Friendly Edinburghians and Guy Fawkes Day

Ok, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted but I have a good excuse this time – I didn’t have internet access at home (and I’m still in the “trying to make a good impression at work” phase so didn’t feel like posting from the office). So this post and the two below are what I haven’t posted over the last couple of weeks (I’m going to try and outsmart Blogger to put this in the proper order, but it could all back fire).

Everyone I’ve come across here has been incredibly friendly and welcoming and I’m told it’s even more so in Glasgow (where I’m headed tomorrow). People say that Canadians are friendly but I don’t think we have anything on the Scottish…. then again, maybe I just don’t notice it in Canada. It’s also likely that people are super friendly in other countries I’ve been to but because I don’t know the language they’re speaking, I just don’t get the full impact.

I celebrated my first Guy Fawkes Day this week… and by celebrate I mean I watched fireworks from my kitchen window while making dinner (don’t judge, I had mild intentions of actually going out to watch the fireworks but it was cold and damp and my apartment was warm and full of food). For those who don’t know the story of Guy Fawkes, you should Google it because I’ll probably tell it wrong (especially since in my head, I pronounce 'Guy' the French-Canadian way and think of his last name as 'Fox'). All I can say is that I doubt that people would celebrate someone who tried to blow up a government building in current times but I’m all for bonfires and fireworks.

I’m doing it! I’m doing it!

This past summer, I went on a 5 day beginner white water kayaking course. At some point during the week, I was paddling down a rapid and for once I was a) still in my boat and b) not upside-down. The instructor was watching off to the side and yelled “You’re doing it! You’re doing it!”.  Every once in a while since I’ve been here, when I’ve managed to pull something off with all the appearances of being a local, my kayak instructor’s voice pops in my head and I start grinning like an idiot.

I’ve found a place to live in Edinburgh for the next however long I’ll be here. It’s a room in a shared apartment so I have housemates for the first time since university. It was the easiest move I’ve ever done as I only have 2 suitcases of belongings with me – no boxes, minimal packing and an easy cab ride to my new digs. I was ecstatic to move in and be able to cook my own food again. Staying in a hotel and eating out all the time always sounds so much better than it actually is.

I’m hoping that having a place to call my own will help me feel more settled here. Last week I was pretty homesick. It didn’t even occur to me before I left, that I might get homesick. I decided to do the whole travelling thing to get out of a rut, get new experiences, and get away from same old “home”  but I sometimes find myself strangely longing for my life in Ottawa, where things were easy and everything wasn’t something new that had to be figured out. I’m feeling a lot better about things this week though, which is good. And when I got back from Falkirk and Stirling last weekend (see below), I flopped down on my bed and thought “oh, it’s so nice to be home”. So I guess I am adjusting and feeling more settled than I thought.

Stirling and Falkirk

 For my first weekend of travelling, I went to Falkirk and Stirling (towns about 45 minutes or so by train from Edinburgh). For those who don’t know, Stirling has a castle and a monument to William Wallace (think Braveheart). Falkirk has a lock system that involves a big wheel that scoops up boats and lifts them something like 35m into an aquaduct that connects to the canal system. My original plan was to spend all day Saturday and Sunday morning in Stirling and then stop in at Falkirk on the way home on Sunday to see the wheel but on Saturday morning I checked the weather and it was going to piss down with rain Saturday and be clear and sunny on Sunday. I had heard that there were fantastic views from the Wallace Monument and didn’t want a repeat of the rained out Forth bridges view so I decided to hit up Falkirk on Saturday morning and then do Stirling Saturday afternoon and Sunday to maximize the clear sunny views. 

Falkirk and the Falkirk wheel were great. The wheel is quite impressive and fairly odd. I went on a boat tour that goes on the wheel and then through a canal tunnel so I could get the full experience. During the boat tour, the (hilarious) guide told us about the ruins of Rough Castle, a Roman fort, that were nearby, so after taking my fill of Falkirk Wheel photos, I followed a trail to the old fort. It was so beautiful, even in the rain, and for someone who hated history at school, I was really interested to learn about the fort and see everything laid out. It was really neat! I guess I’ve gotten to the point where I can finally appreciate history.

My outstanding photo collage of the wheel in motion.

All that rotation for the equivalent energy consumption of 8 electric kettles.

 

 

On the way to Rough Castle

After the Wheel and the fort, I continued on to Stirling.  I wasn’t feeling the greatest by that point (a little rundown I think) and it was cold and wet, so that probably didn’t help with my impression of Stirling but it didn’t quite live up to what I was expecting (I was expecting more “tourist mecca” and less “small town”). Things got better on Sunday when the weather turned sunny (and windy!). I walked around a little and then visited the castle. The views definitely lived up to expectations!  After the castle, I decided not to go to the Wallace Monument and instead walked to the old Stirling bridge and then headed to the train station to go home. The views from the castle were fantastic so I wasn’t sad to miss the view from the Monument (which was probably similar except you would see the castle instead of the monument).  I meant no disrespect to William Wallace but I was tired and ready to leave.

Stirling Castle

 

 

View from the Castle (or actually, from beside the castle)

  

View of Wallace Monument from the Castle

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Glasgow for the weekend - I hear they have some great museums/galleries and a lot of live music.

