Do they speak English in Scotland?

After a week there, I have to say that it’s hard to tell. Our first exposure was on the plane from Bergen to Aberdeen, with a group of young people heading home. They were chattering away with each other, and we had NO IDEA what they were saying. Ed listened to conversations on the busses in Aberdeen with the same results. I had safety class with 16 people, just 2 or 3 non-Scots, for three days, and frequently had to stop and ask what something meant!

Aberdeen is called the granite city, and is either described as “silvery”, or as “all grey”. Those who believe the cup is half full point out how clean it is, and how nice the buildings look. The color reminded me of Nowa Huta! Aberdeen has more individual houses than the giant apartment blocks in Nowa Huta, and there are flowers everywhere to brighten it up. Yards are really well-cared for.

Dunottar Castle is a ruined castle on a piece of rock that cracked away from the mainland, standing proudly against the sea. Ed says the walk from the town to the castle along the windswept heights is wonderful. He also recommends the Maritime Museum. I missed all the sights because I was in Basic Offshore Safety training. This was a great example of learn-do training, where we had class, then practiced. I got to jump through a net escape chute called Skyscape, which should be on all playgrounds! I spent 3 hours swimming around in a pool, practicing getting into life rafts and out of downed helicopters. We also got to find our way out of a smoke-filled cargo container wearing breathing masks, and we put out several types of fires. We all passed!

Thursday morning, we boarded the train to Edinburgh. We followed the coastline, mostly. Great views! When we got to Edinburgh, we checked in to our B&B and went walking. The walkable part is the Royal Mile, between Edinburgh Castle and the Queen’s local home in the Holyrood Palace. There is a cool hill between the Royal Mile and our B&B, with a half-finished Parthenon, an observatory, and various other monuments. We took a hop-on-hop-off bus on Friday, since it’s a pretty big city! We hopped off at the Castle and looked at the Crown Jewels. We lunched on haggis, tatties and neeps, washed down with whisky. Haggis is a mixture of oatmeal and sausage made of awful stuff, but is quite tasty. Tatties are potatoes and neeps are mashed turnips. I didn’t like the whisky much.

Here's Mary Queen of Scots!

They shoot a cannon at 1 pm to tell all the ships what time it is, so we checked our watches. Then we hopped on the bus down to Cadenheads whisky shop. Rick Steves raves about the guy there, who is passionate about whisky. I asked a lot of questions, tasted one, and ended up buying a bottle of 19 year-old single malt, which will last us at least a decade! We had dinner at a Nepalese restaurant near the B&B, which was quite a treat.

Saturday, we took the last ride on our 24 hour bus ticket and toured the Parliament. What an interesting building! Very modern, with symbolism about Scotland in all the details. It was just finished in the last 3 to 5 years, and cost 10 times more than the original estimate. Don’t you know THAT bothers the frugal Scots! One big cause was that the estimate was made before 9-11, and the security measures that had to be added to the design were quite extensive. The debating chamber is very modern, with high-tech screens, lighting, and a very spare and smooth look. Yes, Scotland is part of the UK, so they don’t get to vote on everything, but they have some independence. This is called “devolution” and was voted in during the 1990’s.



Our B&B hostess told us about a jazz festival in Grassmarket square at noon, so we made our way down Cowgate between tall, tightly packed buildings that keep out the sun in the Old Town, to the square where they used to have the gallows. We found a table at the “Last Drop” pub – great name, huh? The sun came out, and around 6 bands paraded in and set up to play up and down the square. Some were more like marching bands, while others were really good. It was a fine finish to our vacation!