Day Trip to Edinburgh

We awoke at 5am to start getting ready to go on our day trip to Edinburgh. We had tea, juice, and museli with milk for a quick breakfast before finishing packing up and heading down to the tube station once again. The weather in London was threatening to rain again so we were glad to be on our way.

By this point in our trip Kat and I were speaking in English accents to each other all the time. I even found my self using an affected English accent when I talked to locals, especially when asking questions. Now since we were headed to Scotland we started working on our Scottish accents. We were really excited to get there so we ran and skipped along the way.

We were still getting used to traffic staying on the left, you have to look right first when crossing the street, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which side of the sidewalk to stay on. We typically stay to the right in the US, but that doesn't always work here. Neither do they consistently stay to the left. We've tried both, in many situations, but have yet to find a pattern. It seems people here just like to play chicken and head directly at you hoping you'll move around them. In big crowds there seems to be 3 distinct currents, the edges moving in one direction and the center in the reverse. Staircases seem to follow the stay to the left rule, but not always. Tube station turn-stiles are often stay on the left, but sometimes it's reversed. Escalators to and from lower platforms are most of the time stay to the left, but we've seen them right-handed as well. The inconsistencies are driving me crazy!

While on the tube to King's Cross station decided to look for platform 9 and 3/4 that Harry Potter made famous if we had the time. Got to the train station with about half an hour to spare. I went up to the self-serve ticket booth and plugged in my confirmation number, but it wouldn't spit them out. I had apparently written down the wrong number in my travel book. Later I learned that "3B" had simply become "B" in my handwriting. No problem though, there wasn't a line at the ticket counter and the attendant was able to print off our round-trip tickets when I handed him the card I bought them with.

We still had some time and they hadn't even listed what platform our train would be on so we went in search of 9 and 3/4. Kings Cross didn't look like the station in Harry Potter, it was too modern, but we followed the signs anyway. The signs pointed us outside and then through a set of tube station turn-stiles back underground, but we followed them dutifully. Just as we passed by a group of socializing train station employees one of them called out to us "Hey, where are you going?". Apparently we had walked into a closed off or restricted section. We both laughed because we were a bit embarrassed to say where we were headed, but before I could explain she said, "Are you looking for the Harry Potter? It's across the street to the left". Relieved, we thanked her and headed back the way we came.

Apparently, Harry Potter scenes were filmed in St. Pancras (or as I call it Saint Pancreas) across the street from King's Cross. As we approached the building I could tell it was more like it, the exterior was all red brick and Victorian. We got inside the more modern lobby area of the building and saw that 9 3/4 was a ways away yet. I got worried about the time so we made plans to come back here when we had more of it. In fact our trip to Paris next week would be leaving from St. Pancras, so we decided to do it then.

We got back to King's Cross and saw that our train was boarding on platform 4. We ran to our coach, coach B was apparently the "Quiet" coach, with rules against cellphones, loud electronics, and loud talking. We found our seats and then got excited about our trip together, quietly.

This was Kat's first train trip. We had a good time reading, taking turns playing on the DS, planning our activities for the day, and looking through brochures about Stonehenge at sunrise tours for another day. We were glad we didn't have any luggage with us because we noticed someone's getting crushed in the rack beside us. I got hungry and went in search of the buffet car in coach H. Along the way I got stuck behind the snack cart, which didn't offer the hot food I was after. I was stuck along with a very angry and impatient man for awhile. He pushed past eventually while I waited. The cart jockey didn't seem to care either way.

When I got back to my seat, with an instant coffee, tubes of milk, and a hot ham & cheese panini in hand, I could see that it was raining outside. The country-side is very green and the weather reminds me a lot of Oregon. Along the way we kept our eyes open for a glimpse of Hadrian's wall near Newcastle upon Tyne, but we didn't spot it.

We arrived in Edinburgh on time at 11:32am. Even from the station we could tell that it was a beautiful city, with picturesque old stone buildings all crowded together. The weather was much better here, it was quite warm in fact and we were wearing jeans. The crowds were thick and we struggled past them up to the main street. The first thing on our itinerary was to climb the Scott monument, which was conveniently close to Waverly station. We spotted it and headed that way. It was £3 each for us to climb the narrow spiraling stairs to the top. Things went well until we reached the center spire. There were no attendants making sure there weren't log jams of people getting stuck on the stairs. We had to back up several times to let groups come down, or squeeze past us. Kat made it to the very top, but could not get out of the stairs because it was packed and no one was coming down. I didn't quite make it. We turned around, sending people back and telling them to wait for others to come down before going up. We hurried back to the bottom shouting "Coming down!" the whole time and then set about finding something to eat.

My guide book had suggested "The Old Bell" pub for lunch, but we needed a better map to find the street it was on. We pushed through the festival crowds to the visitor information center and Kat got someone to hand her a map. We located Causewayside street and mapped out a path there. It appeared that we would end up near Black Lion games as well, which was a game store Kat had found online ahead of time. Off we went along the cobblestone medieval streets, oohing and aahing along the way at the amazing buildings.

It took us awhile, but we eventually found the Old Bell. We were free of the festival crowds down here so we didn't have any trouble getting a seat. When I asked for a Rob Roy the bartender said "No". I had to explain it to her, and what I got was close, but not a Rob Roy. Oh well. We ordered steak, Guinness and mushroom pie, which was good and filling. I was tempted by the local tourist favorite, haggis with neeps and tatties, but passed on it.

After lunch we headed back the way we came and kept an eye out for Black Lion games. We had walked past it once before without realizing it. This time we located the unobtrusive sign and door. Inside was a crammed but cozy gamers haven, pretty much like every other game store I've been to, except it was Scottish! The folks were friendly and inclusive, as gamers tend to be, and we bought some small things to take home: two sets of carcassone expansion tiles, a booster pack of Munchkin cards, and a set of tiny blue D&D dice for me. We asked about any games we should be sure to get while here and the guy turned us on to Snow Tails, a dog sled racing game, and said it was locally designed. The box was big and it was slightly out of our range however so we passed on it.

We headed back toward the city center and thought we'd try to climb Arthur's Seat to get a better look at the city. When we found the base of the hill however I was concerned about how long it would take us to get to the top and back, given that it was already almost 2pm and we had to leave again at 7pm. With a disappointed sigh we turned and went in search of Holyrood Palace.

The Queen's palace is at the lower end of the Royal Mile walk. We started there and walked up the mile toward the castle. Along the way we stopped inside the Scottish Parliament building and looked at a photography exhibit with graphic but powerful images. We stopped for some ice cream after that to cleanse our palates. The Royal Mile was the center of the Fringe Festival and was packed with people. We pushed our way through, stopping briefly at another game store, Games Workshop, and then finally reached Edinburgh Castle. We grabbed our tickets and then took a self-guided tour.

The castle was neat. We went immediately through the Scottish Crown Jewels exhibit. Dioramas with creepy looking life-sized mannequins told the story of the infant Queen Mary and the crown jewels. Outside of the vault room they had replicas of the crown jewels in bronze for people to touch, I think mostly for the blind, but it was still fun to poke them. Inside was a small chamber with the jewels on display. We gaped at them for a few minutes and then moved on. Some of the tourists blatantly ignored the "no cameras" rule and took flash pictures. I think they didn't speak the language.

Next we descended into the old prisons below the jewels, where prisoners of war were kept up until the 1800s. This was a very effective exhibit, with shadow puppets cast on the walls and snippets of conversations between prisoners playing on hidden speakers as you moved through the rooms. I liked it much better than the creepy mannequins upstairs. They had a couple preserved wooden doors from the original prisons on display where you could make out names, dates, and ships carved and drawn into the wood. That was really moving.

Next we popped over to the more modern military prisons, used in the mid-1800s and on. These looked almost livable, with early indoor plumbing fixtures. In fact, they were more spacious than the internet hole at the Lord Jim. They also reminded me of the hostel I stayed at in Prague, which was a prison that had been converted.

We stopped by the great hall before leaving. Kat recognized the large painting of Napoleon on the wall that she had used as an example to teach Western civilization. After that we were done and found our way down the hill toward New Town. Are legs and feet were very tired, it was about 5pm and we needed to find some food before making our way back to the station. We were looking for a light dinner and maybe some wine. We wandered around New Town, down pedestrian malls and stopped to look at artwork. We've been wanting to add to our collection from the places we visit. We didn't find anything we had to have though.

Our meanderings led us to Cafe Andaluz, a Tapas restaurant which fit our needs just right. Kat even got to practice her Spanish while ordering. We shared some small plates of excellent food. The wasabi and ginger beef was very spicy. We each had a generous glass of wine. The price was even reasonable because we had arrived early.

We still had time before our train left so we decided to walk up Calton Hill for a picture opportunity. Along the way we stopped in a tourist shop and Kat tried on some cute pleated plaid skirts, but they were way too short. We climbed to the top of Calton Hill and took a few shots of the city. It really is a beautiful place.

We arrived at Waverly station with some time to spare and bought a couple pastries. Mine was filled with cheese, tomato, and basil. Kat's had cheese and onion. She was inspired by one of her books that mentioned eating meat pies like these. We were on the "quiet" coach again for our trip home. The ride would take about 5 hours and we'd get back around midnight. We were both very tired and wanted to get some sleep on the train. That would not be how it turned out, however.

Although it was good to be off our feet, we didn't get any rest. For the first 2 hours of the trip there was a mother with two kids on the quiet coach. The youngest was shout-talking the whole time and even started arguing with the oldest and cried at one point. We weren't the only ones shooting them dirty looks, so after I didn't think I could bear it any longer I walked over and politely asked if she could try to be quieter and that we had had a long day. The mom apologized and I returned to my seat. Now whenever the child shouted something we heard the mother issue a short "Shhh!" but that was about it. I handed a pair of earplugs to Kat and used some myself, but it didn't do enough to block it out. Kat was tired and very cranky.

After another hour of this I walked back over and offered to buy them a snack from the bar if they would move to another coach. The woman thanked me for being polite but then began to tell me that there was nothing she could do, and then trying to explain to me that the quiet coach only meant cellphone users and not talking, and she would be getting off at the next stop. I didn't argue with her about her interpretation of "quiet", but I backed off and went back to my seat and waited for the next stop. Thankfully she got off.

I put on my sleeping mask and tried to sleep the rest of the way. Another woman across from us used her cellphone twice and her husband had some sort of foot rot. He had taken off his shoes and socks, propped his feet up, and had commenced to alternately scratch them for the next few stops. I would have hated to have the seat
across from him next. A little later a couple got on with a stroller with a toddler in it. I was preparing for the worst, but the child stayed asleep the whole time.

At 12:05 we finally rolled into King's Cross and got off the train. We stumbled back to the tube and rode in exhausted silence back to Earl's Court. We were both too tired for anything else when we got home so we went right to bed.