The Black Lung Fulfills her Destiny! Part 3: Scotland and the most delicious dessert in the world.

Unless otherwise noted, all photo credits go to Niki Erickson, an awesome photographer, a fantastic friend, and a really top notch traveling companion. Thanks, Niki!

Previously on The Black Lung...We arrived in Edinburgh at about 10:00 at night. The best thing about our hotel-the super cute porter who carried our bags up 3 flights of stairs for us, practically at a run. He was so strong! We joked with him that he should come on the rest of our trip to carry our luggage, but we have no idea what he said back, because he had an awesome accent that was totally incomprehensible. The worst thing was that when we got there, it was really late, and everything was closed, but we were super hungry. The lady at the desk suggested that we walk down the street to a fantastic chips shop to get fish and chips. Now, it's well known that I do not enjoy fish, but I figured, when in Scotland, right? So we went, and I got fish and chips. And let me tell you, it was not delicious. It was really gross, and it made me sad. Niki got fish and chips a few other times while were were on vacation, and she assures me that the ones we got in Edinburgh were terrible. So either the desk lady has bad taste, or she's a liar.

We spent the next day in Edinburgh. What a fantastic city. It was by far my favorite city that we visited on our trip. We were only there for one day, but we could have spent a lot longer and still had a super awesome time. First we saw the changing of the guard at the Palace at Holyroodhouse, the queen's official home in Scotland. I want an official home in Scotland. It was actually much cooler seeing the guard change at Holyrood than at Buckingham. First of all, there were a lot fewer people, so we could actually see what was going on. Second, bagpipes! Pipes and drums are much cooler than a regular marching band.

Bagpipes forevah!!!

Then we walked up the Royal Mile, which is very historical and interesting, but for tourists mostly consists of SHOPPING. You guys are super lucky that I didn't buy a set of bagpipes, because then I would have tried to learn how to play them, and it would have been ugly. My favorite purchase on the Royal Mile was a tiny little kilt and sporran for my baby nephew Bryce, who was born about 3 days into our vacation. It's so cute! And he looked super adorbs when he wore it to his baby blessing at church. Anywho, the Royal Mile goes between Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle, and there's a lot of other really cool stuff along the way and nearby. We went to Calton Hill, which is a park at the top of this giant hill. You can see practically the whole city from the top, plus the Firth of Forth, which is always cool. And there are monuments everywhere.We also spent some time at Old Calton Cemetery at the bottom of the hill. There's a statue of Abraham Lincoln! Seriously though, I loved the cemeteries in Scotland. Very old, beautiful, and creepy.

Calton Hill and gorse! I loved these pretty yellow bushes, but actual Scottish people assure me that they're a weed, they're everywhere, and they're impossible to kill.

 

Monument to Scottish soldiers who fought against Napoleon on Calton Hill. They never finished it because they ran out of $. 

Bryce in his kilt and sporran. Obviously taken after vacation by my dad.

 

The Royal Mile in the evening. In the morning it was full of people.

 

Scotland-The Land of Lincoln! Oh wait.

Finally we made it to Edinburgh Castle, which is so awesome. It's at the top of another giant hill called Castle Rock, which is great for defense, and also great for the view. The castle is still used as a military base, so legit British soldiers live there. You can also see the Scottish Crown Jewels (less gaudy than the English ones) and the Stone of Destiny. Basically it looks like a rock, but it has the best name ever, and British monarchs always have it under their thrones during coronations. There are several museums and the Scottish National War Memorial, as well as St. Margaret's Chapel, which was built in the 12th century. They still have weddings there sometimes, and they had one on the day we were there. My favorite thing that we saw at the castle was a demonstration of how to wear a traditional kilt. The guy who showed us was super funny, and he told us lots of cool things about Scottish warriors.

In front of Edinburgh Castle. I do not know what was up with my hair that day.

 

With Mons Meg, the giant historical cannon.

 

Not joking, he was there with the people getting married.

 

After we left the Castle, we went on a tour of the Real Mary King's Close. Basically, Edinburgh has 7 really big hills, but you can only see two of them, Calton Hill and Castle Rock. The rest of them are basically invisible because of the way that the city has been built. There are bridges everywhere that don't look like bridges until you randomly notice that there's another street running underneath your feet. There's this whole underground city that has been built up over the years. The closes were along the Royal Mile, and they're really skinny, steep little streets that had very tall buildings built up along them. The buildings would be maybe 6 to 8 stories tall at the top of the hill and 12 to 14 stories high at the bottom of the hill. Rich and poor people would live in the same streets, with poor people have the lowest underground levels and the highest rickety levels and rich people in the nicer levels in the middle. At some point, the government decided to build some city buildings in the area, so they cut the top layers off and built over them, leaving the underground rooms and many of the streets. It's hard to describe but really interesting. Apparently, Mary King's Close, which we toured, was hit particularly hard by the Black Plague. Luckily for me, that meant that the tour guide scared the pants off me with a rubber rat when she was telling us about Plague doctors. Truly, I screamed and everyone laughed at me. Good times.

View from one of the bridges in Edinburgh. Seriously, it just seems like you're on a normal street until this pops up.

The sight of the last public execution in Edinburgh on the Royal Mile.

 

Edinburgh after a rain storm.

The last place we went in Edinburgh was Greyfriars Kirk and the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, a little dog who spent 14 years at the grave of his dead owner until he himself died. The graveyard at Greyfriars Kirk is awesome! It's even creepier than Old Calton Cemetery. According to a book we read, The Town Below Ground: Edinburgh's Legendary Underground City by Jan-Andrew Henderson, even though there are only a few hundred headstones in the kirkyard, there are maybe 100,000 to 250,000 people actually buried there. Shocking, eh?

 Aw. He's so cute and loyal.

This should give you a pretty good indication of how creepy Greyfriars Kirkyard really is.

 

The next day, we went to Loch Ness! It is so huge! I never really understood how big it was before. It's 23 miles long and 755 feet deep at it's deepest point. No wonder we can't prove conclusively if Nessie exists or not. We didn't see her (sad face), but we enjoyed seeing the beautiful Loch. We also went through Urquhart Castle, which used to be an important defensive position on the Loch. The inhabitants destroyed it themselves in 1692 so the Jacobites couldn't use it, so it's in ruins now. After we left Loch Ness, we went to Eilean Donan on Loch Duich. It's on an island near the shore, so you have to walk over a bridge to get to it. The castle was destroyed in the 1700s but rebuilt in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, when we were there they were renovating the back of the castle, so it wasn't as cool looking as it normally would be.

Urquhart Castle and a tiny part of Loch Ness.

 

The trebuchet! I'm pretty sure it's blocking a really primo view of Nessie.

My shadow, standing on the drawbridge into Urquhart Castle. I totes took this picture, you guys.

  

Eilean Donan. You can kind of see the scaffolding on the back. Also, the people who worked there would not let me use the bathroom. I was bitter about it.

 

While driving near Loch Ness, we saw a sign that said, "Caution! Feral goats, two miles." Then we saw some goats.

 

That night, we drove to the Isle of Skye. Beautiful. We stayed at this fantastic bed and breakfast called Hallaig Guest House in the middle of nowhere (a lot more sheep than people). This bed and breakfast was the first place that I had the most delicious dessert in the world: Sticky Toffee Pudding. *Choirs of Angels* Sticky Toffee Pudding is a really moist cake made with dates and brown sugar and topped with warm toffee sauce. I'm not kidding when I say that it was life changing. I had it 3 times while I was on vacation. The first time was most delicious, but it was always awesome. I actually made it myself when I came home. It wasn't the same, but I learned from the experience, so next time it will be better. I'm sure of it. We also loved the bed and breakfast because of the super comfortable beds. Not just the most comfy of the vacation either. I think they might have been the most comfortable beds in the world.

Highland cow! The best part of the Scottish Highlands.

 View from Hallaig House.

The next day we drove around the Isle of Skye. Skye is not highly populated, so it's definitely a "looking at nature" sort of place. Pictures don't do it justice. Everything was so beautiful it was almost otherworldly. One place that we went was the Fairy Pools. It was a bit of a hike, but definitely worth the extra work. Super beautiful. We did go to the Isle of Sky Life museum, which showed how people lived up until the 1950s. It was very interesting, and Niki almost knocked herself unconscious when she didn't duck going through a low doorway.

The coast in Skye.

 

More of the coast.

 

The beach near Hallaig house. Notice all the sheep! What you can't tell is how cold it was.

 

Driving to the Fairy Pools.

 

 The Fairy Pools! I was pretty obsessed with these mountains, too.

After we left Skye :( we drove down to our next hotel near Glasgow. And guess what, our hotel was totally a castle! We stayed in the Castle Levan in the converted guardroom near the dungeon. It's a pretty awesome/weird castle, because it's in a normal neighborhood surrounded by normal houses. The people who own the castle are from former Czechoslovakia, and they were really nice. Supposedly the castle is haunted by the white lady, who was really cruel to the peasants. So her husband shut her in the dungeon until she starved to death. Luckily, we didn't find this out until we were leaving the next day! The only bad thing about staying there was that our hosts had some (non-paying) house guests, and one of them was a smoker. The Black Lung practically got real black lung from it. Gross. Once we figured out how to open the tiny guardroom windows, things were a lot better.

The castle was our last stop in Scotland. It really was a dream come true for me. My entire life I've wished to go to Scotland. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say, "Scottish!" I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint. Next time I go, I want to stay at least twice as long.

Fortunately for us, when we left Scotland, we still had more than a week left of our vacation. Next stop: Northern Ireland.

To Be Continued...