Harry Potter, Braveheart, Scotch and the Invisible Hand

Hello from Scotland! We made our grand voyage on Thursday.

Now, one does not usually opt to tour Scotland in February, but we wanted a long period of time in the UK and Ireland, and this is my semester break. So here we are. Actually, it is about 20 degrees warmer here than in Gdansk.

We chose to stay in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. It is an ancient city with a great deal of history.

Now you may have already read a little about this from Lisa’s blog. This is a sore point with me. She (Lisa) quickly takes all the good photos and best stories then posts them on her blog, leaving me to either repeat everything or only tell the boring stuff on my blog. I call her the Blog Squasher!

So, on the first night, the kids and the Blog Squasher and I met up with my friend Cara’s cousin, Lauren. She is a doctoral student at University of Edinburgh and has lived in Scotland for five years. We had a great night and really enjoyed meeting her. She also gave us some great pointers on what to see and not see in the city.

Our first stop the next day was (of course) an old church. It was St. Giles. Now St. Giles is popular as the church of John Knox. We in Kansas City know of John Knox as a place where the "old people" live. In fact, he was a man too (not just an old folk’s home). He brought the reformation to Scotland and happily chased out all us indulging Catholics. He was powerful enough to even have the major influence over the Royal family’s own religion (a queen basically lost her head over it). In addition, he is the founder of the Presbyterians. So, we were in his church. Is a magnificent structure right on the Royal mile in the middle of Edinburgh. It is very ornate and been a major part of Scottish history of over 400 years.

Of course, since we had been gone from our apartment for a whole hour, the kids were hungry. We had planned to eat lunch at a small cafe that has been made famous by author JK Rowling. Ben, Natalie and the Lisa are all big fans of her and the Harry Potter books. The cafe is called the Elephant House and it is where Rowling sat and wrote parts of the first couple of Harry Potter books. Of course, the cafe has done everything it can to cash in on her fame. We walked around the cafe, and they even had drawings (no pictures) of places she sat while she wrote, and the window she would have looked out of (which by the way is a great view of the Royal Castle). I guess all that atmosphere found its way into her stories. The kids were thrilled with being there. I have not read the books nor seen the movies (my important author is in the next paragraph), but I was very happy to see the rest of the family enjoying the cafe.

Now, speaking of important authors- also along the same road as St. Giles, the Royal Castle and the Elephant House is a statue of one of Edinburgh’s famous citizen’s: Adam Smith. For those who never sat in an economics class, Adam is the father of our discipline. He is basically the founder and philosopher of free market capitalism. Keep in mind, there really was not capitalism as we know it today before Adam and his ideas. He has been loved or loathed ever since. So, he being the reason I have something teach, and hence have gainful employment, I had my picture taken with him. Oddly, you notice his hands are quite visible (econ joke).

Ok, back to lunch. The Elephant House really was not a place to eat a full lunch. It was really more of a cafe (to maybe sit and write something). The kids had not eaten in almost two hours, so we had to find a place. To our delight we found a good tavern called Deacon Brodie. They had traditional Scottish fare, including haggis. We learned the tavern was named after the Edinburgh man who inspired the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The book was written by another famous person from Edinburgh, Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island). Ole Deacon Brodie was hung just a few yards away from where his tavern now stands.

Now that everyone was fed, we made it to our major attraction of the day, the Royal Castle. We spent several hours there both inside and outside. The Royal Honors (royal crown, sword and scepter) are housed there and on display. This is also the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots lived, as well as her son King James (of both Jamestown the the King James Bible fame) was born. For most of Scotland’s history, the kings have lived at this castle. However, It has been in England’s hands a couple of times. On the front the castle is a statue of William “Braveheart” Wallace (aka Mel Gibson) who fought in his kilt to get the castle back from the dreaded English. We got a picture of Ben with the Braveheart/Wallace statue (he really looks nothing like Mel Gibson up close).

Finally, who can go to Scotland without exploring their greatest export, Scotch? Ben and I went to the Scotch Experience. It is basically the Epcot of Whisky. You start off by riding in a mechanical barrel with a virtual distiller who takes you through the process of how Scotch is made. Then you go into a room where someone shows why there is so much difference in Scotches. There are four geographical regions where Scotch has to be made; highlands, lowlands, spey and islay. Actually, unless it is made in one of those four places, it can’t be called “scotch.“ Each region gives scotch a distinctive flavor due to its water, altitude, climate, and grains. This part was rather well done and interesting.

Then off to the tasting room, where you get to choose a Scotch from one of the geographical regions to try. I chose a highland variety and tried to properly swish, smell and taste the flavors. The next stop is the world’s largest collection of Scotches, thousands of unopened bottles of every brand and age conceivable. Of course, the last stop is a shop where you can purchase. To be fair, I bought one from each geographical region.

We got home and Lisa made a great dinner in our nice apartment. Wonderful first couple of days.