Visiting Hogwarts, Emoting to A Piper and Fusion Haggis

I have just three more days left in Scotland, and I'm starting to have to make some tough choices about what I can and can't do in my last few days. For example I was going to try to go to Rowallan Castle, the ancestral home of the Moore family (maternal grandfather's side), but decided not to so I could save a little bit of money and time and also get to Edinburgh before dark on Thursday.

Wednesday got started off as all my mornings here have so far - by getting up before 5:30. I re-packed my bag, made sure I had all my chargers and that the bunny hadn't eaten any important documents. Then ate as much of my grocery food as I could for breakfast (not wanting to pack it with me later) and left with Markee at about 9:00.

Markee works at the University of Glasgow in one of the bookshops in one of the newer buildings. From a distance I could see the tower spire in true Gothic style and as we got closer, more and more of the campus was revealed. The main plaza is two lawns surrounded by the main building, connected by a colonnade between them.

The architecture was lovely, and looking the part by default, I let myself into several of the buildings to poke around.  Students had to navigate around me on the stairwells while I stopped to take pictures out stained glass windows. I'm glad I don't go to school there, I would never get anything done. Markee said it was difficult for her trying to take a final in a room that looked like the Great Hall from Harry Potter. Very distracting!

I hadn't slept well the night before and found my usual stores of energy waning before even midday. I was tired but worried about missing something like this:

The University of Glasgow is home to the Hunterian Museum. Most of the exhibits are the collection of a physician/ anatomist from Glasgow who had a lot of money and connections because his collection was extremely extensive. And if it was collected today in a private residence, probably would be illegal.  

There were specimens in there ranging from extremely rare minerals and fossils to entire dinosaur skeletons, to stuffed endangered/extinct animals, and to top it all off, a mummy, sarcophagus included. The top floor also had some instruments from Lord Kelvin's lab, but also some pickled body parts that made me a bit queasy. 

That's a dinosaur in the middle there.

I left the University around 11:30, and took the shortcut Markee had showed me to the Botanical Gardens. They were pretty standard gardens, though extensive in their climate areas. And it was nice to be somewhere that felt like the tropics for a little while.

Back at the apartment I finished packing my things, did my dishes and tidied up the room I had been sleeping in, then wandered around for a little while unsure of my next move. I realized I was stalling when I caught myself trying to perfectly fold my unused sheets and pillowcase. I was excited to go to Edinburgh for sure, and I had really seen Glasgow, as much as you can in three days. But I didn't want to leave this place where Markee and Carrie had made me feel so at home. I had people there who did care about me, someone I could call if there was an emergency and was a wealth of knowledge should I have any questions about where to shop, eat or what neighborhoods to avoid. Also, a cat that truthfully loved me only on the condition that I let her sleep on my chest. Leaving Glasgow meant I was really on my own.

After a short pep talk that I'll spare you the details of I petted the cats goodbye and left the flat for Queen Street Station. 

I emerged from the subway with a crowd of busy Glaswegians and was walking toward the train station when a high pitched tune wafted over cacophony of traffic to my ears. I stopped dead, causing a woman in a suit run into my giant turtle backpack. I turned around, and headed in the other direction without a second thought, following the sound.

Believe me, I have been made fun of for this and yes I guess it's weird or whatever. Naysayers think it's because I want to be "real" Scottish so badly I'll hang onto any cliche I can and even attempt to make myself love the unlovable but listen to me when I say this because I am very serious right now.

I. LOVE. BAGPIPES.

I just do. I like the big marching bands with their pomp and circumstance, I like the lone piper playing long, sad melodies, but in particular I like the smaller bands, with several drums pushing a quick rhythm and a piper adding melody-and that's what I was hearing coming from Buchanan street.

Sorry it's shaky. I kept getting run into.

These guys made awesome music, and besides that they look freaking cool! I stood and listened to them for a few minutes or as long as my bag would allow me to. And to my surprise as well I'm sure to the people around me I started getting misty eyed. I was thinking about my family going to the Highland Games every year and how we always go to the massing of the bands and I get upset every year when they release a hundred balloons at the end of it. And then mom calms me down by reminding me that they are bio-degradable and dad just smiles away but always gets too hot in his kilt and wool socks. Dad and I eat Cornish Pies from a stand and then we all go watch the games together. 

There, surrounded by masses of shopping Glaswegians, laden down by fifty pounds of gear and running on about five hours of sleep I had my first real pang of homesickness and yes friends - I did start crying in the middle of Buchanan street. 

I didn't want to just sit down to get tissues out of my bag, and also I was (unsuccessfully) trying to pretend I wasn't crying in pubic. It was only when I remembered my friends April and Peter's voices from a conversation we had a few weeks ago that was I able to compose myself. 

"Have you ever just started crying on the bus?"

"Yes!"

"But not like, serene, eye dabbing crying. But full face, mascara running, bawling in a public place with people awkwardly looking away because they are on a bus and can't escape."

"Ugly crying, yep, I've done it."

"No shame girl, no shame, you gotta cry? Just cry."

"Preach."

Remembering this exchange made me laugh, so then I was the crazy laughing/crying/giant backpack girl taking up too much room on Buchanan street while the musicians played away. I wiped my eyes, abandoning all pretense that I hadn't been sobbing, stopped crying and headed for the train station.

Waverly Train Station in Edinburgh is the biggest mess I have ever had the misfortune to travel into. With the multiple levels, constant construction and re-routes it took me over ten minutes just to find the escalator out of the dang place. But on the other side of the escalator Edinburgh was waiting. 

The city is similar to Glasgow in that it's mostly made the same light brown/yellow stone with some turning grey or black. But here I guess the buildings are washed more often, or the constant wind blows away pollution because the buildings, though worn look very clean. The train station opens up to the dramatic scene that is Princes street. As far as I can tell Edinburgh doesn't have a subway so all the public transportation is caught up in double-decker buses and it seems like all of them go down Princes street. Edinburgh is hillier than Glasgow, so various important sites seem to rise out of the city with an exclamation point on top. Like the Castle and Calton hill. Because off the terrain one can stand in one spot and see multiple levels and layers of the city at once and that texture is very beautiful.

Edinburgh feels bigger than Glasgow, I think maybe because you can see more of it at once because of the hills and also because it's built on a bigger scale. Almost every building is at least three stories high and they are row style so the streets feel like they go on forever. 

I stopped at a visitor info booth, grabbed a map, directions and after two wrong stops found the right bus to my hotel.

My hotel is lovely. Small, and simple, my room is about the size of a large walk-in closet, but really, that's all I need. It's less space to lose stuff in and completely comfortable for one person. Even having a visitor would be a little crampt, but for one- it's perfect.

I bussed out to meet a professor of mine and his family for dinner at a close-by village. We went to a very nice little restaurant with all kinds of delicious looking things on the menu. But I saw haggis, and hey. I'm in Scotland. 

It came as part of my appetizer and to be honest it wasn't exactly traditional haggis. It was a haggis....spring roll. All the ingredients of traditional haggis were there but in a delicious crunchy pastry. And it was very, very good, the meat inside was flavorful and creamy textured, not what I was expecting but I went with it. And yes, it does count as real haggis, I asked all the Scots at the table before I ordered and they agreed. 

That one is checked off the bucket list.