Sat, Sep 22/Sun, Sep 23

Saturday morning I had a nice complimentary breakfast at the International Guest House. It was a quiet breakfast, almost too quiet. I was waited on by the proprietor. :) A hot meal too, a full English breakfast with sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, etc. I mentioned about the Internet, but it being one night, I didn't feel like making a big deal of it. I was glad to be out of the room though, it was too cramped. So after breakfast, I settled up with him and checked out. Since I backed out and only stayed one night rather than several, I agreed to go back up to £55 for the one night (strictly speaking, he would have been within his rights to charge me for all the nights I didn't stay). Then I walked to the other place, the Kenvie House.

Dorothy at the Kenvie House is very nice and made me feel very welcome. It was about a ten minute walk over a few streets to get there, felt longer though. I relaxed in the breakfast room while they got my room ready. She told me that all of the B&Bs and hotels and guest houses in the area are Victorian period houses that have been converted; nothing was originally built to accommodate guests. What happened was the train was built into Edinburgh, and the enormous Balmoral Hotel was built to accommodate travelers, right next to the train station. As more travelers started coming through, that's when houses started converting.

About lunchtime, I took the bus up the road to Elaine's Cuppa Cake, a little cafe that serves breakfast all day as well as soups and sandwiches, and cakes and other desserts. I think it was the second time I've eaten there. The owner, Elaine, is from Edinburgh, and there is a girl that works there, looks to be college-aged, who is from Liverpool. I asked them about recording their accents, and they each reluctantly agreed, but were too busy to do it just then. Elaine said I can come back any day but Tuesday (she won't be there).

After lunch, I walked over to the other side of the train station to the tour bus area and got on one. In hindsight, not only did I overpay and got more tour than I needed, I think I got entirely the wrong tour bus. I wanted the "Original" company but got the Majestic tour. Also, I wanted the live guide bus but it wasn't ready, so I got on the recorded guide bus. This one had a man and woman bantering. Bantering is rarely entertaining. It's as bad as watching parades on TV. I don't want to be a complainer because I did enjoy the ride, but I didn't get very many good shots on my camera. Either the bus had bad shocks or the roads are excessively bumpy. And I didn't get much out of the recording. On the plus side, the tour bus stopped at Ocean Terminal, which is where the Britannia is docked.

The HMY Britannia (Her Majesty's Yacht) is permanently berthed in Leith (Port o' Leith) and has been converted to a museum of sorts. There is a shopping center built right next to it, and in fact you go to the second floor to buy your ticket and enter. The yacht has four or five decks to it, and you start your tour by entering via a steel structure on to the top deck, where the steering was done. From there you walk around each deck and exit the way you came on, and go down a flight of stairs. You don't change decks from within the ship itself. Most of the rooms are preserved and roped/glass walled off, and there is a free audio tour that accompanies it. You just punch in the appropriate number to your provided handset and listen to the commentary. It was pretty interesting. And huge. It didn't sink in right away that this wasn't just a ship, it was a yacht used by the royal family for several decades. One comment I heard was that in the 90s, I think, the yacht was used to help rescue hundreds of people from some sudden war conflict. I remember other things: General MacArthur was quoted as saying it had a very impressive display of an engine room, but where was the real one? (It was kept very clean and in smooth working order); and that there was a military band on board that practiced daily, but as far away from the royalty as possible so as not to disturb them; that the sailors were responsible for swabbing the stern and getting it cleaned up every morning by 8 am, but this was also where the sunroom (or something) was located, and they would regularly encounter the royal family. In this situation, the sailors were to stand at attention right where they were, looking straight ahead, until the royalty passed. Also, the sailors in that area were not supposed to wear their caps. Technically this meant they were out of room, but it also meant that because they weren't fully in uniform, the queen wouldn't be required to return their salutes.

