And Then I Walked Some More

A few minutes after opening the curtains in my bedroom yesterday, this little guy showed up and seemed to be expecting something from me.  I was tempted to feed him, but since he looked ready to come on in and I didn't want a squirrel running wild in the apartment, I just talked to him and took his picture instead.  In spite of the many compliments I paid him, I imagine he found my lack of cooperation extremely irritating.

 

I started the day by visiting a tourist attraction called The Real Mary King's Close, which was a little corny, but also quite interesting as it is a preserved close that is now beneath the "new" Royal Exchange buildings built in the 1700s.  The close was largely abandoned by then because it was thought to be haunted by ghosts from the many people who died of the plague there in the 1600s.  No photos were allowed, unfortunately, but it was interesting (and sobering) to once again be reminded of the difficult and often unpleasant living conditions of so many people centuries ago. 

After that tour (which only lasted about 50 min.), I decided to walk over to New Town since it was another lovely day.  This green space dividing Old Town from New Town is now the Princes Street Garden, but used to be the river into which all the raw sewage from Old Town would drain.  I much prefer it as a park, as I'm sure all the people lying on it do as well.

 

After the walk into New Town, which I visited for about 5 minutes before getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of tourists crowding the sidewalks, I came back to the apartment and took a nap.  While part of me felt a little guilty for "wasting" such a lovely day, most of me felt great.  I've been keeping a pretty intense pace since I first stepped off the plane in Copenhagen (and really for the two months prior) and it's starting to catch up with me.  More headaches, more fatigue, more spacing out.

A shot of Victoria Street, which is right around the corner from my apartment and the way I walk every day to get to High Street.

Refreshed by my nap, I returned to Greyfriars Kirk to meet with the minister there.  I arrived a few minutes early, so took another shot of the graveyard and the surrounding structures (I read yesterday that the cemetery actually houses over 100,000 bodies--whatever the actual number, it's a lot). 

 

Again for the Harry Potter fans, here's a shot of George Heriot's School, which may or may not have been the inspiration for Hogwarts but is where J.K. Rowling's kids go to school these days. 

The reason I was meeting with the minister is that he used to pastor a church up in the Perth area (where I'm headed next), which is where his wife Kate's family is from.  Her grandfather conducted his own research on the origins of Macbeth and wrote a whole work about it.  Said grandfather was also the laird and happened to live in the main house there at Dunsinane (I am blanking on the name--see? need more naps).  The minister, Dr. Richard Frazer (who has his own blog here:  http://www.richardfrazer.wordpress.com/), had kindly photocopied the Macbeth research for me and then spent nearly an hour telling me some of the local Macbeth-related sites I should visit and a little of their lore, and then drew me a map to detail where they were located.

 

He then proceeded to invite me to stay at his and his wife's cottage, which is right at the foot of Dunsinane Hill and currently unoccupied.  I was somewhat floored (in a good way) by this--how many of us would offer our homes to someone we'd only just met?  Sadly, when I went back to my apartment and checked with the B&B I have a reservation with in that area, they said it was too late to cancel as it would be nearly impossible for them to re-book it at this late date.  I completely understand and, in all honesty, won't be sorry to stay in a place where they make me breakfast every morning, but I do plan to still visit the cottage a morning/afternoon or two and use it as a base to do some writing and reading.  This is too serendipitous and wonderful of an offer not to accept, at least in part.

 

While the banging below blessedly stopped after that first night, there's been banging above for the last several days from workers renovating the apartment above me.  Fortunately, it's only during work hours and I'm gone most of the day, but it has been waking me up every morning a tad earlier than I would have liked to get up.  Putting my sluggishness aside this morning, I decided to finally tackle the climb to Arthur's Seat.  The walk just to get to the base of it was a good 25 minutes from my apartment, but I was still feeling pretty good when I got there.  I knew there were a couple ways to get to the top, but not having a map with me, I decided to just follow the path that I saw several people climbing at a distance.  You can't see them in this photo, but they were little colorful dots bobbing along the side of the hill.

 I started the climb on a path I later found out was called the "Radical Road" but should have been called "I'm-in-worse-shape-than-I-thought Road."  It was quite steep, but it did offer some great views along the way.

Here's one of Holyrood Palace, whose raised flag indicates the Queen is in residence.

And way off in the distance is Castle Rock (that's the area I walked from to get to the climb):

 

 

 Much to my dismay, after climbing for a steady half hour, the trail started to go back down.  Turns out I had missed the connecting path (there are no markers or signs anywhere) to the summit.  So, on I went down to the road (at least half of all that climbing wasted!) and followed the road around and around for another 20-30 minutes, until I finally reached the grassy and also super steep path to the summit. 

 

After an hour an a half of steady walking and climbing, looking at this next steep climb made me question whether I really needed to get to the very top.  But then I realized how stupid it would be to get this far and not go to the top, so after fueling myself with a square of dark chocolate I dug out of the bottom of my bag and a swig of water, I started up.

The last section got a little hairy as it's mostly a lot of craggy rock surface

But I persevered, and as I started up the final ascent, I came across this random group of people who were all singing.  I thought about shouting up a request for them to sing "The Eye of the Tiger" or hum the Chariots of Fire theme as I finished the climb, but I was too out of breath.

In spite of my exhaustion and my doubts, I made it to the very top.  That's me in the black capris and grey hoodie, hanging on so I don't blow off in the very strong wind blowing up there:

 

 
Going down was much easier, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because this time after my view from the top, I knew exactly which way to go.  Some pretty swans in the distance:

 
By the time I got back to the Royal Mile, I'd been walking and climbing for a full 2 1/2 hours, so when I saw a taxi, I hopped in and was spared another 20 minutes of walking in a 5 minute ride.  Quick shower, lunch, then a stop at the Scottish National Museum, which looked like this:

 
A friend had told me she used to go to a tea room in that museum years ago when she went to school here, but all I could find was a modern café.  My heart set on tea and scones with cream and jam (something I haven't indulged in for ages), I went back to my apartment to look up some other options.  The closest one was a mile away--at the opposite end of the Royal Mile from where I was (basically, where I was this morning for the hike).  But dreams of cream and scones now danced in my head, so I set out and walked the mile.  The place was charming, and a young man at the back exited just as I was looking for a seat.  All seemed well.  Until the waitress told me they were out of scones.  She tried to talk me into some cake, but since wheat tends to give me stomach aches and I was only willing to risk one for scones, I was not interested.  In fact, I think the expression on my face must have alarmed her (I was feeling quite desperate at that point), because she quickly added that I could probably go back up the road to another place called Mimi's and find scones there.  So off I went again.

(tea room where I didn't eat)

 
On my way back up the hill, I passed this, which used to be the old tollbooth to the city:



Just as I was beginning to despair that Mimi's was a myth, it appeared on my left, and I staggered in practically shouting, "For the love of God, give me some scones and cream!!"  but I managed to ask like a civilized person.  And it was delicious.

I'm doing laundry now and will head out shortly for some dinner.  It will be somewhere close, seeing as I've already walked/climbed a total of close to four hours today.  As scared as I am to drive, today has really made me look forward to having a car.