Edinburgh: Reminder of what is important in life.

Being in Edinburgh this week has reminded me to pull my head out of the sand a bit. Sometimes we hate our jobs, which was pointed out to me by a friend that most people hate their jobs, but that is no reason to be unhappy with your whole life.

My time in Edinburgh was both painful and magical.

The painful aspect is pretty straight forward: when one goes on holiday with the intention of exploring, walking, going to the gym, hiking and generally being active, one should not do it with a broken toe. However, I broke my toe after I booked my trip and I wasn’t cancelling it due to a little pain. I also wasn’t going to miss out on all of the best parts of Edinburgh just because I had a cranky toe. One tip for anyone as klutzy as me is to make sure that you walk as normally as possible when exploring on a broken toe. I wore comfortable and supportive shoes. They gave my toe lots of room in which to sit and be relatively happy, and yet I still wasn’t walking quite right. The result was a right foot that had three days of a lot of strain and ended up cramped and swollen. That being said, I wouldn’t have changed anything that I did over my holiday except for maybe going out for a drink with the fella I met on my ghost tour last night.

As for the magical aspect, I am sure that any description I could give of this historic and modern city could not do it justice, but I’ll give it a shot just for you. Getting off the train I found myself inside a busy and bustling train station. My train took my all the way into Central Edinburgh which means I got off at Waverly Station. This station is under construction at the moment, but it is still just the same as any train station that I’ve seen in the UK. Since it didn’t seem to be anything spectacular I didn’t take any pictures of it. (This might be the only thing in the city that I didn’t go picture happy over).

Leaving the train station, I came out into a busy city street. Surrounding me where stone buildings and giant hills all around. Unsure of which way to turn and start walking, I did what every modern traveler does – I pulled out my iphone and googlemapped the route from the spot I stood in, to my hotel. I found it eventually. I got turned around twice and it turns out that Google Maps doesn’t know anything about the fantastic shortcuts through Edinburgh via the steps and the closes....I’ll try to explain this later. To make a long story short, I passed through Old Town and saw many significant landmarks which at the time I didn’t know were significant.

Part way to my hotel I decided to stop and have a midday snack of the croissant I had brought with me. I stopped on the side of a hill. There was a nice bench to sit on facing Edinburgh Castle, and behind me was a gorgeous view of the Old Town.

Continuing on my way, I eventually made it through the area to my hotel.

My hotel was very nice. Staff are really friendly and the rooms are great! The corridors are a bit dated looking, but from what I understood from the woman at the front desk, they are in the process of updating the hotel. Before it was a hotel, the building was a coop (store). It was remodeled into a hotel and I think that it is doing rather well for itself. I have to say, Expedia served me well. I had a nice large bed, big couch, full bathroom, plasma tv and full length mirrors. Normally I wouldn’t be excited about mirrors, but living without mirrors has made them now a novelty.

Almost everywhere you go in the main parts of Edinburgh there is a fantastic view of some sort. Walking about Old Town you get to see view of the castle, enjoy the shops and pubs of the Grass Market, see the interesting street names and pick up little bits of historical information.

Street sign Marthe and I passed on our random
walking adventure my first night in town.

In the New Town there is Princess Street which is a very long street of shopping. The architecture in this part is Georgian, whereas the Old Town is medieval. Day 1 was spent mostly wandering about just seeing some monuments and taking pictures while I caught up with Marthe. I have to say that it is great fun visiting cities that you have friends in; I really enjoyed being able to catch up with Marthe when she had time to join me for some random adventures.





Here's where we ate my first day! Pretty good! 

The warm chocolate fudge cake and cream that resulted in my agreeing to go to the gym the next day.

One night Marthe took me to this neat bar. We had a fruity drink and some food. I really enjoyed the place. On weekends it's pretty hopping, Marthe told me, but we were there on a Monday so it was pretty quiet. I liked the look and the vibe of the place. They have good soup too! I'm becoming a soup fiend here it seems. 

Cool art prints at the bar. 

The awesome staging of our booth! I like the phone.

Cool Monument that you can actually climb up on the inside.

Some major highlights of my trip where hiking up Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh Castle, The Palace of Holyrood House, The Elephant House and Calton Hill.

I look so insignificant in comparison to the landscape.

Reading travel blogs and looking at it from a far makes you think that the walk might not be so bad. This is not a leisurely walk up a hill. This is a hike. Roundtrip it took Marthe and I two and a half hours. Which really isn’t all that bad. It was more of a hike than I expected. We took one way up and a different way down. Judging from how other people were arriving at the top of Arthur’s Seat breathing much easier than I was upon arrival I am either in terrible shape or Marthe and I took the hard way up. The way we took was a worn path (so it must be right) with mud, and a few makeshift stone steps.

More of those 'steps' - they look easy, but really they're not. 

One of the views as we climbed. 

Standing on the edge of the world. 

At the top there is a compass. It is labeled with different important places in Scotland. 

On the way back down the otherside, we noticed that people where leaving their initials in stone. 

I left my first initial. 

Steps of Doom...or Death...
That's my name for them...

Going down, we went on the other side and we found that there are stone stairs (not even but easier to climb than our hike) and a nice even path afterwards to help take you to the bottom. With my toe, I found the steps difficult, but who cares really, as we made it to the bottom and I think that it was better going than returning the way that we had initially gone up. I will admit that I may have been a little picture-happy during the hike, but it was fun and the views were amazing. Arthur’s Seat is a popular tourist attraction becauese for the able-bodied because if you climb it to the top, you literally can see the panoramic view of all of Edinburgh. Reaching the top I found out that the city is even bigger than I thought. And considering that I spent all of my time in the city walking about and I thought that I had walked a fair amount of the city, this experience was really humbling as it turns out I saw a very small part of the city. But, I do think that I saw the important bits, and I also saw nearly everything that was on my list of things to see.

Directly after hiking Arthur’s Seat Marthe and I had tea with the Queen! Well, not really. In actual fact there is a tea room at The Palace of Holyrood House and we had tea and scones there.

After than Marthe headed on her way to get some learning done and I did the audio tour of the palace. There are no pictures allowed in the palace which made me feel disappointed. How am I suppose to remember what everything looked like without pictures? Well, such is life. In the palace (which is still used by the Queen today) I was able to see the rooms used at one time by Mary Queen of Scots, the rooms in which the Queen sometimes conducts business as well as the portrait hall/gallery in which special functions are held. It was a really interesting place to go and visit.

The Nelson Monument.

From Holyrood, I was then able to wander my way up to Calton Hill. This area is great because you get another fabulous view of the city from here. There are several monuments here, including the Nelson Monument. The Nelson Monument has a ball that is hoisted up just before 1 o’clock so that the gun at Edinburgh Castle can be fired to signal 1 o’clock. As a visual signal, this is the time that the ball falls. There is a better story for this located I’m sure on the internet. But this is a random adventure blog, not a historical one, so those inquiring minds can look it up themselves. I will say that I have now been present for the ball drop and the gun firing. It’s something fun to do, but I don’t know that it is completely necessary.

One of the monuments on Calton Hill.

Now the Elephant House is something that I think is a must-do in this city. It is on one of the main streets of Edinburgh, not far from the National Museum. This is where J.K. Rowling did a lot of her writing for the Harry Potter books. On the sign out front the cafe is actually a statement informing people of this. It’s a few blocks away from the school that is said to have inspired Hogwarts.

Might be the school to inspire Hogwarts!

The great thing about this cafe is it’s atmosphere. When you walk in you see elephants high on the wall behind the counter. There are art prints of elephants around on the walls. There is also a glass cabinet filled with different types of decorative elephants. The owner is lived in Sri Lanka for many years according to the woman to whom I spoke. The elephants are inspired by the owner’s love of the animal. The front part of the cafe has a coffee shop feel and towards the back there are larger tables where you and friends, or family (or in my case a total stranger) can sit and have lunch or whatever it is you are there to enjoy. There are newspaper articles about elephants on one wall.

There are also articles about Rowling writing there on the same wall. The crazy thing about this place is all of the graffiti that is on the walls in the toliet. I can’t say for sure what is there in the men’s, but in the women’s the walls and some of the ceiling is just covered in graffiti connected to the books. I wonder when the graffiti first started, and whether the owner of the cafe embraced it right away, or tried to paint over it a couple of times? Either way, check it out if you’re ever in Ediburgh.

I skipped over talking about Edinburgh’s castle, so I’ll come back to that now.

Kayla, my castle buddy!

The entrance (you can't see it from here, but there is a portcullis..that's right. 

This is a castle that is still used by the military. There are some offices that are run out of the castle. There is also a governor that lives in the castle too. I thought that was pretty cool. At the castle you can wander about and explore on your own, take a guided tour, or take an audio tour. The castle can take hours to explore. I went with Kayla and as we skipped a few things since we were on a schedule, we did the short version of the audio tour. One thing that I really enjoyed about the audio tour was that if you wanted to hear extended explanations of different areas and aspects of history that are related to the castle you key in the appropriate number and Viola! extra information. I listened to a few extra bits, but mostly I stuck to the original aspects of tour.












One spectacular part of the tours is being able to see the Scottish Crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny. They are kept in a low light room. I assume the low lighting is to preserve the fabrics as well as the draw attention the items through the use of focused, soft light. The effect is quite magical. While we were there one woman tried to take a picture. The guard actually stood over her while she deleted it from her camera. They take the no pictures policy very seriously for this.

Entrance into the oldest chapel...

The chapel

One of the stained glass windows. 

Great Hall. Was also used as the thone room at one time. 

Look at all the weapons lining the walls of the great hall. 

This building houses the national war memorial for Scotland. It is really amazing inside. No photos allowed,  really humbling to visit. 

Food in Edinburgh

Pretty much everything that I ate was good. No I didn’t try Haggis. I chickened out...why? I wasn’t feeling adventurous in the food area. Marthe took me a to nice a bar for drinks one night. It had a nice vibe to it. Since it was a Monday, it was not at all crowded. There is no shortage of places to eat there. My two favourites were definitely The Elephant House and Jacque’s Cafe.



The Elephant House has excellent soup and good sandwiches. They have a decent selection of things available, including some yummy-looking desserts that I managed to skip.

Panini from Jacque's Cafe.

 My other favourite is a greek cafe. There is an interesting variety of food available on their menu. I enjoyed a croissant panini with jarlsberg cheese and bacon. High in fat, and high in flavour: Excellent way to start a busy day of walking about an extremely hilly city.  I may have just enjoyed it so much since I had just come from the gym with Marthe. Since that was my first workout in months, I felt very tired and in need of food. That is a possible explanation fir my enjoyment, or it was just good food.

When I travel, I try to cut costs a bit by picking up some essential foodstuffs at a grocery store so that I’m not buying something at a cafe or restaurant everytime I want a nibble. This was really easy for me to do as there were two Sainsbury’s right near my botel.

Just a quick thought of something that I saw at the museum in Ediburgh....




I was in the early peoples area of the museum reading about Romans, and early peoples and beliefs and I came upon this sign:

I want to draw your attention to the mention of the phallus. This puts into my mind the question of the stone representation that I had seen earlier in the day on Arthur's Seat. I took a picture of it, because....why not? Now I'm wondering, was the person the made this representation trying to be immature? Ironic? or simply looking to guard against evil and encourage the fertility of those who climbed this area? I'll leave it for you to ponder. 

Arthur's Seat

Have stuff, or have this? 

To bring this back to what I started to say at the beginning...What is important in life. I think the experiences that we have are some of the most important things in life. Stuff can’t be taken with us. We all have far too much of it. I have much less stuff than I used to. Yet just last night I my mother reminded me that although I may not have a lot of stuff here in Yorkshire, I left a lot of stuff in Kitchener with her. This makes me wonder...what is all that stuff? Why do I have it all? Is it really important? Traveling to see new places, learn about new things and to get out in the world is something important in life. Having a job (and an amazingly supportive family) is a means to do this. I might not love my job right now, but I have decided this isn’t the end of the world and to try and make the best of it. One way will be to be more active. One thing that the last three days has really shown me is that having a body that can move (even if slightly injured) is a gift and one that should be taken full advantage. So go out there, hike up a mountain or an extremely large hill and breath in the fresh air. Live life.  

Living!