I hadn't really thought about Scotland before I came to England. I can trace part of my ancestry up that way, but I saw no real reason to go beyond mere familial fascination. But in mid-April, Scotland and Edinburgh were all that I could think about. My trip to Rome had to be canceled for reasons that are too bureaucratically infuriating to go into, and because of it I was left with a free week and money that I had set aside for travel. Well, what else was I supposed to do?
But what does one do in Scotland? I was talking with my flatmate Hannah before the Easter Break started. Hannah didn't know, she'd never been. "It's so far up there," she said. Because they live on an island, the British have their own sense of what is "far." To me, "far" is somewhere that takes more than a day's drive. For example, Dothan, Alabama is what I would term "very far" as to get there involves a 36 hour drive where although it's not necessary to feel victimized and plotted against by your family members, it certainly helps.
So here are the facts, from Redlands to Roseville, a nine hour drive that my family makes about three or four times a year, it's 465 miles (or 748 km, for you Canadians.) To me, this is not far. From Norwich to Edinburgh, it's 376 miles (604 km.) Conclusion, Edinburgh is not "far." (Just for reference, from Redlands to Dothan it is 2147 miles, 566 feet, and three arguments about your fitness to operate a motor vehicle. I don't know what that is in Metric.)
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, but you wouldn't really be able to tell. It's not a major metropolis, it reminded me more of Bath but bigger, or maybe San Francisco but smaller. I've never been anywhere quite like it. The most metropolitan thing there is the Scottish Parliament, which most of the Scottish view as a blight on the city (it really is though... it looks like some sort of Chinese knock-off of Frank Gehry.)
But again, what does one do in Scotland? Even as I got off the train, I still wasn't exactly sure. I had a few ideas, the castle, the National Gallery. I was only there for two and a half days, so I didn't have to fill up a huge amount of time, but I was afraid of having too much time and not enough things to do. I dropped my stuff off at the hostel and made my way to a free walking tour I'd found online (the "New Europe" Walking Tour, it was excellent, in case they wanted to sponsor my blog,) and I realized that Edinburgh was full of things to do.
Did you know that the Scottish Crown Jewels are older than the English ones? That's because the Scottish had the good sense to hide them when Oliver Cromwell was in power and destroying royal paraphernalia left, right, and center. Or that every day at one in the afternoon, a cannon is fired to tell everyone it's one in the afternoon (we were told that it's one and not noon because the Scottish are a stingy people and why waste twelve shots when one will do just as well?) OR that in medieval Edinburgh, at ten o'clock every night, a rousing cry of "gardyloo" would go around the city and people would throw the contents of their chamber pots into the streets (which was also the time all the drunks would be coming home from the pubs.) What a fascinating city!
Another thing about Edinburgh, it's basically Harry Potter Land (and not just because they all sound like Hagrid.) JK Rowling wrote the first one in a cafe there. She (may have) got the inspiration for Hogwarts from a school that was visible from the table she wrote at in the cafe AND she took character names from an adjacent graveyard!
That poor man has now had his name conflated with one of the most evil characters in literary history. We should all be so lucky.
Sitting in The Elephant House, I tucked into my beef pie and mash and looked at "the table." The place where she sat down day after day, only ordering a single cup of coffee because it was all she could afford, and pounding out her book. The amount of faith she had to have to do something like that must have been monumental. The thought that even when it wasn't coming out right or she was ready to give up and get a paying job, she just kept going and writing, and rewriting, and revising, and she knew that if she just kept at it, she would come out of it with something she was proud of. It was inspiring.
And so I'm trying to be more faithful in my own writing. I've started getting up every day and writing for two hours, and even if I don't like what I write, even if I think to myself that I should just give up now and become a proper English major, that's where the real money is, I won't. I'll power through. At least I hope I will. I have faith I will. I'll think of JK Rowling in the cafe and I'll keep on writing. And that's my souvenir from Edinburgh.
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