Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 9: Representing Americans

[Robert & Laura]

Mon, Apr 16, 2012

Last night we headed out to Grassmarket Street, which is called that because it's where people used to buy and sell cattle. After careful consideration (consisting of Robert saying, "Well, that place sounds weird!") we ended up having dinner at "The Mussel and Steak Bar." Not only do they serve steaks, but ALSO mussels! 

Laura was enchanted by their TV channel. It alternated between showing a live feed from the kitchen (we knew it was live because we could peep through the door) and shows demonstrating how they prepared their dishes. Although it was a bit disconcerting when watching the live feed and noticing that nobody was tending to the stove. The "Hey! That's our dinner burning!" channel gets a lot of viewer attention). 

This time, Robert had  "Haggis Wellington with Whisky Cream," which again wasn't quite up to Edna's standards (for one thing, they keep tossing greens all over the top of it--haggis is NOT a salad!). The whisky cream sauce was tasty, though.

Before we left Washington, we checked around and found a musical tour of Edinburgh (www.oortours.com), but it turns out that this is intended for groups and it cost 60 pounds whether there were two of us or ten of us, and since we intended to stay the two of us, that was a bit steep. 

But the chap who runs the tours, Graeme, said that he'd be playing at a pub on Sunday night, and if we popped round and mentioned his name, we could get 20% off. Before you could say, "Graeme's our new best friend!" we were there. 

He's a tall skinny guy, who wears his granny's tartan pajama bottoms, a yellow Tshirt, and a Scots tam o'shanter and plays guitar, five-string banjo, and harmonica. We were going to stay for long enough to drink a discount beer and leave, but when he played a medley  of "O Susanna" and "Mairi's Wedding" on the banjo, we stayed a bit longer. 

You know that scene in movies where they show a crowded pub and everybody is singing and dancing and having a rowdy good time? The scene that never, ever happens in American bars and which we thought was some pre-War relic? 

We are here to tell you that it still happens in Scottish bars. At least on Sundays where there's been a soccer ("rugby") semi-final match and the local favorites (the Hearts) have won and half the bar is so full of alcohol you could light their breath and the musician really knows how to play to this audience. 

It didn't take long before we were singing along, too, as Graeme sang "Whisky in the Jar" followed by "If I Had a Hammer" and "The Battle of New Orleans" (which everybody liked because British were getting shot). It was a rowdy crowd, but Graeme was energetic and played loudly and everybody sang along with the songs they knew, and when he played "Irish Rover," EVERYbody pounded the tables at the appropriate time ("And it's no, nay, never! BANG BANG BANG BANG!"). 

Various groups of young people (20-somethings) were dancing off in the corner, and occasionally, one of the soccer fans would holler something incomprehensible to which Graeme would reply, "Aye!" 

At one point, Robert's making his way to the toilet (everybody in Scotland and England call them "toilets"--no subtlety here!). He gets stopped by one of the young people. 

"Excuse me. My friend would like to take his picture with you because we don't meet Americans very much. We are from Denmark." Which means that somewhere in Denmark, Robert (in this bright blue Aloha shirt and cowboy hat) will soon be representing all Americans.

Near the end of the evening, for a rendition of "Bring Back My Bonnie" (which is a song about Bonnie Prince Charles and how everybody missed him and wanted him to come back) Graeme got everybody in the bar (including us) into a giant booze-fueled circle swaying and singing at the top of our lungs. 

We had just the one drink apiece, but everybody else was drinking in a two-fisted manner. Which we didn't regret at all this morning…

8:00 am

…when we woke up without a hangover, although we did sleep in because we closed the bloody bar at midnight and walked home. (In case you're wondering, Edinburgh is a fine walking city, very well lit, with enough people wandering around at midnight that there's no real danger. Unless you're really drunk, in which case the bloody cobblestones everywhere will make you trip and fall.) 

9:30 am

But we still don't have coffee in the room, so we stumble to the "St. Giles Coffee and Wine Bar" next door (which is open, for a change) to get coffee and breakfast. We quite enjoy the painting over the bar of King King wreaking havoc on the Edinburgh skyline, because we think that New York is quite tired of being ravaged and city destruction should be spread around a bit. 

This place also has cream! Point to note, however: it's real cream, of the clotted variety. Apparently, it's against the law for anyone to possess half-and-half (what we call "coffee cream" in the U. S.). So when we plead for cream, we get the stuff that they usually put on pastries. Still, it's better than milk. 

10:00 am

We misjudged how much money we'd need for our vacation. Where we live, you can go weeks without spending more than twenty dollars in cash--you pay for EVERYthing with credit cards. Groceries, taxis, coffee--heck, even the bus has its own credit card you use. 

England and Scotland are not like that. The taxi in London didn't take credit cards at all, and lots of the shops and stores here don't take them either. 

We're down to a handful of pounds, so we stop by the Scotland Bank to see if we can tap into the global banking network for more money and OH MY GOD IT'S A TARDIS! Sitting right on the street, next to a red telephone box (which many Brits had assured us were an endangered species). It's not as wide as the one in the Dr. Who series, but that's not surprising, as we're sure the actors also look skinnier on the telly than they are in real life. It's locked (of course--only the Doctor has the key), but we get pictures of it before it can disappear. 

And, possibly because of the influence of the nearby TARDIS, we're able to seamlessly tap into Skynet and get a wad of Scottish pounds (which are exactly the same value as British pounds only far superior because they say "Scotland" right on them). 

10:40 am

We're making our way over to Coates Crescent in the New City part of Edinburgh. 

Robert's hat of choice these days is a brown felt hat that looks pretty much like a cowboy hat. It's particular virtue is that it can be crushed and stuffed into whatever space it needs to be in, and will recover. 

