Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Tuesday, September 18: Getting There is Half the Fun



Ron and I loved Edinburgh, from our first visit in late 2001.  Ron was of Scottish extraction- his great-great-(multiple) grandfather had left from Dundee as an indentured servant, accused of mismanaging the estate he’d run.  He ended up on a plantation in Georgia but eventually fled to the hills of Tennessee where, Ron said, he married a Cherokee woman “so old and so ugly the Cherokees didn’t want her”.  My ancestry is boring by comparison.
We fell in love with the land, the history and the whisky and made a few return trips, once to visit the Orkneys and once, over a four-day weekend, to catch an exhibit of items from the last of the Romanovs at the Royal Museum of Scotland.  This time I was returning only with a bit of Ron’s ashes and lots of plans and memories.


Being the nervous traveler I am, always worrying about what can go wrong, I’d booked a 6-hour layover in O’Hare.  Weather was clear and sunny, of course and the plane was on time.  No problem- United had just opened their new Polaris Lounge in O’Hare and I figured it would be a nice place to hang out before the flight to Edinburgh. 

I was right.  I’d spent plenty of time at the American Airlines Admiral’s Club lounge in ORD as a Business Class passenger but this was above and beyond the Admiral’s Club, which typically provides a limited selection of munchies for free (others for sale) and coupons for two free alcoholic drinks.  The Polaris lounge was huge, had a wonderful variety of foods in the buffet and had unlimited alcohol (although I had only two glasses of a very good Sauvignon Blanc, knowing there’d be more on the plane).  I nearly followed a nice Asian lady into the bathroom before I realized they were individual unisex rooms, immaculately clean.  Showers and sleep spaces were also available.  It was up to the standards of European lounges and that’s saying a lot.  Six hours (!) passed quickly and comfortably.



The flight was equally comfortable; my first-world complaint was that I had to push all the covers, pillows and other amenities out of the way to make room for my body!


Wednesday, September 19- A Soggy Arrival


The flight to Edinburgh was pleasant- good dinner, greasy breakfast- but I got only a couple of hours of sleep, which is usual for me on transatlantics.  We landed at 7:30 AM and I couldn’t get into my Airbnb apartment till 3 PM.  I took the bus into Waverly Station, dropped off my bags at an Airbnb office nearby and headed for the National Museum.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the time passed.  At about 2:30 I trekked back to the office, picked up my bags and began the hike to my apartment.  It started to rain and I was walking against the wind, but I powered on (I did have a rain jacket) because I was too cheap to get a taxi and exercise is always good.  


Beautiful even in the rain.



I finally reached it- a third-floor walkup, which I knew- and couldn’t get the lock box with the key to open even with the combination they supplied.  I tried to call the office and my phone wouldn’t work locally.  I found a café run by a lovely Frenchwoman who made me a glass of coffee (very European) and loaned me her phone to call the office.  They sent over a nice young man who, instead of trying to yank it open at the top, lifted the front “door” off the box revealing the key.  OK, I felt like an idiot.  He was very nice.  Having already bought provisions on my walk, I gratefully settled in for the evening.  The first day is always the hardest. 


View from the courtyard of my apartment.
A reminder (posted near my apartment) of the impact of Airbnb on the residents.

Thursday, September 20: Missions Accomplished


After 10 hours of sleep, which made a huge difference.  I had two major things I wanted to do in Edinburgh and today I managed them both.  In the morning, after buying a SIM card for my phone, I went to Wm. Cadenhead’s on the Royal Mile.  Ron and I “discovered” them on our first trip in 2001.  They sell, among other things, whiskies that come straight from the casks of major distillers:  single cask, no dilution, no filtering, not even water added.  You can’t buy it in the US.  I bought 3 bottles- over the US Customs limit of one, but have always gone over, declared them when coming home, and have never been charged duty.  I left a little under the influence, having tasted samples of all three only shortly after having my breakfast.



I'm happy to report that all 3 bottles made it home safely and I wasn't charged any duty!


I came home, had lunch and got out the new SIM card.   The devil was in the details; I needed to insert something the thickness of a bent paper clip into a tiny hole in the side of my phone so the SIM card “drawer” would pop out.  It took nearly half an hour of testing various implements (of course there wasn’t a paper clip in sight) until I finally found that a the wire in a small spiral notebook worked after I straightened it out.  My phone was now operating like a local phone and I have 2gb of data usage- for about $13!  (And, as promised, it later worked in France.)


View from the top.


The second important thing:  climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat (elevation 250 meters or about 750 feet) and discreetly leave some of Ron’s ashes there.  It was a good day for the climb; cloudy but no rain forecasted, cool but not too windy.  The climb was about an hour and the paths were full of locals who RUN up to the peak every day (some in shorts) and tourists, mostly German.  It was work, but not overwhelming.  My biggest challenge was keeping my balance in some places. Several times on the way down I choose to descend while sitting rather than risk slipping and falling.  I don’t remember doing that 17 years ago.  Oh, well.
I also stopped at an ancient chapel partway down the mountain, where Ron and I had had lunch on our climb.


