Click here for Travelogue Part 1

I nearly stick the landing, but I have a few beers in the hotel lobby with the handful of others from the wedding who are not content to end the merry-making that has been occurring since 2pm. This coda to the evening, and certainly not everything I did the previous 10 hours, causes me to wake up in a thick fog the next morning. I lead the charge back to the Scotrail station, navigating Google Maps through bleary eyes. The train is packed and the air conditioning doesn’t seem to be working, but I relish the opportunity to sit still and be quiet.

My friend Cait and I are staying in the same hotel, so we take an Uber from Edinburgh Waverly. Our driver gets around the first turn out of the train station, drives down the street and gets stuck in some traffic. “Oh fuckin’ hell,” he mutters under his breath, as we see that the cause of the jam is some sort of street festival or parade where there are at least 50 bagpipers playing. Whether he was angry at the delay or at the broad stereotype of his homeland being reinforced in front of two hungover Yanks, he’s correct.

Back at the hotel, I ingest a salad from Pret a Manger, a place that (sorry to be a hater) will come to be one of the only food sources from which I can get a decent leafy green over here. We head to a day-after-the-wedding debrief gathering at an exceedingly cozy pub, where I try to find someone who hasn’t heard me wax rhapsodic on the little backlit beer logo signs on the taps and in a descent to the depths of dignity, find a stream of the Browns game on my phone. I am suffering a mild head cold, so I have a hot toddy. This becomes my default drink for the next two days, and I enjoy them so much I start calling it a hot Roddy, because my name is Rod, of course.

The next day, I take an easily navigable bus system on a short ride to return my kilt. I find it hard to part with such a wonderful outfit, but the ensemble and the travel case are quite heavy and if I’m going to steal a kilt from the United Kingdom, it better damn well be in the proper Irish Pride tartan. The kilt shop informs me that I have actually purchased the dress socks from them and that I can take those, but they are long and stinky and I’ve got a day ahead of me so into the bin they go.

The anchor point of my itinerary today is a scheduled ticket at Edinburgh Castle in the afternoon, so I set about passing time within walking distance. After cutting through a bustling portion of the Royal Mile, I make the natural instinctive first stop for a tourist - the Surgeons’ Hall Museums at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh!

The College, which has been around since 1505, has had a collection of medical oddities since 1699, and who am I to pass up such a horrific exhibition. At the front desk, I am informed that photography is not allowed in the museums as there are human remains on display, which “some people might find upsetting”. Consider me “some people”! Folks, the stuff I saw in here was buck wild. Organs in glass cases from the 1800s, bones, nasty old instruments. I think more so than looking at a lung with a cyst preserved in fluid itself, it is learning about the context of medicine contemporary to the times of said lung that gets me green around the gills. The barbarity of medical procedures when compared to the modern day was viscerally disturbing, and don’t even get me started on the dental shit.

I am not totally unbothered by gore, but I’m not particularly squeamish either, and yet after a short while I start to feel a bit nauseous. The main respite within the museum is an interactive piece about herbs that were used for medicinal purposes. There are a series of aroma diffusers and I am instructed to guess which herb was which based on the scent. For approximately 5 herbs in a row I confidently say “oh, this is aniseed” and I get them all wrong, but then one turns out to be licorice and I decide to take that as a victory.

Wobbling out of the Surgeons’ Hall, I restore myself with a cup of tea at the adjoining cafe and then purchase a book of English Romantic poetry at Blackwell’s bookshop down the street. Book stores are an easy go-to when I am in a new city or neighborhood, and Blackwell’s was delightful. A little further down the road is Forbidden Planet International, the Scottish outpost of a famed comic book shop in New York that I have been to many times before. I stop in just to tell the staff I have been to the other one, and they say the New York location is better. I look around and tell them “not really!”

I amble up the Royal Mile (which I came to find out is not a mile long) to Edinburgh Castle. I had moderate expectations, as I tend to be at least a little bit skeptical of whatever the main tourist attraction is in any given city. But I’ll tell you what, this castle is a castle, folks. I walk through the Portcullis Gate, stopping to read a plaque commemorating one of the many sieges of Edinburgh Castle. This is the first of many conflicting messages put forth by the exhibits and educational elements of the site that tell you how Edinburgh Castle was impossible to capture alternating with information about the numerous clans, royal factions, and various groups that did in fact capture and control the castle over the centuries, including one period during which it was overrun by a flock of sheep.

The views of the city and the nearby coast are stunning from atop the castle walls. I am charmed by the small cemetery that they started for officer’s dogs and battalion mascots on a small green. I wait in line to get into the Chapel of Saint Margaret and observe Mons Meg, a giant-ass cannon that they hauled about during the Middle Ages when they needed to blast somebody straight to hell. The chapel is the oldest standing building in Edinburgh. Its a small room with stained glass windows, a humble altar, and a facsimile of St. Margaret’s gospel book. The air of spiritual resonance is undercut by the small space heater they have placed in the chancel. I wonder who had to take on the task of running electricity into a building built in 1130.

Passing through the dungeon area where prisoners were kept, I read about how prisoners of war during the American Revolution were considered “pirates” and therefore not entitled to the full day’s rations that they gave the others and I shake my fist at the damn redcoats.

For a late lunch I enjoy a meat pie in a nearby pub, cozy as all hell. I reunite with some friends and the cozy pub/food combination continues into the evening. I load up on haggis, neeps, and tatties in an effort to fortify myself before heading to Loch Ness where I plan to finally get down to the bottom of this whole Nessie business once and for all.