Touring the Highlands with mum

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh, Inverness & Loch Ness

Mum arrived safely and soundly, the events in London didn’t significantly alter her travels, although her flight from Germany to London contained a heap of journalists and photographers. Our week has been full of the typical touristy things, it’s been fantastic. Before we were able to do all our sightseeing, however, I had to show mum the hostel we’ve been staying in… Up the 77 steps we climbed, to inspect the bedrooms and hang out rooms. Mum didn’t seem tooooooo upset, it could have been worse! When mum arrived, I commented to her that it was tough luck that she didn’t arrive the week before, so she could see all the protesters and what not. Just after I said this to her, she called me to the window of our hotel room. Right outside, there were alot of people boo-ing, whilst firefighters were getting protesters down off a bridge. They had somehow climbed to the top of the bridge and rolled out a sign. Waiting on the ground, with handcuffs at the ready, were the police…

I took mum to see all my favourite hangouts, including Greyfriars Kirk. Interestingly, after visiting Greyfriars, mum discovered scratches all over her arm – we took a photo. Weird. Also went to Mary Kings Close, very interesting. It is a small street that was closed over and largely forgotten about in the 1700’s, so that the council chambers could be built over the top. The street and some of the buildings have been kept in their original condition. When we entered one of the rooms, our guide told us how, in the 1980’s, a Japanese film crew had come down with a psychic. The psychic felt such strong emotions in this particular room, at first she refused to enter. Eventually she did, and she felt the presence of a small girl, named Anne. She said that the reason the girl was so upset is because her family had left, and she had no-one to play with. The Japanese psychic sent one of her colleagues up to the street to buy a doll for the girl, and ever since then, people have been bringing her toys and money. After a time, the toys and money are donated to a local childrens charity.

Mary Kings Close - notice the prominent orbs

We hired a car for two days, which allowed us to get out of the city for a while and see the countryside. On the first day we went to Rosslyn Chapel, which was amazing. Built in 1446, Rosslyn Chapel is unique in that it conforms to neither architecture of the time, nor to any fashion of the time. Everything within the chapel is heavily carved, full of symbolism. Things like the carvings of maize from the New World that pre-date the discovery of America by Columbus by at least one hundred years. Rosslyn Chapel feautures in the book, ‘The Da Vinci Code’, as the place where the holy grail is supposedly buried. When we went, the chapel was in the middle of being restored, so there was scaffolding everywhere. Dissapointing, as it meant we couldn’t see the outside of the building well, but rewarding in that it meant we could climb up to the top and view the chapel from above.

The Apprentice Pillar, Rosslyn Chapel - Legend has it that the apprentice stonemason is entombed within his own peice of art

On our second day with the car we took a road trip. Leaving extremly early, Tash, Elysha, Mike, mum an I set off for the highlands. Our aim of the day was to visit Loch Ness, on the way there we stopped off at tea rooms, to get scones and tea, yum! Lunch at Inverness, then onto Loch Ness. We went through the ‘Loch Ness Discovery Centre’, which was a bit dissapointing, they spent most of their time convincing us that the Loch Ness Monster didn’t exist. Afterwards we set off to the loch, to find out for ourselves. I don’t believe them, there’s definetly something in the waters there, there has to be. The trip home took us through the highlands and past all the lochs. Really beautiful countryside, lots of sheep, cows and Pavlova’s (read: sheep dogs).

Tash, Mike, Elysha & I

Apart from our car travels, we’ve just spent the week discovering Edinburgh. We found the legendary Tesco’s – woohoo! Spent half a day at the castle, which was fun. Saw the dressing room where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James I. We also saw the Honours of Scotland, the oldest jewels in the U.K. Saw mum off yesterday, shes off to Thailand to meet Charlotte, they should have a blast. Going to be nice and warm over there… Today I went into an interesting store. It’s called ‘Argos’, you walk in and walk up to a set of catalogues. In the catalogue there is everything you could possibly want to buy – towels, iPods, cameras, sofas, board games, books, hair dryers etc etc. Once you find what you want, you punch the number into the little machine sitting in front of you, which tells you if the item is in stock. After deciding what you want, you go to the front of the store, tell the staff and they give you a receipt. They then fill the order and bring it back to you in about 10 minutes. Amazing! A store that has completely taken away the idea of browsing through stock. It seems to work, it was really busy today.

