Reading this week:

• Hunting Pirate Heaven by Kevin Rushby

Today we would be absolutely mired in Scottish history. The first place we were going was the top destination (get it) in the city: Edinburgh Castle! We arrived not too long after the place opened, showed our tickets and went in. Audio guide in hand, we admired the views and then walked up to the very tippy-top.

I think the coolest bit of Edinburgh Castle is St. Margaret’s Chapel because it is the oldest part. I had remembered it from my previous visits in Middle School, and you know what it was about the same. I was surprised though at how small Edinburgh Castle was; in my memories of the place I seem to have imported various bits of Stirling Castle as well. What surprised my super amazing wife was how not particularly dark and dungeon-like it was, as one might imagine a castle to be based on the movies (this was her first real-life castle). However eventually we went into the Prisons of War exhibit they had going on and that satisfied some of the dungeon itch. Edinburgh Castle housed various prisoners of war in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, including Americans captured either during the War of Independence or the War of 1812. One particularly cool thing they had was graffiti carved into the door depicting an early version of the Stars and Stripes. I think I saluted it.

But no in general the castle seemed like a pretty nice place to live. We had lunch consisting of a cheese plate in the tea room, where my super amazing wife got tea but I got Edinburgh Castle whiskey (this being Sunday, they had to wait 15 minutes until 12:30 to serve it to me), before exploring the royal residence. Besides hosting the very impressive Scottish crown jewels (no pictures allowed), you can also see the room where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI (well, you could look at that room around a corner with the help of some mirrors, but it’s not like either Mary or James were there anymore anyway). After paying our respects to Scottish history and poking around some more we departed the castle for the rest of our day in Edinburgh.

From there we took a circuitous route, hiking out to Ginger Twist Studio (where my super amazing wife got a skein of yarn and a book on walking through Scotland knitting socks) and then back to downtown to visit the National Museum of Scotland. That place is BIG. We had not allotted ourselves much time to see the place so we had to narrow our scope, and my super amazing wife decided to focus us on the Scottish history portion. On the way over there though we spotted Dolly the Sheep, who they have on this spinning dais thing to give everyone a good look at ‘er.

Anyways they have many many artifacts from Scottish history, including very ancient history, and it is all really extremely neat. The craftsmanship on some of the ancient jewelry and objects they have found is really astounding. They also have more grisly bits of history. Though the room that made both our eyes light up was on the industrial revolution, because it was a room that housed not only several looms but also several large early steam engines and like, man, they designed a room for us. As we wandered the rest of the museum the particular sorts of items I was on a lookout for was anything related to missionary societies in Africa or African explorations, and in this I was rewarded. I spotted not only various artifacts from Dr. John Kirk but also the gold medal awarded to Joseph Thomson (who I thought was the brother of John Boden Thomson, but in writing this entry I now realize the LMS missionary is not James Baird Thomson, author of Joseph Thomson’s biography), both very cool things to see in person. I was contemplating how I could get us to the Joseph Thomson Heritage Center on this trip but it just didn’t work out logistically, unfortunately.

Anyway if you are at the museum do make sure you go and visit the rooftop terrace, which gives a great view of the castle and of downtown Edinburgh. We closed the place down on this visit and were eventually shuffled out the door, though not without the necessary diversion to the gift shop. In the evening we contemplated various tweed purchases and had a lovely dinner featuring “haggis bon bons” as an appetizer, really a very astoundingly Scottish evening. In that vein a quick stop to memorialize Sir Walter Scott and see what he was up to rounded out a very very nice day in Edinburgh.