Honeymoon Roundup - Edinburgh

A wedding generally marks the beginning of two people (and their families) becoming one family. It only seemed right, then, that our honeymoon become a search for our own roots, across seven timezones, two climates, and fifteen days. Since being home for a night, I'm still not sure if I should be awake or asleep, hot or cold. We walked the rolling mossy mountains of Scotland and the steep rocky pitches of Greece, gazed into lochs and seas, found family, and generally ate ourselves silly. Aside from being an incredibly wonderful, rich trip, I think we came away knowing more about ourselves and each other.


Edinburgh

We flew into this stony city, dropped our bags, and hit the streets. We had one day to see as much as we could, but since the cities were not our main focus of the trip, we felt satisfied with our own walking tour of Old Town ("What do you think that is?" "I don't know. Let's take a picture of it."). We began by bolstering ourselves against the drizzle with a bit of lunch at End of the World tavern. When I say "a bit of lunch," I mean an hour conversation with the bartender and a traveling Irishwoman at the bar and the biggest fish and chips I had seen, its ends sticking out off the plate. Irish Joan informed Alex on the proper way to drink a Guinness (when the carbonation turned from light to dark just under the head) and whiskey (with no more or less than 5 drops of water). We talked politics and travel and food until it was time for our table and we had been initiated into the world of friendly strangers that would continue throughout our trip.


St. Giles ("Jiles") was next on the list, with its soaring archways and apexes. I'm a sucker for a good cathedral, and this one did not disappoint. While I didn't spend my time researching the history of the structure, I did pay my £2 for a sticker allowing me to photograph inside to my heart's content. The light was soft and glowy, and it had that hushed atmosphere of so many religious spaces that made me feel contemplative and peaceful.

 

Though it was July, it was unseasonably cold, even for Scotland. Our carefully-planned thin layers weren't doing the trick, and thoughts of our upcoming time on the windy islands made us nervous. As the man in the wool sweater shop said, "Ah, God, it'll be fecking freezing there." Perhaps this was a sales tactic, but they were half off and we needed good souvenirs, and they did authentically smell like sheep, so we both got nice, chunky, Arran sweaters. These would prove indispensable, which you can tell simply by looking at our outfits throughout the trip. We soon found ourselves at the changing of the guard at Edinburgh Castle, caught completely by accident and just before they closed for the day. For fun, here are side-by-side comparisons of changing of the guard ceremonies in Scotland and Greece:

We continued our trek around the city, passing by many pastel-adorned ladies in fancy hats that looked like they were spun from cotton candy on the arms of kilt-bedecked men. After a bit of questioning, we found out that there was a garden party that day at Holyrood Palace. Due to this, it was closed to visitors, so we found ourselves wandering around the outside of its impressive gates, peeking in like the surfs we are. There were a fair amount of official-looking people helping to disperse traffic and keep things proper, so I asked a clump of men in yellow vests if it was ok to walk down one of the bordering alley ways that had a cone in front of it. "Sure," he said pleasantly. "You might get shot, though," he added. Such is the ever-present Scottish wit.

Keeping out the riffraff 

Aforementioned alleyway

We nosed into apartment courtyards, admired raindrop-bejeweled roses, perused the Royal Mile, and got lost on the way back to our hotel before finding the spiciest buffalo wings in a labyrinth of a pub near where we were staying. We were packed and up early the next day to meet our tour group and set off for the highlands.