Mike and Shannon browsing through the catalogues at Argos

Anyway, thats enough ramblings about weird shops… love to all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH!!!

xoxo bobs

Riots in Edinburgh & Bombs in London

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh

It’s been an interesting week in Edinburgh, I’ve participated in my first big protest (the one that was on Saturday, see the previous post…) and I’ve watched a number of more violent protests – or riots if you will. On Monday, anarchists turned the city into mayhem, causing police to come out in their hundreds. The riot police were particularily worrying – they came out with their sheilds and batons, forming a line to block off protesters. We were blocked in the Princes Street Gardens for several hours, whilst police tried to defuse the situation. Some of the more interesting protesters included a giant bunny rabbit who tried to feed the police horses carrots (I talked to him for a while, ashamed to admit he was Australian), a completely naked guy running around, many many clowns and a heap of anarchists with black bandanas over their mouths and noses. The protesters with their faces covered were by far the scariest, not something you expect to experience, being surrounded by black-bandana’d protesters. The police dogs were impressive, very scary looking. I didn’t see them actually being used, they were just brought out and all the protesters backed off immediently. They had a pretty terrifying bark… Not too many injuries, it was reported that there were 21 people admitted to hospital, and 90 people arrested. Since then there have been several protests, a couple more on Monday, some on Wednesday. Of course I’ve been down there in the middle of it all, with a couple of others from the hostel.

Posing in front of the police

This past week, Tash, Elysha, Mike and I also went on a ghost tour. Very exciting, we were lead down to the underground vaults by our guide. Apparently Edinburgh is full of these underground vaults, in the good days they were used as wine cellers and cobblers basements. Soon after using them as storage rooms, it was discovered that, 3 days after raining in Princes Street, the rain would seep through to the vaults. Consequently, they were used as housing for the poor, as many as 15 families would cram into a room. The vaults that we saw were owned by the tour company, there are many more that have been turned into basements, nightclubs, music rehersal areas and bars. Our guide walked us through the vaults, explaining ‘spirits’ that they know to lurk in the particular rooms. After the vaults we concluded the tour at midnight, in the Cannongate Graveyard. I didn’t get any ‘ghostie’ pictures, but did get some photos that have ‘orbs’ in them. Who knows?

Telling spooky stories at Cannongate Graveyard

Wow, just got woken up this morning to a text message from Laura, saying that bombs had gone off in London and she was just checking that I was ok. I started to write back, saying that she was wrong, nothing had happened or I’d know, when Ryan came racing into our room, yelling at us to get up and come watch the news – 6 bombs have gone off in central London. Since then another bomb has gone off, all have involved the transport system – busses, tubes and stations. Kind of scary. We’re not sure if it’s to do with the Olympics (London has just been named the winner of the 2012 Olympics) or G8, or even something else. A good number of London Police are up in Edinburgh dealing with the G8, I’ve just heard that they’ve headed back to London to help out. I’m still crossing my fingers and hoping that mum will still get through – she has to fly through Heathrow to get here today, not sure how the airports will be affected. We’ve had two bomb scares in Edinburgh since the attacks – one on a bus, where the police did a ‘controlled explosion’, and another suspicious package around the corner from the hostel. Both were reported as just suspicious packages and nothing more, so we should be fine.
Take care everyone xo Bobs

Howing into the haggis

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh

Back in Europe once again, enjoying the life of the traveling backpacker. Well, not quite, as we have now settled down in Edinburgh to organise some funds until we head over to Europe to travel our last stint. We’re staying in a hostel in the central part of Edinburgh, the hostel is confusing to say the least. It’s just like one of those cruel mazes your parents take you to when you’re a kid, just so they can sit on a terrace above drinking coffee and laughing when you can’t find your way out… Every time I try to find my room (I’m in room ‘E’, bed ‘E=mc squared’, all the rooms have letters and beds have names to match, my first night I was in room ‘J’, bed ‘Joker’), I end up in another part of the hostel, if you’re not careful I’m sure that you could end up in another country altogether. Luckily, the doors back to reception are marked, and I always take a stash of breadcrumbs, so I don’t get lost that much anymore… Once again we’re in a predominantly male room – at least the door doesn’t say ‘MEN’ on the door this time. Tash was here all on her own, but now that I’m here, we’re starting to take over… The guys seemed quite horrified when they came in the other night to find us sitting in the middle of the room with another chick, sorting out my clothing, figuring out what to wear and other general girly stuff. I keep teasing them that I’m going to start putting posters of half naked men on the walls… We’ll see…

Edinburgh is a gorgeous city, everywhere you look there are old buildings, from wherever you are you can see the castle on the hill. I watched Harry Potter the other day, then went for a walk in the Scottish mist… It’s easy to imagine Harry Potter and all his friends lurking around every corner. Waking up after a night of heavy partying to the sound of bagpipes is an experience I never expected and will never forget. Walking along Princes Street, its not uncommon to see a man decked out in the kilt and all, standing on the side of the road playing his pipes. Even better is the guys my age wandering around the clubs in their kilts after a formal event, puts a completely different spin on things.

I went for a day trip to Glasgow the other day, didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy Edinburgh. From what I saw, Glasgow seems to be a more industrial town, without as many interesting buildings. At least, not in the middle of the town. Wandered along the main shopping drag for a while, the highlight of the day was going into a pub to get haggis, mmm yum. Nah, not really, it was an interesting dish, kind of like mince meat with more spices, and bit of a ‘bloody’ taste. It was ok, not my most favourite though. Still waiting to find a traditional fish ‘n chips shop, YUM!

As Tash already has a job, and I’m not all that keen to actually look for one, I’ve spent a lot of my time just wandering around the streets of Edinburgh, exploring on my own. I’ve been to Greyfriars Kirkyard a couple of times, I keep getting drawn back, its a really ‘nice’ graveyard, if that can be called a fitting word for a cemetery. If you’ve read my previous post, you’d know about our ‘supernatural’ encounter in the cemetery, it was really weird. We took the photos, and didn’t really look at them. A couple of days later, when I was uploading them onto the computer, I noticed the blue streak. I pulled out the camera and lo and behold, it was on the camera as well. The kirkyard is probably most famous for ‘Greyfriars Bobby’, the little Skye terrier that supposedly sat by his dead master for 14 years. He is commemorated by a statue out the front of the kirk, said to be the most photographed statue in all of the United Kingdom. Despite all the ghosty activity that is known to happen around the cemetery, many people visit and just sit around, reading books or having picnics.

Statue of Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh, Scotland

Will be visiting the castle sometime soon, also planning on taking some more day trips around the area, I just have to motivate myself enough to get out of the hostel – its oh so cold outside! Hope everyone did well with exams, and are getting ready to party!

xoxo Bobs

Ghosts in Greyfriars Kirk…

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh ~ Greyfriars Kirkyard

We went to Greyfriars Cemetery the other day, ‘one of the most haunted places on this earth’, and took some photos…

Tomb of Mrs J A MacDowall & W L Gilmour, Edinburgh, Scotland

Check out the blue line in the bottom lefthand corner – I didn’t put that there, it just appeared. Yesterday we went to the information center, and found this info on blue ‘orbs’ that often appear in the castle… who knows???

Outlining some of the supernatural events that are thought to have taken place at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland