Wednesday September 10, 2014

Our flight to Dublin is delayed due to a scratch in the fuselage no less.  So I have some time to kill, and what better way to waste time than writing a post?

Edinburgh is a picturesque city, too bad my photos don’t do it justice.  Many of the buildings and churches are very old stone construction.  The Castle on the Mound dominates the city.  As mentioned before we arrived on Friday September 5^th.  After checking into the hotel we were off to the Portrait gallery where we saw seven paintings on the list; I thought it would be six but one I had in storage was on display.  This is another nice sized gallery, not so large that you are worn out trying to see everything. 

Saturday the 6^th we went to the National Gallery where we saw four paintings.  We went next door to a special exhibition about golf in art to see a painting on loan from the Portrait Gallery.  We had to pay for this, all of the other museums have been free.  The painting we wanted to see was right behind the ticket taker so if the exhibit hadn’t been down stairs from the ticket office we probably could have avoided the fee.  But you can’t win them all.  After the museum we happened onto a Doc Martens store, so in we went.  We each got a pair of shoes.  Our rational is perfectly reasonable.  My old Docs are shot and Sue needed a pair of actual shoes for our visit to the Sheep Dog demonstration at the sheep farm on Monday.  The only shoes she had wouldn’t be good if it rains.  We spent the rest of the afternoon locating the church we went to on our last visit to Edinburgh in 1999.  That time after mass we went to hospitality and had a really nice time.  We talked to a WW II veteran who had been a prisoner of war who had been on the Bataan “Death March”.  He said that there were a lot of differing opinions about Douglas MacArthur, but nobody could say anything bad about the General to him, because his led the troops that rescued him.  Google maps could not quite get us to the church, but after asking a local resident we found the church.  15 years ago we were driving and we had no problem getting to the church from the directions the priest gave me over the phone, go figure.

Sunday the 7^th we went back to St. Mary’s for mass, there were a few people younger than us, but most would have been in our class picture, or a bit older.  There was hospitality after mass and Sue told the priest that we how we had been there 15 years ago.  He immediately went got us a couple of calendars, pens (I can NEVER have too many pens) and a couple of post cards, and said don’t take 15 years to come back.  Then it was a short walk to the Scottish National Museum for one more painting, “The Monarch of the Glen” by Landseer.  Versions of this painting have been used in advertising for different brands of Scotch whiskey.  I could have spent all day at this place as they have a lot of historical engineering technology.  The Scots invented a lot of stuff, i.e. James Watt invented the steam engine.  They also have Dolly the first cloned sheep.  We recently saw the interview of Robin Williams on the Actor’s Studio and he had a great line about making an identical copy of a sheep by cloning, “who can tell sheep apart?”  We then went to the castle which has great views of the city.  After that we went for lunch at a pub.  We wanted to have a beer before we went on our Scotch tasting.  The tour starts with a ride where they explain the whiskey distilling process.  Then your group of about 15 gets to select a whiskey from one of the four regions of Scotland, and you get to keep the glass.  Then the tour shows you the collection of whiskeys that has over 3400 unopened bottles of Scotch.  That is the first level of the tour.  We had selected the next level that a allowed us to sample a whiskey from all four regions.  There is a bar with nice chairs and tables where they bring you the tasting samples.  Each sample was about half a shot glass.  We really enjoyed ourselves, surprise I know.

