Better Off EDINBURGH

Whiskey and terriers. Welcome to Scotland.

“Oh, it's good Scottish weather, madam. The rain is falling straight down. Well, slightly to the side like.” - William Wallace, Braveheart.

FOR FREED-hey, wait a second.

On my first night in Scotland, I watched Braveheart – for the first time – with my hostel-mates. Appropriate? Absolutely. So is the above quote, with regards to the weather once I got here. I had almost completely 50/50 between beautiful sun and sogginess-inducing rain. Not that there’s anything terribly wrong with that, you know? I just had to make sure I carried my raincoat at all times, no matter how nice it may have looked when I left the hostel.

This hostel, by the way, is really cool. Bus Station Backpackers’ Hostel, it’s called. It has the distinct feel of “a dude’s house that he happens to let travelers stay in for money”. The walls are covered in art and artifacts, each accompanied by a little typed label telling where they’re from and what their stories are. The common room features an enormous HDTV connected to (a) cable, and (b) a public PC with lots of DVD-ripped movies on it. Noice! Plus there’s free breakfast (with fresh bread-machine bread every day). Get this: when I arrived, I told the owner, Steve, that I had done some WWOOFing earlier. A couple hours later he came into my room and said “Hey…would you be interested in doing an afternoon of WWOOFing while you’re here?” Turns out he had commitments the next day and his regular employee was completely out of contact. Sooo…the next day from 9-12 and 5-7 I hung around the hostel, did a load of laundry, and welcomed two new tenants. In exchange, I got my three days of accommodation for free! Wow!

However, this had a dangerous side-effect. I thought to myself, “Well, I saved money on the hostel. Now I can spend more for fun!” Ohhhh goodness, the floodgates opened.

Check out my first (probably only) big souvenir:

Expensive sharp things.

Well, really it’s two things, but I consider it a set, I suppose. The small one is a sgian dubh (gaelic for “black knife”), and it’s part of traditional highland dress, visibly tucked into the sock below the kilt. That’s a roe deer antler. The larger one was described by the seller as a sgian knorkle (Google turns up nothing, so I think it may be bastardized), also known as a sgian achlais (which Google and Wikipedia both recognize, so I'll settle on that one). In any case, it’s a smallish dirk (Scots for “dagger”) that was worn in the armpit area so that if a man lost his sword in a battle, he could reach in behind his shield and wield it until he could kill someone with a sword he could take. That one is antler from a red deer. They’re both handmade by a local weaponsmith from local materials – he forges the steel (and you can TELL it's hand-forged), he carves the Scottish deer antlers, he tans the Scottish deerskin leather.

Actually, that brings me to the first “story” I have from Scotland. In Edinburgh, the main drag is a street known as the Royal Mile, along which are countless pubs, churches, museums, and shops. Of the shops, a solid 70% of them are cheesy touristy stores with names like Pride Of Scotland or Thistle Do Nicely. Now, I’ve been wanting a sgian dubh to complement my kilt for some time now, and I figured Scotland would be the place to get it, natch. But as I walked up and down the Royal Mile on my first evening in Edinburgh, all I saw in the way of sgian dubh were (a) cheap plastic-handled or (b) expensive but still mass-produced, neither of which appealed to me. So when I passed a store whose display showed a bunch of stag-handled sgian dubh and dirks with a sign next to them saying “local weaponsmith”, I had to go in and check them out. Surprisingly, the sgian dubhs were roughly the same price as the plastic-handled ones I’d seen – lucky me! I got to talking with the store owner, Katherine, who was extremely friendly. She told me that the weaponsmith, John, had designed some swords and daggers that had been made on a large scale and become extremely popular in tourist shops all over Scotland. But since she’s a family friend of his, her store is the only one that carries the stuff he makes by hand himself.

John the weaponsmith introducing me to Scottish culture.

As if on cue, the dude actually walked into the shop while I was examining the daggers. He was carrying a halberd and a lance, both antiques that had been dug up and restored by him. I happily stood and listened/watched while John eagerly explained to Katherine that is an anachronistic but still legally present law on in Scotland saying that shopkeepers are entitled to have a halberd so that they may defend from robbers. I chatted at great length with him about his weapons, he showed me how the dirks (as well as the halberd, an axe, and some of his swords) would have been used in highland combat. Very cool dude. His enthusiasm was so infectious that instead of just buying the sgian dubh I’d come in for, I splurged on the (significantly more expensive) dirk as well because it just felt so damn good in my hand. Plus, I was thinking of my old roommate Drew and how he carried a pocketknife and how convenient it seemed. I don’t know how feasible it is for me to carry what is essentially a parallel universe bowie knife, but we’ll see.

And then it rained.

While in Edinburgh, I also visited several museums, and while they were all enjoyable enough, none were really awesome and comment-worthy. I think if I hadn’t been to so many damn museums lately the Scottish National Gallery would have been fascinating; it’s all about the history and pre-history of Scotland with artifacts-a-plenty, but I just wasn’t into it. Burned out, maybe.

Mary King's Close. Not my picture.

Have you heard of Mary King’s Close? Apparently Edinburgh’s topography was once much hillier than it is today, but at some point in the late 1800s it was decided to build new buildings on top of existing ones and raise the ground level accordingly. So basically beneath the streets of Edinburgh there are a number of closes – little shop- and house-lined alleys – that haven’t seen the sun for years. Mary King’s Close is the most well-preserved (many others have simply been filled up with rubble for stability), and they run historically-themed tours through it. Pretty damn cool. Sadly it’s located under a government building, so we weren’t allowed to take photos.

Speaking of photos, my $12 flea-market-found film camera finally gave up the ghost. I wish it had held on at least until I made it to my second WWOOF farm. :( New birthday list:

- film camera that works

Edinburgh!

Edinburgh is actually a really cool place. It’s got awesome historical architecture, it’s a bustling city, and somehow all the tourist-geared stores aren’t as annoying as they were in Killarney. It manages to be busy without being overwhelming, and most of the city can be walked with no trouble at all. A nice change of pace after sprawling London. Actually, Edinburgh reminds me a lot of Ann Arbor (on account of its many independent and quirky shops, which you find if you dig a bit deeper than the tourist stores), simply with more history, more museums, and more Scots.

It was also pretty cool to walk around the city and remember having been there with my family when I was 14 years old. I would be walking around and not feel anything, then I would turn a corner and suddenly I would have a burst of memories about walking up this particular hill or going into that particular kiltmaker’s shop.

Arthur's Seat.

This morning before I left Edinburgh I decided to climb Arthur’s Seat, the dormant volcanic mountain that lies just on the outskirts of the city. It’s supposed to be a relatively quick climb, so I figured I could do it then come back for a noonish bus to Glasgow. Well, I made it about halfway up when I started to regret having brought a coat that I didn’t need, a shopping bag containing my new knives (I wanted to say goodbye and thanks to Katherine and ask her a couple of questions), and no water. The view was nice enough, so I snapped a picture and headed back down. Fine by me!


View of Edinburgh from...uh, somewhere on Arthur's Seat.

Now I’m in Glasgow. Woo?