Still Learning

So I thought I had started to get the hang of things here - I've got the whole crisps vs. chips vs. fries thing down pat, I can make the commute to work while being half asleep, I found a Laundromat and now have clean clothes, and I've even started to think with a Scottish accent. Then this morning I confidently walked to the bus stop to catch a bus to explore the city and the bus I was waiting to catch approached... on the other side of the street... because I had been waiting on the wrong side of the road. Then it turned out that I was waiting for the wrong bus anyway. Oh well. I'll catch on eventually.

Yesterday I went to Queensferry to have a look at the bridges that cross the Firth of Forth (which I keep calling the Forth of Firth). There are two bridges there - a railway bridge that was built in the late 1800's, and a road bridge that was built in the 1960's. Both are fantastic looking bridges and I'm always up for viewing nice bridges but I could have picked a better day. It was pissing down with rain when I arrived and the view of the bridges was something like this:

Forth Rail Bridge

 

Forth Road Bridge

 

I stopped for some lunch and walked around for a bit but the rain never completely let up and the view of the bridges never really got any better so I headed back into Edinburgh (where, of course, the sun came out shortly after I arrived). It's only 10 minutes away by train though so it'll be easy to go back on a clearer day.

 

First weekend in Edinburgh

I spent my first weekend in Edinburgh doing a lot of walking. For those who have never been here, it's not a flat city! Yesterday I walked to the castle, up to Arthur's Seat, past Holyrood Palace, up the Royal Mile and over to Calton Hill. My heels got all blistered and I'm not sure my legs will ever speak to me again, but it is a pretty amazing-looking city. Lots of fantastic buildings, odd monuments, beautiful parks and a great mix of old and new.

After dinner I went on a ghost walk (like the Ottawa/Kingston haunted walks), which meant more walking but it was pretty entertaining. At one point, we went down into the vaults under the city and the tour guide was telling the crowd of us about how previous tours had seen paranormal activity in the vault in the form of one ghost of a woman. He said that people would smell this horrid stench before the ghost would appear. Unfortunately, it was at this point in the tour when I passed gas (hey, I couldn't help it, everybody farts) and for the next couple of minutes, while the guy was explaining how the woman died, I was nervously waiting for people around me to start saying "Oh my god! I smell the horrid stench! The ghost is coming!!!". Fortunately, everyone kept their fear of appearing ghosts to themselves, which is, I suppose, more than I can say for me and my horrid stench.

Today I went into Edinburgh Castle. I had planned to visit some other museums afterwards but to my utter amazement, I found the castle so interesting that I stayed for 3 hours (normally, I last an hour at most at these kinds of places). It cost 16 pounds to get in but there were free tours (or at least I think they were free...), a few museums and lots to see plus great views of the city. Afterwards I came back to my hotel and watched the latest episode of Downton Abby authentically on the BBC.

Now if only I could manage to remember which way to look before I cross the street.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada!

View from Arthur's Seat

 

 

View from Edinburgh Castle

 

 
 

Display in the Castle War Prison

... at least the Americans still got their 2 pints.

Hello Scotland

Well, I've made it to Scotland. Things moved pretty quickly in the past two weeks and this morning I arrived in Edinburgh, my new home for I'm not quite sure how long. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now as the past few days have been rather hectic and I'm running on about 2 hours of plane sleep but I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks of getting settled.

I walked around some of downtown while waiting for my hotel room to be available and managed to get a local SIM card/cell phone number/phone plan and test out my Canadian bank card in a bank machine (I wasn't convinced it was going to work) within the span of about 15 minutes. Maybe Scotland me is more productive than Canada me... although I did also manage to lose my tourist map during that time so maybe it's a trade off of productiveness for general scatterbrain-ness. I also got a chance to meet (and probably forget... sorry!) most of my new coworkers and to try out my new electrical socket adapter kit (nothing/nobody's been fried or electrocuted yet so I'm taking that as a good sign).

I've found it a little weird that I can understand what people are saying - I'm so used to getting off a plane in a different country and not being able to speak the language. It's so much easier when you can talk to people!

Ok, better go figure out what train to catch to work tomorrow before I fall asleep.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

The Lost Weeks

Ok, so I know it's not a great blogging start to leave 4 and a half weeks between posts but, honestly, there hasn't been much to say. I'm still in Toronto waiting for Scotland to get sorted out. The past 5 weeks has been an exercise in patience, which has been extremely frustrating for me because I'm not really a patient person.  Part of the reason I had decided to quit work to go travelling was so that I wouldn't know what I would be doing next and things wouldn't be so routine. As it turns out, I don't like not knowing what I'll be doing next or when I'll be doing it when I don't have any real control over anything. I also found it hard to go from being so excited to be going travelling to being back in an office with no timeline for getting out. But it was my decision to stick around and things are sort of progressing now so I've calmed down a bit. I've submitted my work visa application and am just waiting for it to be processed.

I did take a little impromptu camping trip up to Algonquin Park last week in order to ease my frustration and get some perspective (and probably save the sanity of those who have had to deal with me on a daily basis). I was only there for few days but got in a lot of hiking and some swimming and had a really nice time. The park was gorgeous with the leaves just started to change colour and there weren't too many people there.  I even timed the weather right and was all packed up and on my way by the time it started raining (hooray for not having to pack up a wet tent!).

Moon rising over Lake of Two Rivers

 



Hiking Trail

 

I might be taking another trip this week as it's a little uncertain whether there will be anything for me to do at work. I'm not entirely sure where I would go but I have a few places in mind (Tobemory, Alberta, Newfoundland). We'll see.