Monday we had reserved a car so we could see a painting that was in Scottish Castle.  Fyvie Castle is about a three hour drive from Edinburgh.  Then after the Castle we were going to the sheep farm to see the Sheep Dog demonstration.  We were delayed getting our car and then we had a bit of trouble with the car’s GPS system so we had to get back to the rental lot immediately after we left the lot.  And we weren’t the only ones who had trouble setting it up.  After the attendant, who didn’t know much more than us, got us programmed we were off.  Sue took a photo of the Forth Bridge as we drive across the Firth of Forth.  This is another historical bridge, and have I mentioned that I love bridges?  It was completed in 1890 and at the time it had the longest single cantilever span in the world.  It still has the second longest span today, the Quebec Bridge built in 1917 has the longest.  The drive to Turriff which is the closest town to the castle took about three hours.  The car’s GPS system required a road name, so we had to get to the town and then rely on signs to get us to the castle.  All the address in the UK use individual postal codes, but this GPS didn’t.  The castle is more a house with towers than what I think of when I hear castle.  We were the only people in the 1:00PM tour (an hour behind our schedule).  We had a very nice young lady guide.  We showed her the painting we wanted to see and she told us it was at the end of the tour.  We explained that we would have loved to take the entire tour but that would make us miss the dog demonstration.  So she walked us through the house in less than 15 minutes to get us to the painting, and then we were off.  Because the GPS wouldn’t use postal codes it would only get us close to the farm, or so we thought.  On the way we ran into road work where we had to sit for about 15 minutes so that really put us behind schedule.  We got to what we thought was the closest town, but didn’t see any signs.  So I tried the police station but it was locked.  There was a sign that said there was a tourist office, but nothing was identified as a tourist office, so I asked a lady who was having a ‘fag’ on the street if she knew where the farm was.  Turns out she works at the tourist office.  She had a map that did not show the farm but said it was sign posted in the next town.  The next town was five minutes away and we found the signs as we drove toward town.  We turned onto a dirt road and that is when we saw a tour bus parked at a farm with a crowd of people watching the demonstration.  We got there about 15 minutes late.  The demonstration will be the highlight of the entire trip!  The shepherd has about 20 dogs and maybe as many sheep.  When we got there the dogs had already brought the sheep in from the pasture.  He was directing some of the dogs to circle the sheep to the right and then to the left.  He is yelling and whistling and three or four dogs are moving the sheep.  The other dogs are doing their own thing.  Some are just laying down in the ready position, others are roaming through the crowd, some are further out in the field.  You have to see it to believe it.  The Shepherd than shears one of the sheep with a scissors while explain that it would only take about a minute if he used an electric shears.  Then he lets the sheep go and they run off into the pasture.  We all walk back from the field to a table where he sells books and photos.  That is where he has a bucket of 13 day old puppies.  All the while the dogs are just roaming around among the people.  Sue explains that we arrived late and that we haven't paid, so he collects the £10 for the two of us and explains that he has another demonstration for a second tour bus and that we are welcome to stay for that to see what we missed.  So we did stay.  You can see from the photos that we enjoyed ourselves.  We watched the start of the demonstration and I was taking more photos when one of the dogs just stuck his head between my legs.  He stayed there for a few minutes, long enough for Sue and I to take photos and then he was off.  After a bit we left too.  We made it back to the airport by 20:00 and we took the tram back into town.  The last stop on the tram is almost right outside our hotel, easy peasie.  We drove 382 miles and used 27.86 l (7.3gal) @ £1.39/l ($8.17/gal)=£37.03 ($59.62)->13.7mi/l (51.9mi/gal).  Almost all of the driving was at 60 mph but that is still impressive mileage and in a French Peugeot no less.

Tuesday we had two appointments to see paintings, one at the storage facility for all of the Scottish Galleries and another at the Modern Art Gallery.  We saw two at the storage place, and one of these was wrapped in plastic because it was going to be sent to the Portrait Gallery to be installed next week.  A third painting that was available for us to see when I called last week had already been wrapped up and crated, so we missed that one.  That was the only painting we missed in Scotland; we saw 18 of the 19 on the 1001 list, not bad. 

After that it we went back to the National Gallery because they have a bus that takes you to the Modern Gallery.  Well it wasn’t running today because the driver was sick.  So we were told it was only a 20 minute walk, so off we went.  It was a challenging walk.  Edinburgh is built on seven hills and we had to walk a couple of them to get to the Modern Gallery.  The Modern Gallery has two buildings and one painting was on display in Modern Two.  That is where we went first where we got to see our painting.  Another nice small gallery with more people in the café than in the gallery.  The attendant in the room asked Sue where we from, as I’m sure he recognized my accent.  When Sue said Chicago he immediately replied “The Windy City”.  This is not the first time we have heard this when tell people where we are from.  He has been to Chicago and several places in the USA.  He is a World Curling official and has officiated several tournaments in Canada and I think the USA.  We had a very nice conversation about Curling as I explained that it is my favorite Winter Olympic sport, mainly because I love the announcer.  Whoever it is doesn’t sugar coat his commentary, when he thinks they make a bad play he lets you know.  You have to watch to appreciate it, maybe it appeals to my grouchy old man side, which I’m told is both sides.  We then went to Modern Two to meet another young curator who showed us our last painting.  That is the summary of our trip in Edinburgh.  I should add that the imminent vote on Scottish independence is the big story here.  I think the vote is in about eight days.  The reporting is that the tide has just turned for the independent side.  It will be news from now until we leave no matter which way the vote goes.  I have to mention that after the gallery we went to a restaurant across the road from our hotel.  Sue pointed out that the bartender/waitress was wearing Lulu-Lemon Yoga pants that you can kind of see through.  I really noticed it when she walked away from us.  I now know quite a bit more about her than I did before, she had a very nice bottom.  I will have to keep my eyes open for these pants in the future!

Update on the trip to Dublin.  We waited several hours for an engineer to come and inspect the scratch in the fuselage, and being and engineer I know what that can mean.  We just were not comfortable getting on the plane, so we are at a local Holiday Inn Express and we will take the train back to London tomorrow.  We may get to Dublin later in this month or next.  Further update, the hotel wireless yesterday wouldn’t allow me to post, so it is now Thursday about 17:00.  We took the train from Edinburgh to London and we’ve just checked into a hotel in London.  Tomorrow we’ll check into the new apartment.  The train ride was nice we sat with another American couple that have been travelling around Europe for at least 6 months and had a nice conversation.  I also added four photos that Sue took at the dog demonstration to the September 8th album.  After a bit of a rest we’ll go out and get something to eat and drink.