The Scottish circuit has been an arduous one.  Since we picked up our car (her name is Whinny) in London we have traveled nearly 2000 miles in her.  She has started complaining in the morning that she's tired and would like us to slow down.  While our bodies occasionally agree with her, we press on, intent on seeing as much of Scotland  as we possibly can.  I think we've done pretty well.  Don't get me wrong, one could easily spend several weeks or months here and not see everything, but we've made at least a decent dent.  

We started our tour in Edinburgh.  It must be noted that Edinburgh is pronounced 'Edin - buruah,' NOT 'Edin - burg.'  A lovely young Scottish man at the gate to the castle wouldn't allow us to enter until we had learned to say it correctly.  However you choose to say it, Edinburgh truly is a magical city.  Edinburgh castle towers over the city,  and the city center is rich with the history of 2000 years of inhabitants.  We spent one morning wandering around the old city reading the plaques on the walls telling of people who had lived or died in particular buildings or on street corners.  We saw the markers for where the city once ended, at a place called 'World's End,' and we even took a tour of the oldest part of the city, the underground.  Apparently during the Middle Ages in Edinburgh, the Crown sought to remake the city, and instead of tearing down the existing buildings, they just ripped the roofs off and built new buildings on top of them.  This basically put all of the old inhabitants of Edinburgh into the basements of the new and grander buildings built above.  It was a bit claustrophobic to tour the old houses, let alone imagine living in them.  Our tour guide (dressed as a plague cleaner...totally cheesy, but our only option) explained how the people lived in those houses.  They heated with fire, so the rooms were filled with smoke with no ventilation, there were no bathrooms, so the 'toilets' were in buckets, which were emptied out onto the alleyways at a certain time of day, everyday, and the best you could hope for to get rid of the smell would be rain.  Nearly impossible to imagine how badly that smelled.  I felt a little claustrophobic just thinking of it.  

After our tour of the chambers, we took in another attraction that was a 'must-do' in Scotland.  We went to a rugby game.  We saw Scotland vs. Italy at Murrayfield - which is Edinburgh's giant rugby stadium.  We walked in just as the opening cannons were firing, and it was all I could do to keep up with Steph as she charged into the stadium, intent on not missing a moment of the action.  It was quite exciting to watch, there were some great plays and some very bad plays (those are usually more fun to watch, in my opinion) and the game ended in Scottish victory.  Thank goodness.

Originally, when we were deciding when to come to Edinburgh, we didn't really plan for much, except to come in the summer when it is warm.  Not that it's all that warm anyway, as we have both been wearing ALL of the layers that we brought with us on the trip.  It's damn cold up here sometimes.  And, regardless of whether we planned for it or not, we arrived in Scotland in the heart of festival season, so everywhere we have been in the country we have run into a festival.  The biggest of which is the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.  At first when we arrived we didn't understand what it was, tried to find more information which made us more confused, and did not make it our top priority to figure out.  (Now that I know, basically for the month of August, the entire city turns into a festival venue, and each pub has a different act performing at it each night)  In the end, after the rugby game we decided to try to catch a show, chose one of the (thousands of) flyers that we had been offered while walking around the city, and set out to see a delightful all-female comedy trio.  Still not understanding how the festival worked, we showed up right on time, but with no tickets.  By the time we figured out where the box office was, we were late, and were not allowed in.  Desperate to at least see something, I bought us tickets to a show that the lovely young woman at the box office recommended.  She said the show was funny and that she had enjoyed it.  Hmmm.  I wish I could find that young woman again and ask which part of the show she had enjoyed.  It basically consisted of three Australian men screaming and running around on a cardboard set of a mock trailer park that had been infested with zombats.  Yes, you read that right, zombats.  A cross between zombies and wombats.  Maybe the highlight was when one of the men dressed in a full-size 'zombat king' costume and tried to eat one of the other actors.  A few people got up and left in the middle of the performance, but I was pushed to stay by the promise of the young woman who had enjoyed the play.  And maybe by the fact that we were seated directly in the middle of a row.  The latter was definitely the deciding factor.

The next day we left Edinburgh, stopped for the day in a small town to watch an afternoon of the 'Highland Games'.  The Highland Games are basically a track and field competition, with a more interesting round of 'field' events.  In addition to the usual shot-put, there is also the hammer throw, tug of war (this is a very serious competition.  Teams of 8 men each complete with uniforms and special equipment to avoid rope-burn), and the most exciting, the log toss.  A huge 150 pound log has to be tossed by the competitors end over end and land at exactly 12 o'clock.  The crowd gets quite into it, and it's pretty fun/interesting to watch very large men in kilts running across a field carrying a log.  I tried to figure out how exactly they practice for this event.  Do they have a log at home that they keep in the shed?  Has anyone ever accidentally thrown one into the house?  One man dominated the games, and I imagine he looks forward to games season all year long.  

