Sylvia's Journal

Today was for history. We had intended to rise early and get as much bang for the many bucks we paid for the tourist hop on and off buses. Alas, we didn’t get out of the house until past 12 and the ticket expired at 3:45 PM. We just got in a tour of the old city, see the Grassmarket with the free part of the Jazz Festival in full swing (3 different stages, one at each end and one in the middle). I wished I had been more forceful about getting off – it was after all a hop on/off bus, but Axel prevailed and I waffled, so we ended up at the palace of Holyrood while the sun was trying to get out from behind the thick cloud cover. Rain was predicted at 4PM and I figured that at 2PM we should be listening to jazz ‘en plein air.’ But we didn’t. A mistake.

An excellent audioguide took us from room to room and explained what we saw before us. We were reminded off our tour through Versailles where the sequence of rooms also led, eventually, to the monarch’s bedroom where a few very important people could see him going to bed and waking up. What a strange arrangement this now seems to us. 

We tried to keep track of all the Davids and Charleses and Jameses, Stuarts and Tudors, but the (en)tangled history of the English and Scotts remains hard for us to get our heads around. This evening, when I read the history section in one of the guide books I understood my confusion: James VI and James I are one and the same person (as are James VII and James II), the higher number is what he was for the Scotts and the lower one what the English called him. I also learned more about the intertwining of the Stuarts and Tudors, who was catholic and who was protestant, the Hanoverians, the Jacobites, and who was angry about what with whom, etc. 

We keep finding it strange, now being a tad more familiar with the history of both countries, that they are together. To me Scotland and England seem two very different countries. How a monarch who resides most of the time in one country can show up one week a year (and for special occasions) in Edinburgh and be the people’s monarch here, strikes me as odd, unless you call both countries together the United Kingdom. But shouldn’t kingdom be plural then?

There are many meanings of the word pound. They are all part of our Scottish experience: the money, a measure of weight (these two related of course) and the manner in which rain sometimes comes down. I’ll explain.

We start each day late, catching up on sleep I suppose, but also because we are on a steep and tiring learning curve regarding getting around Edinburgh on not too much money.  We want to spend our money on food, not transport. Our first mistake was to pay nearly 4 pound Sterling (per person) for a train ride into Edinburgh which turned out to be the next stop, five minutes after getting on. 

The parking attendant at the local supermarket is giving us advice on getting around for as little money as possible, very Scottish of course. He offered to give us his cell phone number but I can hardly understand him when face to face so I declined before Axel could say yes.  He told us we should have asked him about the train (a rip off, said with a hard rolling ‘r’). The bus system is excellent and easy if you have the right apps, difficult when you don’t have that nor exact change and a dour bus driver to boot.  It took some time to get all the verifications completed for our online registrations but now I can simply show my electronic ticket to the bus driver, and check out where to get on what bus via my phone. 

Yesterday we visited the  Royal Botanical Gardens (nearly everything on the ‘have-to-see list has the adjective ‘royal’ attached to it). We were lucky because the sun was shining during most of our visit, and even when it was not, it was dry. When we boarded the bus to the next attraction it started to rain. First a sprinkle and then a downpour that lasted throughout dinner and during our mad dash to get to the bus to take us home. 

We picked an indoor attraction to stay (mostly) out of the rain: a visit to the Royal Britannica. The ship has been retired here (berthed being the opposite of birthed) and been pressed into tourist duty.

Axel was most impressed by the picture of the Review of the entire Royal fleet in 1953 (imagine that, all of the ships around the entire world being summoned to this review – the empire unguarded!). The bedrooms were surprisingly simple and basic – the royals’ (separate) bedrooms resembling more a 3 star hotel room than a royal suite.

I kept trying to imagine life on the ship with the royals on board, helped a bit by the many pictures of family members smiling at the camera. I am not sure it was actually a very happy place.  The ship must have been yet another gilded cage, with several hundred people around to serve their every wish and watch over them, no picking your nose without anyone noticing! 

Despite the relative simplicity of the personal quarters (except for the state dining room), the ship is a relic of a bygone era, a time when excessive spending and showing their wealth was what royals did.

I suppose the major means of transportation is now the Royal Airplane, which cannot take on all that silver and crystal, the 5 tons of personal items, food and drink -to feed hundreds for at least a month-, and the royal means of transport (Rolls and Jeeps). I also believe that such display of wealth is no longer cool, at least not in this part of the world. Nor is the display of gifts that required rare species of animals to die or give up body parts and paying respect to dignitaries whose wealth came partially or wholly from destroying these animals’ natural habitat.

By the time we reached the fourth of the five levels – the ground level where the Royal Rolls and the Royal speedboat are parked – it was raining cats and dogs. We skipped the last stop (the engine room) to catch a bus back to the center.

Since we had not spent any money on flying (Delta miles) and lodging (Home Exchange), we decided to ignore the prices on the menu of the seafood tapas place (The White Horse) – yes, click on it and see for yourself). We splurged on exquisite oysters, sampling three Scottish and one Irish variety , scallops, smoked salmon, and razor clams, seaweed salad and white wine (the latter recommended by our Polish waiter).

We briefly discussed Brexit with the waiter who doesn’t think it (Brexit) is going to happen – I suppose this is a matter of self-preservation. He told us that if EU citizens become foreigners, the hospitality sector will find itself very short handed. So far most of our waiters have come from the mainland.

Because we have reserved most of our money for food I am steadily gaining weight – I know this because there is a scale in the house. It is not surprising because nearly everything we eat and drink here is of very high caloric content. And since my daily exercise regimen has stopped altogether (walking doesn’t get the job done), I am afraid I will come back with a lot of extra pounds, these not of the Sterling kind.

Axel is in ancestral lands. I am in the neighborhood of mine, now buried deep beneath the North Sea but that was thousands of years ago. Axel’s link with Scotland is closer. His maternal grandfather was a red-haired Scott who passed that gene to his mom (recessive) who passed it to him (red beard only) who passed it to Tessa with her copper tresses.

We expected to see many redheads when we first arrived on Tuesday but we saw none. We started to count. By the end of Tuesday, when we tumbled exhausted in our bed, the tally was only 1. By then, all we had seen was the airport and the Portobello section of Edinburgh.

On Wednesday we continued the count as we made our way in to Edinburgh. During those moments that the sun shines, the redheads stand out. Our lunch waitress was red. By the time we were done with lunch we had counted about 15 redheads who had passed us as we were sitting in one of the rare moments of sun on an outside terrace. Once we started walking around we stopped counting because they were everywhere. 

Our waitress told us that 34% of Scotts have red hair. It turns out she got that slightly wrong:  DNA research on the British isles, and particularly the south east of Scotland, has found that about 40% of the population has the gene for red hair, though  that doesn’t mean they have it.  The numbers of actual red heads differ. There is a lot of boasting between Ireland and Scotland about who has the most redheads – one or the other claims to have 10% of the population, the loser with only 6%. A quick search on Google however,  indicates that most agree that Edinburgh is the red head capital of the world.