Edinburgh

The last four days have been a whirlwind, as evidenced by my lack of posts. This week we've been in Edinburgh staying at the Edinburgh Central Hostel. My pictures from the week are all posted here, but I thought I would take some time to give a cursory update anyway.

Tuesday - visited the National Museum of Scotland. I really enjoyed this experience, although I would have been able to spend several more hours here. The first three floors are all dedicated to Scottish history prior to 1707, when the Act of Union initiated the formation of the United Kingdom. Our discussion was based on Dr. Cartrite's belief that this is an intentional step by the Scots to establish their national story prior to Britain, and the future of Scotland as it relates to the UK and the EU. Following this we were free for the day. I decided to walk the length of the Royal Mile, and looked in a few shops before walking around the outside of the Parliament building.

Wednesday - We took a train (for £8.50, since the Central Belt lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow are so heavily subsidized) west out of Edinburgh to Stirling, where we toured the William Wallace Monument. The Monument is a massive tower built from rocks quarried from the surrounding valley, so it appears to be a craig naturally extending from the ground. It was built in the 1860s as a new form of romantic Scottish nationalism was developing alongside the Enlightenment and romanticism in mainland Europe, as well as in response to overseas military engagements that Scots were forced to participate in, on behalf of the British Empire.

A few in the group escaped the gift shop early enough to listen to a brief presentation from a gentleman impersonating a Scottish crofter who fought alongside William Wallace in the 14th century. This was not only beneficial as it helped fill in more historical context, but was also interesting to hear his subtle opinions as someone who works at the epicenter of this sense of “hairy nationalism.” He started the presentation by saying he hoped we all understood Scots, because that was the only language he ever learned. In retrospect, his dialect was actually quite thick, but I didn’t really have much difficulty understanding him. Interestingly enough, what I would call their sense of linguistic xenophobia is common throughout the British Isles, as well as the States. I commented after the presentation that I was glad this happened at the end of the trip so I had time to acclimate to the dialect. We then took a bus to the Heritage Centre at Bannockburn, a battlefield where Robert the Bruce again defeated the English a few decades after the execution of William Wallace. They had a movie for us and a litany of artifacts from the battlefield, as well as another reenactor who spoke to us about the weaponry of the era.

After we took the train back to Edinburgh, the long-awaited night had finally arrived - drinking whiskey with Dr. Cartrite! I had dinner at a huge bar with Britt, Ken, Cheyenne and Britt’s kids Emma and Luke, after which Cheyenne took the kids back to the hostel. Britt, Ken and I went to a small pub and had a dram after dinner: finally the kind of experience I thought would be much more common on this trip. The pub itself was one where they had taken the class four years previous but it had apparently been significantly remodeled since that time, a fact they found distasteful and drove Ken to complain to the bartender. They had spoken of a place that was just as it appeared in the 19th century, with pictures of the poets who had once sat at the bar covering the walls. It had certainly fallen victim to 21st century commercialism and was nothing like they had described to me, but it was nice to sit quietly and talk while BBC droned on in the background about Her Majesty visiting Dublin for the first time since the Empire was a respectable empire and a few more of our boys getting shot by Afghan policemen and the ongoing debate over whether football or rugby is more popular throughout Wales. We slowly moved through our drinks then made our way back to the hostel, where Ken retired for the night. Britt and I went back out, with the rest of the group in tow, and visited a small pub across the street until they kicked us out.

Thursday - for me the most anticipated day of the trip; we visited Parliament! We were given a tour of the building on which we couldn’t take any pictures, yet after the tour we were allowed to return to the same parts of the building and then could take pictures. The building was deliberately designed to be incredibly unlike other parliamentary buildings throughout the Western world, and is very modern yet literal. I did think the tour guide was reaching at some points for meaning that just wasn’t there, but the symbolism is mostly very intentional and obvious through the whole structure. Following the tour we met with Kenny MacAskill, an MSP who is a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party and serves as Justice Secretary. Ken (Ken Steven, the literature instructor on the trip) had informed me right before this meeting that in this capacity he made a decision to release the Lockerbie bomber back to the Libyan government, a decision that was heavily criticized by London and Washington, so naturally I asked him if he thought that decision would affect his future as Justice Secretary, as he was running for re-election that afternoon. He immediately got very passionate and a little less politically correct, and displayed his tenacity gained from decades as a defense attorney in Edinburgh. Following the tour we headed back to the hostel before our final group dinner, at a fantastic Italian restaurant just up the street.

Friday - it was a free day in Edinburgh, but that didn’t mean I was tempted to sleep in and forsake a minute of the experience here. I got up at 9:00 and grabbed a quick breakfast from the kitchen downstairs, then waited in the lobby for Megan and Lynn, who were as excited as me to spend the day at St Andrews, certainly the cradle (if not technically the birthplace) of golf. They were downstairs by 10:00 to catch the 10:27 train to Aberdeen, but it was cancelled so we spent a few extra minutes in the train station before being the first people on the 11:00 train to Dundee, another city to the north. It was only a few stops north to Leuchars, home to an RAF base a few miles inland from St Andrews, and we caught the bus to the coast straight off the train. We immediately followed a sign from the bus station that said “museum,” where we met an older lady who was disappointed to hear we were more interested in the British Golf Museum than the Town Museum, but gave us typically Scottish (incomplete) directions nonetheless. Despite this we were able to find our way to the Hotel at the Old Course, where we visited the Pro Shop and I bought {redacted}. One of the employees there gave us the best directions I had heard since arriving over here (“find the space between the hedges along the car park, then walk along the 17th and 18th fairways up to Links Street”) as well as by far the most photogenic route. Unfortunately the course was packed, so I couldn’t take any photos of me actually standing on Swilcan Burn or its famous bridge, but the opportunities for pictures from a distance were still awesome. The British Golf Museum was amazing as well. We were driven from it after 2 1/2 hours by overwhelming hunger, but the tickets they sold us were good for two days because they said we easily could have spent 5 hours, and I felt I could have been there for more like 10. They had nearly every possible artifact related to the Royal and Ancient Club, the Open, the history of amateur and professional golf throughout Britain, as well as the Walker Cup and other international competitions. Following the museum we headed up to what is surely the greatest Best Western in the world, and ate at the Chariots Bar (named for Chariots of Fire, filmed on the beach at St Andrews). The bartender kept us there for a few more hours with his stories of the professional golfers who had stayed there over the years when the Open was at the Old Course. Wandering the town after lunch was an incredibly surreal experience. The University of St Andrews is full of English and American students, and the courses of the area are popular for many American tourists, so we were more likely to hear a New England or Georgia accent as Scots dialect. Even the bartender at Chariots hardly had an accent, although he slipped into it as we talked more about politics and nationalism within Scotland. After a brief tour of the sights of one of the strangest towns in Scotland, we hopped on a bus back to Leuchars and caught the express train back down to Edinburgh. Exhausted from the day, I “wasted” my last night in Edinburgh by staying in to upload pictures and catch up on blogging.