After spending the night near the games (wild camping adventure previously explained) and doing a thorough tour of Stirling Castle, (Steph was disappointed at the lack of information on Robert the Bruce) we headed on towards St. Andrews.  We stopped along the way to try out the 'best fish and chips in the UK', and see a harbor fishing village.  Then, after arriving in St. Andrews and doing a quick tour of the castle and cathedral, which used to be the home of the Christian faith in Scotland, we decided that we had to do a quick round of golf.  When in St. Andrews, THE city where golf was invented you simply have to play a round of golf.  The trouble is, playing golf at St. Andrews requires both a lot of money and at least a basic knowledge of how to play the sport.  I imagined myself slicing my way through the course, hitting nearby people and cars, or sending my ball directly into the ocean.  Then, when I thought about hitting Prince William in the head with a misdirected golf ball (St. Andrews was where he met Kate), I decided that real golf was out for me.  Luckily, we weren't the only skill-less golfers to want to try their hand at the course.  We were able to putt our way through the 'Ladies Putting Greens', a 9-hole mini golf course, which also happens to be where the pros practice.  I have to say, I think I have a few more golfing skills than I had originally thought and ending up pulling out quite a few good putts.  AND I beat Steph.  She doesn't win at everything.  Yay.  

After leaving St. Andrews, we made our way around the country, stopping at castles and abbeys and stone circles created thousands of years ago to predict the moon cycles.  We drove down the coast of Loch Ness keeping a carefully eye on the water, hoping the Nessie would make an appearance.  We drove out to the Isle of Skye and had a delightful seafood dinner, and attempted a climb of Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain.  But, for this we showed up rather late, and with afternoon storms threatening to roll in, we chose a slightly shorter and lower trail.  When we reached the top of the trail, we both considered continuing on with an attempt to reach the summit, which was completely clear and sunny at the time. However, the idea of getting to the top and being caught in a storm with freezing temperatures and no food was a bit too scary for me, and I convinced Steph that we didn't need to keep going.  Within 45 minutes, as we made our descent, a dark cloud rolled in and covered the mountain.  Ben Nevis (possibly derived from the Gaelic words for 'Terrible Mountain') is not going to fool me.  Not today.

That was yesterday.  I'm now happily perched in a cafe while Steph attends the lectures at the Bruce Festival.  Hours and hours of lectures about the family tree.  Fun if you're a Bruce, maybe not so fun if you're a Cochran.  In fact, after learning a little bit about my clan, I'm not positive I would want to hear about my entire history.  Steph comes from a very noble 'save Scotland from the English' family, while I come from the MacDonald clan, mostly known in the Western part of Scotland as 'we're out for ourselves and we will raid your pesky village at least once a year' sort of family.  Not quite as exciting to hear about.  

I have already made this post WAY too long, and it's about time to think about attending the fun part of the festival, joisting competitions and beer gardens, not complete without cooked turkey leg in hand.  I'm quite glad I've gotten to see as much of the beautiful country as I have, and hope to someday come back and explore it further.  Until then, I'll have to be happy with my slightly harried surface dip into Scotland and its rich history.  I've learned a lot in the ten days though, and if anyone has any questions about the Kings and Queens of Scotland over the least several centuries, I'd be happy to fill you in.  Exciting stuff full of great men and women and not-so-great men and women.  My favorite is probably Mary Queen of Scot's French mother, who instead of abandoning Scotland when her husband, James V died and returning to France, she chose to stay, and laid the ground work for her grandson, James VI to unite it.  Strong lady.  

I hope that Steph is learning that kind of stuff about her family right now.  Time for me to go get a turkey leg.

-EC

Holy crap it's hard to keep up on the entries when you're camping.  Your life is spent in between internet hotspots, the occasional technically advanced pub, tourist information points, and random Starbucks and McDonald's locations.  Like right now, for instance, we are at a pub in Aberdeen, Scotland, and I have realized that the gaming consoles (the ones that sit on the bar that people can play photo-hunt on for hours) actually emit a wifi signal.  Which means wherever we can find photo-hunt, we can email.  Lovely...and goes well with a pint.

