Scottish Experience

I almost titled this blog entry the Whisky Experience, but I thought even the whiff of that would make Mom sick.  More on that later…

Mom and I decided to go to Scotland for a quick weekend jaunt.  We got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and took a quickie flight over to Edinburgh.  

 

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t really cooperate with us.  It rained sideways pretty much all day.  We tried walking around Old Town, but it was miserable and we were wet and cold.  We decided to jump on the hop on-hop off tour bus to get out of the rain.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well.  The bus was a double-decker with the top open.  Because the top wasn’t usable due to the weather, the downstairs was pretty well full.  The only spots open were right at the base of the stairs.  Every time we turned a corner, the water came cascading down the stairs in a big waterfall and splashed our feet.  We were soaked and cold.  After the bus tour, we grabbed lunch at a place not too far from Edinburgh Castle.  The food wasn't very good, but the cider was better.  Things did not look good for the Weirath women.

Sunday was a little better, but it was still foggy.

Edinburgh Castle in the overcast skies

This is how foggy it was at the top.

We did the Edinburgh Castle with the audio tour.  The Castle is pretty cool.  It's built on volcanic rock and basically inaccessible on three sides.  While most of the buildings were destroyed in the 16th century, some of them date back to the 12th century.  It used to be a royal residence, but became a military base in the 1600s.  They stopped using it as the royal residence in 1603 when there was the Union of the Crowns.  At that time, King James VI inherited the English throne from his cuz, Queen Elizabeth.  Then, King Jimmy was basically doing double duty of King of the Scots and King of England.  I know you are thinking, "You are a geek for getting into all this history, Chris."  I know.  It's actually pretty cool when you consider we were in the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to King James VI (it was a little room smaller than my closet, in case you were interested).

We took our time with the tour and we took a lot of pictures with Flat Caleb along the way.

Mom, Flat Caleb and a guard

 Mom, Flat Caleb and one of the cannons

Flat Caleb and a Royal Scot Dragoon Guard (Look closely)

Flat Caleb in a prison cell

There are quite a few buildings to see as part of the tour.  Everything from the Royal Scots Museum, to St. Margaret's Chapel, to the Royal Palace and the Crown Jewels, where we saw the changing of the guard.

Changing of the Guard - not as much pomp as in London, but still cool

The Castle has a lot of hills and cobblestone streets, so it is a good thing we we didn't go on Saturday or we would have been slip-sliding all over the place.

After the Castle, we decided to wander over to the Scottish Whiskey Experience.  (Yes, that is the full title.  I didn't make that up.)  They have essentially turned whiskey tasting into an adult theme park like event, including a ride.  As part of the tour, you get in a barrel and learn how whiskey is made while you are circling on a track.  After the ride stops, you are let out and led to a room where there are about 25 seats.  The instructor teaches you about the 5 regions where whiskey are made and you receive a little scratch & sniff type wheel.  Each wheel has a 4 different colors (1 representing each of the regions --- they ignore one of the regions because there are only 2-3 functioning whisky distilleries there).  As you scratch each wheel, you can smell what each area is known for (e.g. lemon, smoke, etc.).  There are corresponding colors on the table.  After you finish the scratch n' sniff, you then put your whiskey glass on the color you want to try.  The mixed pie chart one in the picture is for a blend.

Whiskey Twister - I choose Green, Mom choose Red

After we got our samples, we were brought into a separate room where we had the tasting.  The room was filled with over 3,400 bottles of whiskey.  The collection was started by one individual and then sold to the Whiskey Experience place.  It was an amazing room.

This is just one wall of the room.

None of the bottles were duplicates.  The actual cost of the collection is not known because the sale was kept private, but I can only imagine what it cost.

Mom downing her whiskey.

Mom chose what I would call the strongest of the whiskeys.  She thought it smelled like turpentine.  I thought it smelled like campfire.  Either way, neither of them are something you want to drink.  My whiskey was a little less toxic, but I had to add a little water to it to be able to drink it.  Even then, I couldn't finish it.  I felt like I was breathing fire.  Mom couldn't get the smell out of her nose for days.  I think I will stick to beer, wine and other easy hard liquor.

Since Mom was stumbling drunk then (she wasn't really, but she did say she felt like she was schnockered), we decided to walk around the city to sober up and soak up the sites.  I was happy that I was able to see both stereotypical Scottish traditions in full regalia: kilts and bagpipes.

 

Two old gentlemen on a bridge

Scottish bagpiper

I really enjoyed Edinburgh.  Apparently, I wasn't alone in that.  When we got to the airport on Monday, we were informed that our flight was delayed by over 3 hours due to a missing crew member.  Mom was insistent that one of the crew was hung over. 

Even though the weather didn't cooperate with us and travel home was a pain, I enjoyed the trip to Edinburgh.  Cute little city with a lot of history.  I will be going back in a few weeks with my friend Ellie, so hopefully the weather will cooperate then.