After I finished my tour of the Britannia, I got back on the tour bus and headed back. I just missed one tour bus. I wasn't sure of the proper etiquette, so I kinda waved at the bus from the sidewalk. I talked to a bus driver who said it's perfectly fine to knock on the bus door, as the driver will be looking the opposite direction. I had to wait about twenty minutes for the next one. While waiting, I met three Americans: a young woman in college from St Louis (I think) and two older women from Denver, I think they were all traveling together. The one woman is going to university around here for some history degree, maybe art history. Once I got to the end of the tour (along which I got a lot of pictures of non-monuments, but instead pictures of common houses), I took a walk through Princes Street Gardens, which is a small park on a steep embankment. There were three statues in the park, I'll have to look at my pictures to see who of. I passed throught to the plaza where the National Gallery is. That same little trio was playing again (the bagpiper, guitarist, and drummer).

I was pretty tired by this point, so I stopped at Subway and got a sandwich and took the bus towards, but not to, my latest hotel. That was a long walk, and in fact I got off the bus too late and had to walk from the other end of the neighborhood. I was thankful for the shower when I got back, although again...weird design. I don't know why things are so small. I literally could hardly move around in the shower. But, there being a mirror on the opposite wall, I got to watch myself take a shower. Now, I dare you to go five minutes without getting that mental image.

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Sunday. I slept well, but was still tired. All this walking is wearing me out. It's not that I'm wearing bad shoes, I'm wearing good shoes. But there is so much walking AND not much ground is flat AND the pavement isn't always uneven. Especially along the Royal Mile with most of the street being brick. Well, the breakfast was a very nice hot one, again the traditional meal, but with a stewed tomato. That's often part of breakfast, but I don't care for it. I don't mind the taste, but the skin is hard to chew. Anyway, I was getting ready to leave and discovered some bird had pooped on the back of my jacket!

Backing up a bit...there are a lot of seagulls around here. Edinburgh is only a few miles from the ocean. I saw a bus with an ad on the side that said something like, "Q: Why are there so many seagulls when there is no beach? A: Seagulls feed on litter." I think that's only half the story. There are so many seagulls because Edinburgh is near the water. There are so many seagulls in the CITY because of litter. I noticed a lot of them in the park, just like pigeons in Atlanta. It was either one of them, or one at the Britannia, that used me for target practice.

It's not a big deal, it washed off, just an interesting little note. Anyway, after cleaning my jacket, I walked down the 22 steps to the main door, down the 19 steps from the main door to the landing, down 3 steps to the next landing, and down 3 steps to the sidewalk. What were those Victorians thinking?! It was a long, tiring journey from there. Ten minutes from there to the International Guest House, then another ten minutes back to the Northumberland, where I am again registered, until Wednesday.

I lost my soap and shampoo, I left them at the Northumberland when I checked out, and they were long gone. I had also left my computer security cable at the International, but fortunately they had either just thrown it away or it was about to be; I walked up there and they were able to return it. At the Kenvie House (with all the steps), I used some shower gel and shampoo that I picked up at the Lancaster or Hampstead in London...nowhere near enough to do the job, I finished up with hand soap that had been placed in the shower, haha. Back at the Northumberland, I rested for a bit, then about lunchtime I went down to the Cameron Toll Shopping Centre. I had a Burger King meal. :D After that I visited the Sainsbury grocery store and picked up a few supplies. This shopping center is nice and neat, it's like a tiny shopping mall but without pre-teens hanging out everywhere. The food court was wooden tables and chairs (with padded seats!) in between Burger King and a place called Traditional Favourites, which sells jacketed potatoes (stuffed baked potatoes), breakfast and some sandwiches. I had noticed that my big luggage bag had developed a small rip, so I looked around for a replacement, but no dice. Later in the afternoon, I rode up the street and found a store called Argos, where you order items from a catalog, pay at the counter, and within a few minutes they bring your items to you. I got a nice piece of luggage for a pretty good price, and had the joy of lugging it home on the bus, haha. Actually it wasn't bad, I just stood with it in the handicapped space.

I puttered around the hotel for the afternoon. I like my new room, it's on the back side so it's quieter, and it also has a door to a long patio, which is shared by a few other rooms. About 5:30 pm, I headed up the street (by bus) to the Royal Mile and walked east to the Carrubers Christian Centre, which is a church established in the 1800s by D.L. Moody. On Sundays, they have worship at 9 am, 11:30 am, and 6:30 pm. As it turns out, once a month they have mission updates night, which tonight was, so I was able to hear about a lot of the work they've been doing. As part of their worship service, which consisted of a few songs which everyone sang, no separate choir, but a small "orchestra" consisting of 4-5 singers, trombone, violin, drumset, and piano; and a few prayers; their speaker was a man who does work internationally specifically with lepers. I was impressed by the focus of this church. They do evangelize, but they are very heavily into mission work, which they do not define as just going out and preaching. In fact, their primary focus is to help supply medical and housing needs. One woman talked about having spent the past four years in a small village in Brazil, working with a team to learn and document the local language...and then translate the New Testament into their language. As a result of that effort, several local people have become Christians and a church was established, and in fact one guy, who was a thief and not a nice guy, converted and just in the past few months had gone to another nearby village to preach and start up a new church there too.

The main speaker talked about a family in India where the father had leprosy but no one else did, but the whole family was ostracized. But after this missionary group went in and began helping them, the man's grown daughter, who had been very timid, became more confident and outspoken about the family, and got her children into school, and the local people are more accepting of the family. Also, the man's leprosy has been cured thanks to antibiotics provided. The woman became a Christian as a result of seeing these missionaries' faith in action.

Another story was about a local healer in Angola(?) who had leprosy and didn't know it, and over many years had infected a lot of people. They had all gone on to cities and been treated, but it wasn't until the missionaries came that he found out his condition. They helped treat him, and told him the story about Naaman. He enjoyed hearing the story so much, he begged them to come back and tell him more of the Bible. And yet another story, this village in Bangladesh had a problem with leprosy but didn't know what it was; just that there was a progression of degeneration, and when someone started showing symptoms, they were banished to the jungle. Food would be left for them, but otherwise no one would visit them, and would only know someone had died when they noticed the food not being picked up; then someone would go in, find the body, and burn it. But after the missionaries came, only earlier this year, the village now sends newly infected people to the hospital at the base of the mountain for treatment.

What I like about this approach is that it shows faith in action. Jesus talked in Matthew 25 about providing food and clothes to those in need and visiting with the sick and those in prison. Paul said that pure and undefiled religion is to care for widows and orpans and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. It seems to me that while Christians are encouraged to go out and share the gospel, a Christian's faith should be defined by his actions and not how often he can say, "Have you heard about Jesus?" James wrote, "If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." It doesn't do any good to tell someone, "don't be hungry", you need to feed them. I think where many churches have gone wrong is not focusing on the physical needs of their members or of people on the outside, but content themselves with just showing up for church on Sundays. Jesus, the apostles, the early Christians were all active in helping those in need. People saw their actions and that opened the door to evangelizing their beliefs; their faith wasn't just empty words, it was driven by actions, by unconditonal love for those around them.

Well, after the service, they were going to have more presentations, so I left and went down to The Abbey and had Highland Chicken again, yum! I chatted with the waitresses there, who both recognize me now. Callie is Irish but has lived in Scotland for ten years, so her accent is hard to make out. Yvette is from North Berwick. At first I was hearing an Edinburgh accent but the more she talked, the more it sounds...different. She said some people consider it "posher" than Edinburgh. To me it sounds smoother, almost lyrical. There was also a man at the bar (who stops in on Sundays for a couple of pints) who is from Craigmillar Park area and has a distinctive accent. It seems Scotland isn't made up of only a few accents. Edinburgh itself has several, probably because each suburb has its own identity and people tend to cluster around what is familiar. I think this is why so many American accents also perpetuate; rather than everyone developing a generic accent, people stick together and let their accents get stronger, as a way of maintaining unity.

Well, here it is late Sunday night. I'm sitting alone in the lounge and getting chilly, so I'm going to head to bed. My plan for tomorrow is to have brunch at Elaine's and hopefully record their accents, then hop a train to North Berwick. Yvette told me if I go there, I should go to a pub she used to work at called The Ship Inn and say she sent me. It's a small fishing town and should be pretty interesting, as long as the weather isn't too rainy. I'll be back in the late afternoon and maybe get an early dinner at The Abbey again, then vegetate at the hotel.