The last time I checked in was on a bus on our way to Copenhagen.  Copenhagen was pretty rad, but really expensive.  Thank goodness for having an amazing couchsurfing host in the city, because otherwise we would have completely blown our budget.  There are a few great things to see and do in Copenhagen, one of which is the Tivoli.  The Tivoli is a theme park that is right in the middle of the city and inspired the layout of the Disney Theme parks.  We just so happened to show up for the Tivoli's anniversary, so were treated to a fireworks display every night.  I tried to pretend that it was a celebration of our arrival in Denmark.  Wishful thinking.  Another famous thing to see in Copenhagen is the "little mermaid", which is underwhelming at best.  A life-size statue of a mermaid, sitting on a rock and angstily looking toward the sea, with tourists hanging all over her.  We sat on the rocks near her for thirty minutes waiting for a moment that we could take an unobstructed photo, and it never came.  So we took a photo of the statue covered in tourists instead.  I think that might have actually been more fitting.  Other than riding rollercoasters and seeing forlorn mermaids, we spent our time in Copenhagen riding bikes, seeing the giant city buildings, and trying to keep as many kroners in our pockets as possible.  For the most part, we did pretty well.

After Denmark, we hopped on a plane to London, picked up a rental car, spent a lovely day with Steph's brother, Tony, in the city and then took off for Scotland.  Scotland is one of the places that both of us were really looking forward to.  We both feel an attachment to the country due to distant Scottish lineage.  Steph's is at least a little more easily traced than mine, since she claims Robert the Bruce as her distant ancestor.  This means we see her family name everywhere.  There are Bruce tartans, Bruce pins, Bruce ties, Bruce kilts, Bruce...everything. There is even...pause for dramatic effect here...a Bruce Festival next weekend.  An ENTIRE festival centered around the family lineage.  We have officially changed our travel plans to include the festival, and Steph will be contacting the the festival organizers to see if she gets a special Bruce discount.  

Other than the family finding, we have been seriously hitting as many of the sites as we possibly can.  We have a castle pass, and now have been to nine castles, and have plans to see at least three or four more.  We have seen giant imposing castles on cliffs, tiny castles that look more like summer homes, and castles in ruins.  We have also seen our fair share of palaces.  But perhaps the most interesting part of our trip in Scotland so far has been the lodging.  And by lodging, I mean camping.

Yes, we have been camping.  Camping.  Like, in a tent, in sleeping bags.  I have to say, I have never been a big camper, and I think it showed in my preparedness.  Steph actually brought along a water heater for coffee in the morning.  Which is amazing...if you have cups.  So after the first morning of using an old coffee cup we found in the back of the car, we went and bought coffee cups.  Which was super helpful, and we thought we were all set, until we realized we didn't have spoons.  Stirring milk in with your finger can be very hot.  Luckily my fingers are still pretty immune to burns after my years of cooking.  I'm not sure I can tell you what we used for the cereal.  A day later we collected spoons.  Now we're pretty set (some mornings are better than others).  One night, we even tried 'wild camping'.  

Wild camping is an entirely different animal.  Due to the Scottish 'right to roam' act, you can essentially camp anywhere you want, as long as you inform the owner of the land first, pitch late, leave early, and don't leave a trace of evidence that you were there.  It can save a lot of money, but comes with its own drawbacks.  Early on in the day that we had decided to try wild camping, we went and scoped out a spot for it.  It was a national park, secluded, had parking and a beautiful lake.  Seemed like the perfect set-up.  What could go wrong with that?  Let me tell you.  A) the name of the park was Devilla.  Chop off those last two letters and your imagination starts going crazy.  B) The park had a reputation in the middle ages of having witches. C) there was a grave site with children that died of the plague.  D) with those facts in mind, picture our chosen site in the middle of the woods, next to a lake (bog), a mile off the road.  Eeh.  After having a drink at a pub, Steph and I set out to pitch our tent in the scary forest.  When we pulled up to the campsite to gather our things and head off to our scary site, in my head I was thinking, "this is terrifying.  I don't know if I can do this.  But Steph seems fine, not scared at all....I'm such a chicken.  This is fine."  Then thankfully at the last minute she turned to me and said, "This makes me a little nervous."  THANK GOODNESS.  We both agreed that it was a little too much for our first wild camping adventure, quickly found another way less scary spot up the road, pitched a tent and slept...okay.  She slept well.  I felt like I had to stand guard and every noise the wind made in the trees was cause for alarm.  Needless to say, I slept a bit poorly.  But was still proud of us for giving the wild camping a try.  I'll let you know how the next adventure goes.

And that's where we are in our trip.  We are about halfway up the Eastern coast of Scotland, and are off to Inverness tomorrow to check out some scotch distilleries.  Maybe we can try wild camping on the front lawn of Glenfiddich or Dewars.  A little less scary, I'd say...and maybe coming with some other benefits?


-EC