Goodbye, Scotland.

We headed back to London on the train today, but before we left, we had a little more exploring to do.

We had a nice big breakfast and explored the Greyfriars graveyard that stands behind the cafe where JK Rowling wrote a lot of Harry Potter. We tried to find the graves that inspired names like Hermione Granger, but we didn't. Here's a view from inside.

You can see this school from the cafe, and it's apparently the inspiration for Hogwarts (see the four corners?).

Another sad story for you: this is Greyfriars Bobby, a little dog who was a policeman's (bobby's) dog. When the bobby died, this little fellow kept vigil at his grave. People think you can rub his nose for good luck, but it's ruining the statue. There are books and movies about him, and they're on my list now.

With more time to kill, we found our way back to The Elephant House cafe, the supposed birthplace of HP. We had something called an affogato and affoGODo it was GOOD. It's espresso over icecream and it just about killed me. Cranachan is like a decadent granola bake with layers of raspberry jam. Mmmm. I was pretty much sick for the next 3 hours from all the sugar and caffeine.

View from inside the cafe: 

Our train ride home was harrowing. The train was late, and the train in front of ours had had to stop because of a fire on the tracks. As we were riding, we were informed that another train had struck a person, and that we would be waiting until the death had been investigated, etc. The conductor sounded so sad. I can't say it wasn't on-theme for the trip, but it was upsetting. We made it home over an hour later than planned, and I ran home and face-planted for my very, very early trip tomorrow.

Our Highlands Fling

Don't let the title scare you: we were not flung into the highlands, nor did either of us have any kind of romantic fling, except with the landscape. I call it a fling because all we had time for in our little trip was a one-day, jam-packed bus tour of the highlands. We were super excited, because even the walk to the tour company looked like this:

We went with Rabbies' Tours, and we found out "Rabbie" was a nickname of Robert Burns, so it fits with our theme of staring into his skully eyes yesterday. The tour company has a little cafe where you meet your tour guide; we got breakfast and coffees to go, and almost missed the bus waiting for the bathroom. On the way out of the city, I got excited about a cheese truck in the park, and dumped my whole coffee in my lap. Smooth operator, this one.

We stopped at several castles and a loch along the way, and while I can't remember the names of everything, it was, of course, stunningly beautiful. Behold.

The loch pictured here is Loch Lomond. First, our tour operator pointed out that "loch" does not mean "lake," but it can include lakes. It really means any body of water that isn't the proper ocean or sea, if I remember correctly. A loch can be tiny, it can be huge (like this one - the biggest in Scotland, I think), it can be salt water or fresh.

Loch Lomond has such a sad story associated with it, and I'll go right ahead and butcher it here. So you've probably heard that song, "You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you!" Ok, that song is "On the Banks of Loch Lomond." The song is old, maybe 200 years old, but the story is even older, maybe 500 years old. The Scottish were fighting a British army, and the Brits were winning. The British general or king or whoever the hell was in charge wanted to let the other Scottish units know that they were going to lose, and they should stop fighting. He had captured some Scottish soldiers, two of whom were brothers. He had the brothers brought before him, and told them he needed one of them to go and warn the other armies, and then he'd be free to go. The other would have to stay and be executed with the other prisoners.

What a gem, right? Assmonkey.

So one brother is much older, has a wife and family. He says, little brother, you go. You have your whole life ahead of you. My wife and children will be ok. But the younger brother says, oh no, I'm not married, and I have no family, so no one will miss me or need me. You go.

The brothers fought about it all night, and they passed out with weariness. When they younger brother woke up, he found he was alone in his cell. His brother had volunteered himself to die, so that the younger brother could live (omg I'm actually crying writing this. I cried on the bus hearing it.). The younger brother was grateful and devastated all at the same time, and the jailor had a message from the older, now-dead, brother: "You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you." The jailor had no idea what it meant, but it gave the younger brother a great deal of comfort to hear it.

The high road was the real road that ran through the country, and the low road was the road that the fairy folk would take, the sort of underground, magical road that no one could see. The older brother was letting the younger brother know his spirit would return to their home: the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

You can hear the song our tour guide played for us here. He said he liked this version of the song because it makes it joyful and triumphant, even though the story is so sad.


We drove on past more lochs, and followed a twisty road up through the hills. We stopped to rest and enjoy the view here.

Next, we visited a small village with a castle. We had lunch in the town on the loch.

A little road passed over a stream with this ancient bridge.

The water really does look red.

We ventured on to this marshy spot, where it was too wet to go much closer. Some people did anyway. I had to stop myself from laughing as one woman biffed on her RUN through the muck. 

The last stop was a castle you might recognize. It was Winterfell in Game of Thrones, it was part of Outlander, and it was featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We stayed outside but had a wander by the river.

Rachael and I napped on the way back, and when the tour was over, we made our way to an Indian restaurant that was tiny and amazing and I'd go back there now if I could teleport. A few ciders later, and we were out cold for the day. Scotland!

Hello, Scotland!

We set off early this morning on a non-stop train to Scotland! Unluckily, we got backward-facing seats for our 5.5 hour journey, and I spent the first hour or so sitting backwards in a seat so I didn't puke up my breakfast. No matter where I take a train in the UK, it's always so beautiful, so it's hard to just close my eyes and not look. But jeezum-pete's, the motion sickness.

When we got there, we went straight for a pub after climbing some of the steep hills of the city. I didn't expect it to be so hilly! At a somewhat gruesome pub called The Last Drop (a play on hangings that happened nearby and on empty drinks), we got cider and pie.

Next, we found the tiny Writers' Museum, which houses items and photos from three of Scotland's most well-known writers, including Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Walter Scott. It's in a tiny house, but it's free and good for a quick drop-in. Someone was having a wedding outside.

Apparently this was normal?

We got ambitious, and decided to try to climb Arthur's Seat, a place where the legend of King Arthur has some of its strongest associations. It's a lot steeper than we thought. We got about...1/10th of the way up. But look! Wowie wow wow.