Dippy Jones Across the Pond: Day 26 - Scotland is how you spell EPIC.

Some things I forgot to mention yesterday:

• I bought myself an awesome rugby shirt that was on sale. Purple + Scotland = AWESOME!

• I saw a deluxe TARDIS! It's bigger... on the outside? Well, I saw a few of them actually. It seems the TARDIS' broken chameleon circuit would still allow it to blend in quite well in Edinburgh!

But that was yesterday! Time to move on!



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We spent today in beautiful Stirling. The gateway between the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, Stirling is home to the historic lowest point where one can cross the river Forth. Also home to Stirling Castle, the world's oldest football in the Stirling Smith Art Gallery, and the National Wallace Monument (placed there because Glasgow and Edinburgh couldn't stop bickering over it).

We started out our day scavenging for food. The hostel didn't provide breakfast, and when you're heading out early on a Sunday, good luck finding some place that's open! While the other's got ready, I went down to reception to use the internet and double check our plans, so instead I wound up sitting there, chatting with the very hung over guy running reception that morning; he was really quite upbeat for being as hungover as he claimed! Much to my relief, he told me you can walk to the Wallace monument (even though it looks soooo far away) in about 25 minutes, but it'll take you an extra 25minutes to walk up it! o.O

Our first order of business was to go up to the castle. We wound up in an unaffiliated giftshop to buy our tickets, but it was actually quite lucky... not only were they offering family name histories, but they also had some beautiful jewellery! As I forgot all of my necklaces at home, my clothing choices have been quite a bit more limited based on neckline; my mom suggested that maybe I should find a nice piece of jewellery here, and so that's exactly what I did! It's a heart made out of a thistle, wearing Queen Mary's crown; it's beautiful! Oh, and I mentioned they were offering family name history printouts? Well, I looked through their book to see if mine was there, then oh so stealthily looked mine up on their foolishly unattended computer. It wasn't really anything worth buying, just everything I already know about my name: That nobody is entirely sure where it's from or what it means, but these are a few of the possibilities. However, it did have a motto, which I've never seen before... something invoking God, I'll have to look it up though... I think it was "Deus com...." something, oh man am I useless! :P

Anyways, Stirling Castle was beautiful, and really interesting! We walked along (un-railed) parapets, and saw their full display of the castle kitchens. Interestingly enough a woman's place was not actually traditionally in the kitchen! Women weren't allowed in the castle kitchens until the seventeenth century or something. Take that traditional gender stereotypes! Hah!

They also had a really cool bit in the chapel about the feasts of the time, with a lay out of traditional food (which you of course couldn't eat, but it was all real food) and a woman explaining the fashion of the court at Stirling, which was quite bizarrely, French. Turns out, the Queen (?) brought with her a French seamstress, so all her dresses were in the French fashion, and all her ladies followed suit. They had a few people walking around in examples of this as well.

They also had weavers working on new tapestries for the soon-to-be restored palace portion of the castle, so we got to watch one of them working on a panel of the hunt of the Unicorn, specifically the panel where the unicorn's horn is wounding one of the hunter's dogs for those of you who know the tapestries.

From the castle, we headed over to the Church of the Holy Rood. A rood is a cross, if you were wondering, so it's basically the Church of the Holy Cross.

It's a fantastic church with some really great history surrounding it. It actually still has marks from the musket balls of Cromwell's men, and was where Mary, Queen of Scots' infant son was crowned king.

It was rather loud inside for a church, but I think that was because some of the parishioners seemed to be hanging around for "coffee time" off to the side. I always wondered what churches without gymnasiums did for social hour, so now I know!

According to the material I read about it before we went, this particular church has the finest stained glass in all of Scotland, and the largest, and nicest, Romantic organ in the whole of the UK. The Organ was really quite impressive, I just wish I could have heard it being played...

You know, I love photographing Churches... their lighting is always so interesting. I wonder if there's a career in that :P

From the church, we had initially planned to go to the Art Gallery, but I realized that it was only open from 2-5, so if we went there, we wouldn't be able to go to the Wallace Monument. So instead we used the opportunity to grab some lunch at a pub in the town centre called Cape. A tasty meal but nothing terribly special, it was the after meal conversation that interested me. A middle aged man, who I'm going to assume was the manager, came up and asked if everything had been fine, as he cleared our plates. After I responded, he asked me "Where are you from in the States?" I gave my usual "I'm not" response, allowing the offending party to correct themselves with an "Oh! Canada! Cool! Where?" But instead, he responded with an "ah, Toronto!" apparently Torontonian accents are extremely similar to the New England accent, so for him it was a 50/50 chance. And he understood my being disgruntled at the question because "It's like when people call us English" (he had a very thick Scottish accent). I never really understood what the difference between American and Canadian accents was (just that they're different, dammit!), and it's a question that's come up a lot with the number of non-native English speakers I've met here who are dealing with distinguishing different accents. I've found I've gotten quite conscious of my accent, especially as I'm fighting the slide into Temporary British Accent Syndrom (TBAS), but nowhere has it received as much attention as in Scotland; and they're so good at catching it too!

Here's a good picture of my travelling crew, but you may notice something about it... Catch it? I am taking this photo from a ways in front of them. Did I have to run up ahead to get this photo? No. They are just damned slow! I walked, with my sore, tired legs and my walking stick/cane, and still outpaced them by a wide margin. And I thought I was going slow! Eventually I got tired of waiting for them and started taking a few pictures of them. So that's Nina, Oliver and Duran. Quite the multinational group! USA, UK, Canada and Hong Kong. We've each got our little inside jokes, sometimes Nina and I will talk about something and no one else will get it: It's a north american thing. Sometimes Oliver and I will talk about something and no one else will get it: It's a commonwealth thing. It's quite fun :)

Now where was I?

Right. From the pub, we decided to start trying to walk to the Wallace Monument. However, the slow walkers significantly hindered our ability to reach it in any sort of good time, and we had to call off the trek before we even crossed the river Forth. So unfortunately I have no epic panoramas of Stirling and the highlands, but who needs em? I'll go back. And for now, look at what lovely photos the perfect weather got me!

So from there, we went back to Edinburgh and grabbed some dinner before our train, I had mussels while I eavesdropped on the table next to us after I heard mention of Ottawa. >.>

Before we left I also managed to find a Scotland/Canada crossed flags pin to go with my Wales/Canada one.

And may I just say, men wearing kilts like it's nothing make me soooo happy! I love Scotland.

In fact, so far, I think this weekend trip has been my favourite! I love Edinburgh, it's so rich with interesting architecture, without being blindingly crowded and dirty like London was. Kilts, haggis, neeps, tatties, scotch and shortbread. Beautiful.

A tapestry of beautiful, old, buildings.