You never get the top of the mountain to yourself!
Ron at the top, 2001.



Friday, September 21- Two Museums

I decided to do a morning hike up to Arthur’s Seat again. I try to stay in shape on my travels and this sure filled the bill! It was a little harder this time; there had been a lot of rain the night before and I had to avoid puddles and be careful not to slip. It was sunnier today, though, and the view were ever-changing. I could almost understand why people took up mountain-climbing although I don’t think I’ll go out and buy boots and pitons. 

I’d planned to go back to the apartment, eat lunch and then head to the museums, but got distracted by a display of exquisite jewelry made by a designer in the Orkneys, which Ron and I had visited in 2005. The shop was in the Scottish Parliament Building and I had to go through a metal detector to enter. At the sight of such beautiful, locally-made work, my credit card leapt out of my wallet. There was, conveniently, a café in the building and I had lunch there. I spent the rest of the day in the National Gallery and the National Academy. As usual, I got a little burnt out after seeing so many paintings, but I learned a lot, especially about Rembrandt, whose works were the subject of a special exhibit at the National Academy.

Saturday, September 22: Dundee


I woke up this morning, planning to go to Dunblane, which looked interesting, and then saw Dundee in the next entry in the guidebook.  Dundee’s attractions included the ship Discovery in port, with an associated museum.  The ship had made a 2-year voyage to the Antarctic in 1901.  Sold!  Of course, it helped that Dundee was a place important to Ron’s family history and was just 1.5 hours away by train.

We arrived at Dundee Station and I searched for the usual freebie maps of the city.  There were none.  I left the station and wandered, looking for a store that might sell maps, but the small shops I checked didn’t have them.  I walked into a large department store and found it was part of a giant mall.  Since it was lunchtime, I settled in with a sandwich and coffee and opened my phone to do some research.   The Discovery Museum, I found, was practically next to the train station.  On the way out of the mall I found a Customer Service booth with- freebie maps.  Finally!



A Gay Pride Parade.  I encountered one in Reykjavik last year, too!

The museum was full of exhibits with fascinating details. As the ship left New Zealand, one crew member waving goodbye to the crowds from a high perch on the ship fell into the water and died.  The crew discovered that penguin meat "tasted like shoe leather steeped in turpentine" but that penguin eggs were tasty.  Laundering clothes was a luxury, between the need for water and the need for heat to dry clothes before they froze.  One group including Scott and Shackelton went out on an expedition by sledge and didn't wash their clothes for 95 days.  The ship was not to return to England for three years, and nearly had to be abandoned after multiple failed attempts to free it from the surrounding ice.


Exterior

Provisions. Note the grog barrel emblazoned with "God Save the King, the scotch whisky and the giant tin of Colman's Mustard.

Underwater sea creature collected and preserved by the scientists on board.

Another view of exterior.  The ship is now dwarfed on one side by the new Victoria and Albert Museum, which opened the day I was there. 

We were pretty much free to explore the entire ship.

Shackelton's Quarters

The Foremast, as seen from the lowest deck.
Detail of interior.

When I was in Paris a few days later, I realized how far we’d come in 100 years.  An ad in a magazine for Ponant, a luxury cruise line, offered cruises to Antarctica from Argentina.

Here's the link.
https://us.ponant.com/destinations/antarctica#advanced_search


It starts at about $13,000 per person, double occupancy and excluding airfare to and from Argentina.  Oh, yeah- add about another 75% for the Single Supplement.  The magazine ad showed one couple enjoying a sumptuous meal (including penguin meat?) on board.  The woman was wearing a sleeveless dress.  I’m grateful for my generous travel budget but it’s not THAT generous.  And what would Scott and Shackleford say about that sleeveless dress? 

At the Discovery Museum I was offered a ticket that included Verdant Works, the museum on the site of a former jute mill.  It was a pleasant walk from the waterfront but I was glad to have the map. 


The jute industry in Scotland had an interesting connection with my last major destination: for years, jute was grown in India and sent to Scotland for processing into products such as flour sacks, sand bags and carpet backing.   The panel below describes the terrible working conditions in India.



Gradually, plants in India took over production as well, with cheaper labor, and eventually most of the Scottish jute mills closed.  Our guide told is that they’re still using 150-year old machines, built in Dundee, to process jute in India.

The guide near one of the machines.  These aren't full-size; they were used for training new workers.  They were still extremely noisy, even when only one at a time was running.  Little wonder that many workers in Dundee ended up deaf.

The little bits of jute dust under the machine could also interfere with it running properly, so children as young as 9 were responsible for prying all the lumps out.  They frequently developed "mill fever", a respiratory disease, from getting the dut in their lungs.



I arrived back at Waverly Station at 7 PM; it was a totally different experience from my arrival on Wednesday since the weather was pleasant and I knew where I was going.  It was interesting to see the buildings in the waning daylight and watch the partying begin in the pubs on the Royal Mile.  I took a couple of shortcuts I’d learned, down long, steep staircases, and marveled again at how skillfully the city had been built around all of the steep hills, using stairways, bridges and passageways so people and vehicles could navigate them.