Dungeon

Yesterday I visited two very different castles.  The first one was the Caerlaverock castle,which is in ruins but very pretty and fun to explore.  It is the "Maxwell castle", but It's also the castle where Roger Kirkpatrick (son of the Roger who stabbed Red Comyn in the church) was murdered in his bed by Lindsey, who wanted Roger's wife for himself.

The other castle was the "Kirkpatrick" or Closeburn castle, which is now owned by the "Spanish Kirkpatrick" line.  Boy, was it hard to find!  We drove around and around looking for it, and eventually found it.  I met Maria, who lives there, and she's interested in genealogy too.

We took the Mostly Ghostly tours of Dumfries and Closeburn. The tour guides dress up in period costumes and take people around and tell ghost stories and stories about the history of the places. Here's a picture of the dungeon.  It used to only be accessed through a trap door, but it was remodeled long ago.  Now it has cushy couches and bottles of wine in it.  I guess it's the party room now.  The people in the picture are the tour guides.

Stonehenge to Dumfries

I saw Stonehenge along with our trip to Bath.  Bath is a beautiful city mostly built in the Georgian style after the Romans left.  It has Roman ruins under the current city.  This place is a big deal becuse it is the only place on the UK with a hot springs.  Having grown up with a hot springs just down the road and several within driving distance this may not seem like a big deal, but we don't have any thing as old as the ruins.

Today was a travel day full of obstacles.   We had just left Oxford and had settled into our seats when the train came to a stop.  Apparently there was a maintenance train in front of us that shouldn't have been, then it broke down.  They re-routed is and we had to find different trains to Dumfries.   Luckily some very nice ladies from Glasgow helped us with this.  We made it to Dumfries around 6pm instead of 4:30 as planned.  I didn't want to rent a car and learn to drive on the left side of the road today, so we planned to call a cab.  All we got was answering machines or cab who couldn't help us for at least an hour.  Luckily a very nice couple gave us a ride to our hotel about 10 miles out of town in Clarencefield.  Luckily this hotel has a pub and restaurant  attached,  so  we  got what we needed and settled in for the night.

Tomorrow I rent a car!

Hogwarts

I made it to Christ Church today! The picture below is the entrance to the great hall.

I bought a time-turner, found a store that sells those fancy British hats, saw a Tolken exhibit, etc.  Kyle said he had no interest in seeing Oxford and has been obsessing over doing laundry, so that's what he did instead.

To Oxford

We survived the bus from Hell.   We had a good time going through the highlands otherwise.  We rode the Harry Potter train over the viaduct,  saw the forbidden forest, and the site where Haggrid's house was when the movies were filmed. They took the house down afterward 🙁

We also saw some very pretty scenery and learned a lot about Scotland.

Today I learned about the trains and how the rail passes work.  For instance, the first time I asked the person at a ticket counter about how it worked, she recommended we reserve seats, but I didn't have the passes with me that day, so I told her I'd do it the next day.  She said they might run out of seats.  I assumed that meant we couldn't ride the train if the seats were taken, but apparently it means you can ride, you just have nowhere to sit if someone who reserved the seat claims the one you are sitting in.  You can sit there otherwise or look for another seat.  If you can't find a seat, you have to stand or sit on the floor.  We faired fairly well, only having to stand for about a half-hour during the 6 hour trip, but I reserved seats for the next trip.

Highlands

My last post won't upload, probably because I tried to include pictures.  To sum it up, I went to the Edinburgh castle and saw the crown jewels, and tried haggis (the vegetarian version, but I don't know how vegetarian it was.)

Yesterday we started the highlands tour, which started  with an excruciating bus ride (no leg room). It was worse than the plane ride to Chicago! Once we got here, things got better.

We took a half-hour cruise on Loch Ness (didn't see a monster, but the whisky hot chocolate was awesome!) Then we went to some castle ruins and climbed around a bit.

Today we're going on the Harry Potter train. Then we're getting in that horrible bus and heading back to Edinburgh, stopping at various places along the way.

We're here!

We made it! We had very little sleep on the plane, and it took a long time to get through customs and to get a cab, but we're in our room now and had a nap.

Edinburgh is definitely not flat.  There are a lot of hills and stairs here. I will try to attach some pictures at some point, but I don't know how to on the phone yet.

While we waited for our room, we went to a hipster coffee shop, but they didn't have half and half, so Kyle wasn't impressed; however there is a Starbucks across the street, which is  more our speed.

We looked in a couple souvenir shops, and Kyle bought a jaunty hat.  We had lunch at a tea room that was upstairs from the shop where Kyle bought his hat - once we started climbing, we realized it was two floors up.  The first floor up was a fancy kilt store.  The food was good,  and it had a nice view.  The restroom   was yet another flight up.

Luckily,  our room was not up a flight of stairs - it is down a flight of stairs.

We're rested up and venturing out again.

Prior proper planning prevents . . .

Leaving tomorrow!
Here are the possible pitfalls and what we've done to alleviate some of the problems:

1. 11 hour flight/cramped legs - last night we decided to invest the extra money in the seats with extra leg-room for the Chicago to Edinburgh part of the flight.  It's not as cushy as first class, but maybe it will prevent little cherubs from kicking Kyle's seat all the way to Scotland. (We don't want a repeat of our Vegas flight home.)
2. The one-hour layover in Chicago. We'll just have to "run for it" and hope for the best.  We don't have to go through any check-points or customs, so I think it's doable or United wouldn't have created the flight in the first place.
3. Food - without time to eat in Chicago, we were a little worried about this.  We have some granola bars and Pop Tarts if the TSA will let us take them.  Also, according to the flight confirmation, the Chicago to Edinburgh leg does include dinner - a service we thought was dead in the 21st century.
4. We arrive at 7 am and our check-in to our hotel isn't until 2 pm.  I called Hanover 71, where we are staying, and they said to come straight from the airport and drop off our luggage.  They'll keep it at the desk or put it in our room for us.
5. Hanover 71 doesn't have a refrigerator for Kyle's insulin, so we will have to figure something out.  He has cold-packs which will probably be exhausted by then, but there's plenty of coffee shops in the area, and he's taking Zip-locs, so maybe we can get some ice.  He also plans to ask the flight attendants if there is a way to refrigerate the stuff while on the plane to extend the life of the cold-packs.  Kyle doesn't want to bring an insulated lunch bag, but I'm going to put one in to my luggage anyway.

Those are the obstacles we thought of - I wonder what we haven't thought of.

Background information

In preparation for my trip to Scotland, I read a book that I would like to recommend.  It's called Where's Me Plaid? A Scottish Roots Odyssey by Scott Crawford.  I was drawn to the book because Scott Crawford set out to do something similar to what I plan to do, visit mostly off-the-beaten path places of my ancestors.  The book is both amusing and informative.

Being a Crawford, Scott Crawford is connected to William Wallace on Wallace's mother's side, so he was looking for information on the Crawford family.  I am supposedly also connected to William Wallace on Wallace's Crawford side, though I don't know exactly how.  According to some internet sites William Wallace was a first cousin to Sir Roger Kirkpatrick (or as my husband refers to him, "the stabby guy"), and Robert the Brus was a third cousin of Sir Roger.  The Robert the Brus is an easier connection to see as several generations earlier Ivone Elliott de Kirkpatrick married Euphemia de Brus, whose family descended from the Viking earls of Orkney.

The visiting the ancestral stomping-grounds is part of the fun, but in addition, being a Harry Potter fan, I'm planning on getting my Harry Potter fix as well.  I'm also hoping to work in a visit to the Glamis and/or Cawdor castles from the play Macbeth.  While Macbeth was a real person and not nearly as horrible as depicted in Shakespeare's play (in fact he was well liked), neither of these castles really existed in the time period in which he lived (as Scott Crawford explains). 

My journey will start in Edinburgh, then go to Loch Ness, Oxford, Dumfries, and the Orkney Islands, with a lot of other places in between.  By the way, the castle pictured above is Caerlaverock Castle, one of the two Kirkpatrick castles I plan on visiting.  This one is in ruins (the back walls are knocked down); the other one has Kirkpatrick's from the Spanish line living in it, but they offer tours.