since i am a terrible blogger, this little entry might just go on for miles. i advise you to use my preferred method of reading - skimming and paying attention to the bold words. gets the job done, right?
let's start with saturday morning. grace and i left for our day in the wicklow mountains, where we got to hike around glendalough and see the ruins of the monastic settlement started by st. kevin. it was absolutely stunning. i thought i had seen some pretty places before - growing up with tahoe right next door, traveling to park city in the winter, going to family reunions in the smoky mountains and in san diego, and working in montreat this summer. i've been so fortunate to see all of these great places so often, but i really do take it for granted most of the time. lesson learned, because glendalough just took my breath away. it's only about an hour south of dublin, but it feels so different. the name literally means 'the glen of two lakes', and sure enough, there are two lakes. creative names too - the upper lake and the lower lake. the upper lake is MASSIVE and surrounded by some equally impressive mountains. we started our hike on one of the penance roads - looong, gravel roads the monks had to walk if they had been naughty. however, i think that kind of goes against monkish nature... hmm. we turned and headed up a not-so-easy trail to reach the top of the mountain. it reminded me a lot of the movies ella enchanted or ever after; kind of medieval, and very forresty and green. we reached the top very winded and followed our guide back down. oh also, the whole time we were being smacked with a heavy mist/rain. not the nicest day i've seen, but no matter. when we reached the bottom, we were literally standing on the edge of the lake. we made our way around the lake on this itty bitty trail, took some pics on the beach, then headed up to see kevin's cell and a pretty little waterfall. let's talk about kevin for a second. homie lived in a cave he carved into the side of the mountain and meditated a whole lot. not much of a people person. we toured around the cemetery, the ruins of the old cathedral, and learned about the round tower. this place is SO old - it's just amazing to me how it's still standing in such good condition after all these years. the cemetary was awesome, too. normally they really creep me out but i could appreciate this one, mainly because of all the pretty celtic crosses. overall, an AWESOME experience in little glendalough and something i'm very thankful i got to do! take a looksie at my pitchas --
after we got back from glendalough, it was literary pub crawl time. we got to the duke and met our guides upstairs. they were two professional actors who knew loads about joyce, wilde, beckett, yeats, and other people who i've never actually heard of. personally, joyce fascinates me, yeats is a genius, and beckett is too strange for me to even begin to comprehend. nonetheless, all important people! our guides performed little scenes and told us short histories of each writer. we hit up four different pubs - the duke (loved it - lotsa character and pizazz), o'neill's, davy byrnes, and another whose name i forget. at the end, kathleen won a t-shirt for being a pop culture genius! very exciting.
and now, it's edinburgh time!! ohmyGOSH - one of my favorite cities on the planet!! first of all, it's pronounced 'edinburra.' if you say 'burgh', people really judge you. noted. we arrived latelate thursday night, and went right to our b&b. let me tell you, b&b's are totally the way to go! we stayed at this little place called the valentine guest house and it was so great. martha, grace and i had our own room with three little beds, complete with scottish flag bedding. makes the claddagh hostel look like a halfway house. we had a great free breakfast every morning and the people were super nice. oh don't worry, i was served a full scottish breakfast the first morning, complete with haggis and black pudding. didn't get near that nasty biz. grace and i did have a bit of a sausage situation though... we thought we were biting into a perfectly good breakfast sausage, ya know, ihop style. FALSE. we literally had a piece of meaty mush into our mouths and almost caused a major scene trying to swallow it. i now understand why those people on fear factor make such strange noises while trying to swallow the terrible things they had to eat. needless to say, sausage might forever be on the blacklist for us.
on friday, we hit the town hard. before we went to the castle, we did a little shopping on the royal mile. hello cashmere and tartan. i bought a blanket (i know what you're thinking - a blanket, really, kendra? really. i needed to bring back some authentic scotland with me, and i'm certainly not wearing a kilt.) i also bought a cashmere scarf, and a set of mini bagpipes in the tartan belonging to the farquharson clan. it was the coolest name i could find. after our little shopping adventure, we went into the tartan mill at the bottom of the castle. it. was. AWESOME. we watched the fabric being made, and saw the walls and walls of the bajillion kinds of tartans. very neat. then we made it to the castle - it's really like it's own village, but it looks so majestic on top of that hill. we toured around, took pictures on top of cannons (for you, momma - 11 years later!), and went into some of the exhibits. next, we meandered down the royal mile, aka high street, and saw my husband, adam the bravehart. adam dresses up in full scottish gear, large furry boots included, and hangs out at the bottom of the castle. he's hilarious and very chatty, and has some large swords you get to hold when you take a picture with him. oh and fun fact, his bum is all over scotland. he lives off royalties from this very famous postcard pictured below:
yep, that's adam's bootay. and he proved it to us. it's a very detailed tattoo. after adam and his bum, we visited st. giles church, the mercat cross, and loads of other famous sites. next, we went to one of my favorite places, the elephant house. it's where jk rowling wrote harry potter! we stopped in for a bit, and it really has an awesome view of the castle. hogwarts wouldn't be hard to imagine after looking at that all day! after that, we went to the national gallery. kind of a let down since the top floor was randomly closed for the day, so we didn't get to see any of the good stuff including degas, da vinci, and monet. sad. we checked out the walter scott monument, and then went to a great italian dinner with some of grace's family friends. that night, we went on a ghost tour around the old town. i was scared outta my mind before it started, but thankfully it wasn't that scary! we heard some great stories, and went down into these vaults, which are supposedly the "most haunted area in all of britain". not gonna lie, i believe in ghosties. thankfully i didn't see anything creepy down there, otherwise i would have probably had a heart attack.
on saturday, we woke up and could hardly move. edinburgh is not a flat city in the least, and our little leggies were feeling it! we explored the shops in grassmarket, and found the most miraculous bookstore EVER. don't worry about it, i bought a copy of emma by jane austen, my most favorite book, that's from 1872. ohmygod, i almost had a heart attack. after, we walked down the other end of the royal mile to the holyrood house, the royal palace of scotland. it's a working palace, so a bunch of official royal stuff goes down all the time. some of the rooms are ridiculously extravagant, but it was all so awesome to see. got to walk through mary queen of scots bedroom, and see the dining room where queen elizabeth actually eats dinner and hangs out. gosh, i want to meet her! thankfully it was a beautiful day (unlike friday - GROSS), and we got to spend a bunch of time outside on the grounds. the palace sits right below arthur's seat, which we were gonna hike it but it is no small endeavor. after, we stumbled onto some strange parade going across the bridge, i think it was celebrating women's rights? but it literally just came out of no where. so we followed it across and got to listen to the accordion band. pretty rockin'. later on, we went on a pub crawl (they love those in area of the world), but grace and i just followed the tour and hung out. call us cheap, but 10 pounds wasn't worth it. ps, the old town is 1000x better than the new town. just throwing that out there.
sunday was st. andrews day! we took the train along the coast and got in that afternoon. it's only an hour away, so it's a perfect day trip. it was a really pretty ride, too! we walked around the ruins of the cathedral on the harbor, and saw the ruins of the castle, and then made it to the big bad golf course. it was gorgeous, and the six courses are probably bigger than the size of the entire town. it's definitely pretty snooty but that's expected. very glad i saw it though! we took the train back a couple hours later, and then hopped on our flight back home! gosh, i just loved it so much. i had to keep telling myself that it was colder and more expensive than dublin so i wouldn't feel so sad leaving! edinburgh - i'm coming back asap, baby.
