Europe on 5-10 Nervous Breakdowns a Day (33)
DAY 36 – FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1974 – TO EDINBURGH
Friday morning we needed to catch the 10:53 train to Edinburgh or we would have to wait for an afternoon train—but had a hard time getting started. We finally had breakfast at 8:30 and about 9:15, we had our bags downstairs ready to go. I paid the manager and he said we could leave our bags with him until train time
I had a couple more things I wanted to see in York, but we were short on time. The women wanted to stop at every store window (especially those with displays of shoes) but I hurried them along as fast as I could.
I first wanted to go through the Shambles (an old English word for “meat market”; see 1 Corinthians 10:25, KJV). The Shambles is the old butchering section of town that has been converted into shops. It is supposed to be the most authentic old English street anywhere. What fascinated me most were the buildings where each floor jutted out a foot or more further from the floor below. It looked like you could reach out a window on the top floor and touch the building on the other side of the street. (Most of the pics in this post are commercial.)
Our ultimate destination was The Munster Cathedral (a “famous” cathedral I had never heard of). The Munster was the most attractive cathedral we had seen. Some parts are very old. It is called “the mother church” of northern England.
Time was running out, so we headed for the train station, walking on the walls one last time before picking up our bags at the hotel.
On the way to the train station, the handle on the bag Debbie was carrying gave way. This was the bag in which I put some books that wouldn’t fit in my briefcase. Debbie tucked the case under her arm until we got to the station. There I tied it up with an old belt and wrapping string. Like us, it is just trying to hold together until we get back to Australia.
On the train to Edinburgh, we were more split up than usual. I was in a four-seat arrangement with two Asian girls and an older gentleman. Debbie was behind me in another four-seat grouping. Jo and Angie were across the aisle from her and Cindy was 6-8 seats away. We were still seated like that at noon and I wasn’t sure how we were going to eat since we needed to prepare what we had brought. But shortly after that, people started getting off and our family got back together and had lunch.
The trip took three hours. Jo likes traveling on the train. She knows what’s going on, doesn’t have to walk, and gets a chance to rest. I think she feels more secure on a train.
We arrived in Edinburgh about 2:00 and had an interesting finding-a-room experience. As I got off the train, I put my weight wrong on my bad ankle (the one I broke a few years ago) and for a while it didn’t want to work. I was finally able to limp along and we moved our luggage into the waiting room to leave with Jo, Cindy, and Angie while Debbie and I ventured forth to find lodging. As Debbie and I started out, a porter came up and asked, “What’s the matter?” He had seen me limping. He asked if we had a place to stay and said there was a woman in the waiting room who had a nice guesthouse. He took us inside and pointed out the woman. She said she would put the five of us up for £10.00 ($25.00), including breakfast. I said, “Okay.” She took Jo, Debbie, and Angie in her car, along with an American couple. On the way to the house, she gave her carload a tour of the city. She then sent her husband back for Cindy and me and our luggage.
The designation of where we stayed is The International Guest House. The couple is Scottish, but have lived in the U.S. and Canada (they are teachers). The guesthouse had been totally remodeled and was easily the nicest place we stayed on our trip. (It even had SOFT toilet paper!) The woman gave us a map of the city, told us which buses to catch, and gave us tea and biscuits (cookies).
After a short rest, we caught the bus to town. After walking a bit, we were on “the royal mile”—a street that runs from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, the official resident of the English monarch in Scotland, but more famous as the 16th century home of the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots. We first turned in the direction of the castle. We passed St. Giles where John Knox preached.
At the castle, our open-to-view saved us another $2.50 (I still doubt we’ll get our money’s worth).
(Nobody leave the room! Who stole my personal slides inside St. Giles and my slides of the castle with my children???)
We went back to where we started on the royal mile and headed toward the palace. We passed John Knox’s home. When we got to the palace, they were having a big Scottish do (people were arriving in kilts), so we couldn’t tour.
It was getting latish anyway. We found a store and bought a bit of food to finish out our tea. Debbie and Cindy opted to walk back to the guesthouse, but Jo, Angie, and I caught a bus.
We had tea, then Jo and I started preparing for an early night. While we were doing so, Angie came into our room crying. She had locked herself in the bathroom and couldn’t get out. She had hollered, hit the door, and finally started crying, but we had not heard her. But the people upstairs heard her and the maid had finally come and let her out. Angie said she was never going into that bathroom again! I went with her to the bathroom and had her show me what she had done. Turns out she had turned the knob the wrong way and then panicked.
When we went to bed at 10:30, it was still light. I’ve mentioned how long it stayed light in the evening on our trip and this was never more evident than when in Scotland. We were told that in the middle of summer, it never gets completely dark at night. Someone noted that Scotland is only two hundred miles from Norway and the only thing that keeps it from being unbearably cold is the Gulf Stream.