A four-year-old boy holding his Dad's hand approaches. 

"Look, Da, it's a cowboy!" he exclaims when he sees Robert. 

Now Robert has ridden horses, and we spent some time at a dude ranch a few years back (where Robert turns out to be surprisingly good at shooting a shotgun), but he's not by any stretch of the imagination a "cowboy." Still, it's a little kid. 

"Howdy, partner," Robert says with his best Texas twang, tipping his hat to the kid. 

"YEE HA! I told you Da, it's a cowboy!" the little kid hollers (and it was quite an authentic "Yee Ha," too). 

We didn't stick around to discuss what a cowboy was doing in West End Edinburgh, though…

11:00 am

Because what we were doing was stopping by Headquarters. Several years ago, we started doing Scottish Country Dancing, which is organized and run by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS) here in Edinburgh. There are branches all over the world, including the Seattle branch with about 100 members. 

Because we were here (and we're both actually officers in the Seattle branch), we thought we'd stop in and say "Hi," and chat for a bit. We weren't sure what kind of office to expect--perhaps one little old lady sitting behind a typewriter in a broom closet. 

It's not. It's a lovely Edwardian building (although the entire street it's on is torn up to put in a light rail system that will be finished approximately when the Scots french-kiss the Brits) and there are at least four not-old ladies who are delighted to see us, and answer our questions and we have a lovely chat and part best of friends forever. 

1:00 pm

Our tour bus tickets are good for 24 hours, and since we paid for them, we're determined to tour till our ears fall off. Right now, we're doing a different tour through New Town Edinburgh with a live tour guide (the other tour guide wasn't dead, he was just recorded). 

This tour focuses mostly on writers, and we see all the places where they lived, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived behind a red door (it's still red). Also Sir Walter Scott, and the guy who wrote "Peter Pan."

Robert's favorite part is seeing a statue of Maxwell, of Maxwell's equation fame. These are equations that describe the connection between electricity and magnetism and form the foundation for about 99% of modern society (such as, oh, the screen you're reading this on). The world can always use more statues of scientists. 

We do, however, boo loudly whenever the name of George III is mentioned (Charlotte Square is named after his wife, who may have been a lovely person, but George was still a dick). 

1:30 pm

After a week of eating bad school food in Kingham, Oxfordshire, we're happy to be tucking into an unbroken streak of good food here in Edinburgh. Today's lunch features "Gruth dhu" which is a lovely Scottish cheese that makes a delicious sandwich. 

Robert chooses a Scottish cranachan for dessert, which the waitress explains is very traditional and made from Kool-Aid, cream, berries and whisky in a glass with a scone on the side. 

"It's made using traditional Kool-Aid?" Robert asks with a straight face. The waitress assures us it's very traditional. Who knew?

2:30 pm

Edinburgh Castle

The whole town of Edinburgh started at the site of the castle, and as near as anybody can tell, it's been continuously occupied for what archaeologists call "a bloody long time." The site is on top of an old volcano, and three sides are essentially straight up, and even the fourth side is a steep walk. In other words, it's very defensible. 

There's been a castle on the site for a similar period of time ("a metric buttload of years") and the town gradually grew up around it. These days, it's a huge looming thing that you can see from just about everywhere in town. 

Entry to the castle costs about 16 pounds each (although we get a senior discount because we look old and tired) to get in, but it's pretty darn cool. Our tour guide is Nigel, and he sounds just like Sean Connery, so it's like having James Bond as a tour guide. 

Nigel explains that the cannons all over the place are decorative cannons, and although they've been there for hundreds of years, were never actually used. Apparently, the idea was that invaders would look at the castle, see that it was a really long uphill walk and there were cannons up there that could shoot at them, and would just give up and go home. 

Nigel proudly explains that Edinburgh castle was never taken by force. He adds the footnote that, well, actually, it was taken a couple of times by guys sneaking in and, of course, a few times by siege, where the enemy controlled the only road in and starved the defenders out. But never by force! 

It's still an active military base, and troops are stationed in the New Barracks (built in 1790, making it older than any structure in Washington state).

3:00 pm

Part of the castle is given over to the Scottish War Memorial, which has lists of books with the names of every Scottish soldier killed in action since WWI. We find the book for the border regiment, and sure enough, there's three Laidlaws from Edinburgh in it, which means they're probably Robert's relatives. 

(One Laidlaw, Daniel, won a Victoria Cross for having both his legs blown off during a battle. He was a piper and he was about as stubborn as Robert, which means he kept playing--you don't need legs to play the pipes--and rallied the troops for a counter attack.)

Mostly we reflect on how many names there are. There are a lot. And they keep adding more. It makes us heartsore. 

3:30 pm

There's also an area here that's a cemetery for Soldier's Dogs, which was started when Victoria was the Queen bee. It's a small and well-kept area where mascots and working dogs are buried, each with a headstone. 

We also check out the Scottish jewels (NOT the Scottish family jewels, Robert is quick to note), which consists of a crown (with three pounds of gold and a half-pound of jewels) and a scepter and a big ol' sword. The "Stone of Destiny" is also there, which the British stole from the Scots in the 13th century and finally returned in the late 20th century (Nigel is still pretty pissed about that.) 

6:00 pm

We're back in the Grassmarket area of town, drinking lattes (because, of course, they have no cream, so a regular cup of coffee is out of the question). They do, however, have free WiFi and we happily avail ourselves of it to catch up on our "Words With Friends" games. 

Tonight, we're not sure where we're eating, but we have a line on a folk music jam nearby, so that's where we plan to end up. Probably dancing and singing along, but we'll let you know tomorrow how that turns out… 

  Robert & Laura

  Sore Roots Tour