holding a broadsword that was bigger than he was. We ate lunch at a castle cafe and wandered around a bit more before going back down to new town.

On the way up to the castle we had noticed an odd neo-gothic spire sticking up. Jaeger looked it up and found that it was a memorial to Sir Walter Scot. We decided to take a closer look at it. It turns our that you can climb up within the spires for a fee. The first staircase was fairly normal. It wasn’t overly wide but does allow people to pass with caution. We got up to the landing and looked around. It was a decent view. Then Calvin found another set of stairs, stairs that were narrower and didn’t have a railing. Passing on these stairs was a bit tricky and required one person to hug the outside while the other person clung carefully to the central spiral. But we made it to another viewing platform. Then another set of stairs that stated out as wide as the original but fairly quickly narrowed to the second set. We initially passed up the third viewing platform in order to make it to the top. At the very top the stairs became so narrow that Jaeger was almost too wide for it. The last platform was extremely narrow, no wider than a person. I think it might have been my favorite experience of the day.

After the climb we sat for a bit and admired the scenery. Edinburgh has a lot of benches in this area and the weather was very pleasant. The climb had made me hungry so we stopped by a cafe. Calvin and I got hot chocolate with [whipped] cream and marshmallows and we split a “Belgium Chocolate Jaffa” (something like this) which was very good and rich.

Refreshed, we wandered by St. Andrew Square which does not have a statue of St. Andrew and instead has the Melville Monument. However, Calvin found the most exciting feature to be a shallow waster feature that he amused himself by splashing with his hands. After prying him away from that we headed toward Princes Street Gardens which is a lovely stretch of paths, lawns, trees, and flowers that divides new town from old town (I adore how green Scotland is, very Wahington-like). More importantly, it was rumored to have a playground.

I was a bit disheartened when the officially posted map of the gardens didn’t list a playground but we tried anyway. The walk was nice with quite a few flowers, including rhododendrons which were blooming. Also there were benches lining both sides of the path which allowed Calvin to frequently stop and “rest”. Eventually we reached the end and discovered there was the promised playground. It was quite nice. I took pictures so once I get back I’ll do a more detailed playground review.

After the playground we started walking to supper. We ate at Henderson’s which is a vegetarian restaurant. I got a stacked polenta dish with all sorts of grilled vegetables and pineapple. It was very good. We also got vegetarian haggis which appears to be a thing in Edinburgh. I’ve lost count of the restaurants, even non-veg ones, that I’ve seen offering it. Possibly because it’s innately less disgusting than the real thing. I got one of the kid meal selections based on the waiters suggestion which was a mistake. I should have gone with my original inclination of pasta and tofu, even if it was adult portions and price. At that point Calvin was obviously tired and didn’t feel like exerting much effort to eat.

Since we were the farthest we’d been all day from the hotel and it was already 8:30 we decided to take a taxi back. Now Calvin is sleeping peacefully beside me as I write this out.

For a parallel account of our second day in Scotland, see Edinburgh Castle.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 16.

May ended up being a very busy month. The previous week I had been in Detroit for my library conference. This week I was suppose to have full day training on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and on Wednesday night we planned to leave for Scotland. Unfortunately for the project, our database server died right before it was suppose to be shipped to us which delayed our training. However, canceling training provided more time for packing :)

We left for the airport a bit after 5pm which would have allowed plenty of time if the plane had been on time. As it was, our plane was delayed about 1 1/2 hrs so we spent a fair amount of time waiting. While waiting, Calvin found another boy to play with. At one point they seemed to be competing with who could jump up and down exclaiming, “I’m so excited! I’m so excited!” There was also some shrieking involved which we tried to suppress, not always successfully.

Once we actually took off the flight was pretty standard. We stayed awake till supper was served and then dozed most of the rest of the trip. Calvin slept pretty well. Once we got down on the ground we had to wait quite a while for another plane at our assigned gate to finally leave. Then, once we were at the gate, we had to wait some more for someone to actually move the jetway to the plane so we could get off. The pilot claims he had to open a window and gesticulate wildly before anyone bothered to help.

Once we got off the plane we had less than an hour to make it through immigration and try to catch our next flight which was due to leave in less than an hour (we would have missed it completely if Jaeger had chosen the original connection BA offered when he first booked the tickets). Because of the short connection we were fast tracked through immigration, though not security. While UK security does not require taking off shoes it turns out that my shoes have metal on them. Oddly enough the metal detector didn’t go off when I went to Detroit. At some point during the process we also misplaced Calvin’s fleece.

We speed walked (Calvin ran) to our gate and got there 7 minutes before departure time only to discover that flight had also been delayed. So, we got to board in a relatively leisurely fashion. We landed in Edinburgh and procured a taxi to take us to the hotel.

Jaeger booked a room with a queen bed and a fold out twin bed right next to it. The room isn’t large but is adequate (it probably is extravagantly large for a European hotel).

After we got settled in we walked a mile to a local vegetarian restaurant called Bindi. Both Jaeger and I got the main thali plate and two appetizers: samosas and chaat. Calvin ended up eating rice, roti, and most of a samosa. One of the curries was particularly interesting as it contained kidney beans and corn. It reminded me of a combo between a regular curry and chilli. Jaeger liked it more than me. I liked the dal soup better.

Calvin fell asleep toward the end of the meal so Jaeger and I took turns carrying him back to the hotel. I fell asleep almost immediately after we got back.

For a parallel account of our first day in Scotland, see On Holiday.

Jaeger’s Pictures from May 14 and May 15.