Days 65 - 72

Day 65: After class, I went to King's Cross station to board the train for the four-and-a-half-hour ride to Edinburgh. I only brought one book with me for both the ride there and back, as I thought I would nap to fill up some of the time.

This plan was foiled by me sitting next to the Angriest Typist in the World, a Professor of Art History from University of Michigan Ann Arbor. This man did not type; he attacked the keyboard with such ferocity that I could hear him even with my hearing aids out and my iPod earbuds in. Even with industrial music blaring as loud as I could stand it without killing what little auditory cells I have remaining. This man treated his keyboard like it had personally insulted him for the entirety of the ride, leaving me to eat my meal and fail to concentrate on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

Anyway, I finally arrived at Edinburgh Waverly Station and hired a taxi to take me to Castle Rock Hostel. I recommend Castle Rock, as it's located across the street from Edinburgh Castle and a three-minute walk from Edinburgh's High Street, on which you can buy all the kilts and wool scarfs you want. After checking in, I had an evening to fill, and so joined up with an Edinburgh ghost tour. We walked around the old parts of Edinburgh and into 'closes', which are very narrow alleyways connecting street to street, the remnants of medieval Edinburgh's streets. Medieval Edinburgh, by the way, was not a nice place to live; on either side of closes, thirteen- and fourteen-story tenements stood, many of them leaning towards each other until the roofs touched and sealing the close below in darkness. The city had no sewers, and at ten every night every window in the tenements would fly open and the inhabitants would dump the day's human waste out onto the streets below. This is how Edinburgh got its nickname: Auld Reekie, or Old Stinky.

There were a few creepy stories, courtesy of the guide, but nothing so incredibly terrifying that it's worth typing out. I was also disappointed by the fact that the company threw in a cheap jump scare at the end, which I feel invalidates all the stories you've been told before. After the tour ended, I returned to Castle Rock, as I had to get up in the morning to board the Haggis Adventures Tour Bus.

Day 66: After getting up and having a quick breakfast, I tromped down High Street to Haggis Adventures to check in and board the yellow bus with 'Wild & Sexy' emblazoned in large letters across the side. This was due to Haggis Adventures' motto being 'Wild. Sexy. Legendary.' which is on all their merchandise, including the shirts that our guide, Tony, wore for all three days. Tony, by the way, was all of those things, having a Glaswegian accent and resembling a cross between Daniel Craig and Simon Pegg. He leaped onto the bus, delivered his safety soliloquy and noted helpfully that if we were to drive into the lochs, the skylight could be an escape hatch, then sat down and drove us out of Edinburgh.

Our first stop was the William Wallace Monument above the town of Stirling, where Wallace (the guy from Braveheart, although that movie has very little to do with William Wallace and a lot to do with Robert the Bruce) had his greatest success at defeating the English, who were attempting to annex Scotland (which, by the way, was a sovereign nation and had been for millennia). Wallace succeeded because he had one very potent weapon on his side: highlanders. Highlanders are a strange people, totally different from lowland Scottish, and this held true even in the eleventh century. The highlanders at Stirling were also berserkers, and so would pump themselves up for battle by imbibing copious amounts of strong Scottish whisky and eating psychedelic mushrooms, so that they were frothing at the mouth when the time came. There are records of them being kept on leashes before the battle. Anyway, when Wallace gave the order, thousands of insane highland berserkers came charging down the hillside, waving shields, halberds, claymores, longswords, and dirks, into the flank of the English army, routing them horribly. The English, realizing that not much could stand up against several thousand high highlanders, turned around and fled. Unfortunately, they'd neglected to account for this possibility, and so thousands of English had to try and fit across a very narrow bridge, which then collapsed underneath them, and most of the English drowned or were slain.

Unfortunately, Wallace was not to enjoy this success for long. He was betrayed by John Menteith (there's a lake called Menteith in Scotland, and all true Scots are required to spit in it and spit every time they say Menteith's name), handed over to the English, and tried for treason in Westminster Hall, in the current Houses of Parliament. Wallace had a perfectly reasonable defense; as he was not a citizen of England, Edward I was not his king. Every time the English tried to get him to admit to wrongdoing, or indeed to say anything, Wallace responded, "He is not my king." However, Edward didn't much care for Scotland's sovereignty, and so had Wallace declared guilty, stripped naked, and hauled out of the hall to Smithfield, which at the time was a place where animals were slaughtered. Wallace, to the English, was no more a man than a cow could claim to be. At Smithfield, he was hung by the neck (thus crushing his trachea and ensuring no Gibson-esque screams of 'freedom!'), cut down while still alive, his stomach cut open and his entrails pulled out and burned before him, and then when he finally expired, he was cut into four pieces which were sent to different parts of the realm. His head, on the other hand, was tarred and placed on a pike on London Bridge.

After Stirling, we drove up over Rannoch Moor into the highlands, passing by Killin, the Falls of Dochart, and Loch Tay on the way, before finally stopping for a bit at Glencoe, or the Glen of the Weeping. Without going into too much detail, at the time of the massacre at Glencoe, England was ruled by Protestant William of Orange, a foreign king, while many Scottish highlanders remained loyal to the Scottish Catholic Stuarts, ancestral kings of Scotland who had been invited to rule England who had been ousted from the English throne and replaced with Protestants. When William took the throne, he insisted that all of the highlanders sign an oath of allegiance to him, and demanded that they do so before a certain deadline. The highland chieftains asked the exiled Stuart king for permission to sign, but by the time they received it, time was running out. Alistair Mclain, chieftain of the Mclains, raced to sign the oath before the deadline. Unfortunately, he was a few days late, due to having first gone to the wrong place and then being delayed, as well as the terrible winter weather.

Having signed the oath, he returned home, satisfied that he had done his duty. England, however, saw his lateness as an insult, and so sent Robert Campbell, another Scot, and his men to Glencoe, where the Mclains lived. Campbell's men played on the highland custom of hospitality, which states that if someone turns up at your door asking for hospitality, you are honor-bound to supply food and shelter. So the soldiers asked for hospitality of the Mclains, were taken in by the highlanders, and stayed for the night in the clan's homes. However, in the early morning hours, Campbell's men rose and methodically slaughtered their hosts. Some of the Mclains managed to escape out into the snow, but froze to death in their attempts to escape, while some English soldiers managed to warn their hosts and refused to take part in what they knew to be a heinous crime, but the vast majority of Clan Mclain was wiped out, giving rise to Glencoe's status as the Glen of the Weeping.

Another story of English-Scottish dislike that Tony told us was of a highland chief who was captured by Oliver Cromwell's men in one of England's many attempts to exterminate highland culture. The chief was being executed, and so was already tied to the post while the firing squad readied themselves. A soldier asked him if he had any last words, to which the chief responded in Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic, by the way, is pronounced Gallic, and has been separate from Irish Gaelic for 1700 years; however, the two dialects are still mutually intelligible). The soldier slapped him across the face and commanded him to speak English, at which point the chieftain asked him to come closer, then lunged and tore his throat out with his teeth, taking one of Cromwell's soldiers down with him. All in all, a pretty hardcore story.

But then highlanders were generally hardcore, as we learned at the highland clan show that night, where a man who's devoted himself to studying the lost clan cultures showed us how they lived. Girls as young as 12 or 13 would go into battle alongside their fathers and brothers, fighting at the edge of the skirmish; highlanders' kilts were rubbed with mutton fat and never washed, as the highlanders never washed but for weddings, and then only their hands and face; in battle, they didn't carry only a longsword, but also a sharp spike at the center of their shields and a dirk in their shield hand for stabbing behind them. Also, in winter, the highlanders would dip their kilts in freezing cold water and then roll up in them before lying down to sleep. The mutton fat would keep the water out of the cloth, but the water would help to form a seal between the kilt and the skin, trapping heat. As far as hardcore cultures go, highlanders were up there with Spartans.

As far as people, I met Glen, a Canadian and the only foreigner I've ever met who thinks that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan is awesome; Jeremy, a very well-dressed and very cool Kiwi Canadian; and a South African woman who, hearing that I used London public transport, immediately announced that she refused to use South African public transport as it was "full of blacks" (her words, not mine). I'm fairly sure she could feel me radiating incredible disapproval, though, as she shut up after saying that and didn't talk to me the rest of our time there. We arrived at our hostel on the banks of Loch Ness, had dinner, and went to bed, ready for another day of stories in the morning.

Day 67: We got up earlier than usual that day, as we had to drive all the way from Loch Ness up to the Isle of Skye off the north coast of Scotland. Skye is known as the Winged Isle, or the Isle of Mists, and is supposedly the place where the Fair Folk, or fairies, live. Interesting Scotland fact: Scotland is twenty percent of the UK's landmass, but contains seventy percent of its coastline.

On the way up to Skye, we stopped at the grave of Robert MacKenzie, another highlander killed by British. However, he's buried without a head, and there's quite a story behind that. The main Jacobite rebellion was in 1745, led by a man known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the last exiled Stuart to attempt reclamation of the throne of Scotland. After the incredible Jacobite defeat at Culloden Moor, Bonnie Prince Charlie was forced to flee. An incredible price was put on his head by the English, and soldiers scoured Scotland looking for him. Prince Charlie was long gone to Skye at this point, but that didn't stop the English taking pot shots at any highlander they saw, one of whom was the hapless Robert MacKenzie. However, upon being shot, MacKenzie rasped to the soldiers, "How dare you shoot your king?" before expiring. The soldiers, pleased at having killed the supposed usurper, chopped off his head and stuck it in a brine barrel before sending it down to London for identification. The news came back that it wasn't Prince Charlie, but how one can identify a rotting pickled head as being someone or not someone with that much certainty I don't know. Anyway, Prince Charlie escaped, and MacKenzie is hailed as a hero for throwing off the pursuit.

We also stopped at Eilean Donagh Castle, just before Skye, but unfortunately the castle was closed for the winter. However, we encountered the owner of the castle, Lady MacRae herself, who was a very kind person and let us into the courtyard for a quick peek, which was very nice of her. After the castle, we drove over the bridge and hit Skye. Tony then told us the story of the Battle of the One-Eyed Woman.

There were two young people who belonged to feuding clans: Maggie and Duncan. They had to get married to stop all the fighting, which they both agreed to, having already fallen in love. So on the nuptial day, Duncan stood at the altar in the church, waiting for his bride, who had to ride a white horse across Skye to prove her adulthood on her way to the wedding. However, as they crossed a river, her horse slipped, throwing Maggie onto some rocks and knocking her eye out. This would be a tragedy on any day, but on your wedding day when you're supposed to unite the clans: unthinkable! But Maggie, being a brave lass and believing that Duncan would love her for her mind, got right back on her horse and raced to the church, where her father took one look at her and decided to hide the damage by covering her face with a veil. All the feuding clan members were in the church, sobbing into handkerchiefs and apologizing for past stabbings and cattle-raids, when Duncan was told that he could kiss his bride. He lifted the veil, prepared to stare upon her radiant face-

And found her not so radiant. In fact, a bit pale from blood loss. Anyway, he turned around and was sick, as this wasn't what he signed up for, the clans devolved into fighting again, the church burned down, and Maggie went racing back to the river weeping. However, Oberon, king of the fairies, appeared and offered to make her five times more beautiful if she stuck her face in a freezing river for five seconds. So she did, and became beautiful, and then when Duncan came back sniveling for forgiveness, she rejected him. Go Maggie. And then I suppose she ran off somewhere and started some sort of Amazonian commune. I don't know, Tony didn't tell us what happened after that. So we all stuck our faces in the freezing water of the stream for five seconds, then got up and went to Portree for lunch.

After lunch, we passed by a rock known as the Old Man of Storr (if you look at him, you see the despairing face of an old man transfigured by Oberon into a rock). Tony then showed us some dinosaur footprints, Kilt Rock and the waterfall, and then we returned back to the hostel to sleep.

Day 68: We got up and drove by Loch Ness (I didn't see a monster, but I got to pick the nose of the stuffed version), and on to Culloden Moor.

Culloden is where the last Jacobite uprising was put down in 1745. It is also the only battle that British regiments are not allowed to claim honors for. This is for the simple reason that Culloden wasn't a battle: it was a massacre, and led to the complete extermination of highland culture.

Prince Charlie decided to fight on flat, marshy ground, ill-suited for his highland supporters' charge tactics, and that was his undoing. When the highlanders charged, they were cut down by artillery and bayonet. The English lost less than a hundred men; the Jacobites, over a thousand. However, even that wasn't enough of an insult; the English commander, the Duke of Cumberland, ordered his men to torch the field hospitals of the highlanders, slaughter the wounded and kill the women and children camp followers. Then he refused to allow the dead highlanders to be buried for six weeks, before dumping them into unmarked mass graves. After the victory at Culloden, the English embarked on what can only be termed genocide: an attempt at the complete extermination of a cultural and linguistic minority. Speaking Gaelic and wearing the kilt were banned; vast numbers of highlanders were transported to Australia and other colonies; the cattle and other animals of highlanders were taken; highlanders were kicked off their ancestral lands, the land taken by English landlords. Culloden is the deathbed of highland culture.

After Culloden, Tony took us to the Clava Cairns, which are Bronze Age tombs built by the aboriginal peoples of Scotland, the ancestors of the Picts. Then he took us up Cairngorm Mountain, where snow was already heaped high on the peak; with wind chill, the temperature was well below zero. By the way, the mountains of Scotland are so dangerous that more people die every year on Scottish mountains than Scottish roads.

And now, a story that illustrates why Scottish people are mad and why I love them so. After the Scottish king and national hero Robert the Bruce, who secured Scottish independence for a while from England, died, his heart was removed from his body. This was in accordance with his wishes, as he wanted his heart to be carried into battle against God's foes by his best friend, Sir James Douglas. Douglas obeyed, wearing his king's heart around his neck as he went to Grenada to fight the Muslim Moors of Spain. Upon arriving at the battle, he found a group of Christian soldiers surrounded and fighting for their lives. Rising in his saddle, he took Robert's heart from around his neck and flung it towards the enemy, screaming, "Lead on, my brave heart!" (See, told you Braveheart was about Robert the Bruce.)

The heart didn't do any leading, as Douglas and the heart were captured shortly thereafter. However, the Moors, much impressed by the sight of a maniac charging their lines and chucking a human heart at them in the belief that this would do something, let both Douglas and the heart return to Scotland.

We returned to Edinburgh around 5, and I bid a sad goodbye to Tony and my tour mates.

Day 69: Tired from traveling, I vegetated and did nothing of interest.

Day 70: In British Life and Culture, we watched a movie called My Son the Fanatic about the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in second-generation Muslim immigrants. Unfortunately it was on VHS, so I can't tell you much of what actually happened, but oh well.

Day 71 (also my birfday): In the morning Barnaby took us to a display of outdoor art in Hyde Park. There were several very large and very persistent swans near several of the pieces, which I wasn't happy with, as swans are beastly creatures who will attack at a moment's notice. After fleeing the swans, we went to a display of cameraless photography at the Victoria and Albert, which was quite cool. In Shakespeare, we got to act out the Mousetrap from Hamlet, which was very fun, and only made me miss acting even more. I wasn't very good at it, but I enjoyed it, which was what mattered. The evening was wonderful; Jack came up from Oxford to help me celebrate my birthday, and we feasted on sushi and giant chocolate cupcake, courtesy of my wonderful parents. Also I've gotten more Facebook messages wishing me happy birthday than ever before, which is a reason for glee. It's just a shame that I'm turning 21 in A) a country where the drinking age is 16, and when B) I don't drink, which makes the whole thing doubly redundant. Still, it was wonderful.

Day 72) Not much of interest happened today, although I have got huge amounts of homework this weekend. Still, I'm going to escape on Sunday to see the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph.