reset your clock to . . . 6/7/2004

6/7/2004
Last night (the 6th), spent one more evening at the ‘bar’ in the Globetrotters Hostel with ‘KOSS’, Junhua, and Spiro, a Greek nurse who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Quite an interesting group to share a Tennents with (the Scottish equivalent of Bud?), but I’m realizing (with some satisfaction actually) that I’m pushing myself pretty hard. On less than three hours sleep I rode 5 hours of trains, walked 8-9 miles, saw 2 castles, and spent a hectic hour or so trying to straighten out my plans for the next two days. One beer and I’m starting to fade. I liked this hostel. Great bathrooms and showers, lockers in the room, and since it’s so spacious, I got a single room for the price of a dorm.
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Another observation coming back through Edinburgh on a Sunday night. The city IS ghostly when the crowds aren’t around. One tour advertised it as the Jeckyl & Hyde city, and I can see why. Without the crowds and the traffic, you notice the DARKNESS and the QUIET, and the gothic skyline turns more sinister.
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1:00PM Back to the ‘present’. I’m past Aberdeen now, heading toward Elgin, which is halfway to Inverness. The sky is growing cloudier and the sea is shadowy and grey.
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4:00PM I’ve neglected to mention what I’ve been eating lately, but that’s mainly because it’s embarassing. Two words: iron rations. I try not to eat anything that costs more than two pounds. Sandwiches in the convenience store are usually in that range. A prepackaged salad (just bought one from ASDA, a branch of Walmart behind the Elgin train station). I also loaded up on peanuts and raisins (38p per bag). Breakfast at the hostel? They were charging 6 pounds = $12. Crazy. I never had any of it. Josie, an undergrad from North Carolina visiting Abbeys across Europe had the right idea. In the morning I saw her sitting in the dining room with a stack of pitas in front of her filling them one by one with hummus. I think I’m going to try that.
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The train comes in 45 minutes. The Elgin Cathedra (ruin) [see the pictures!] was why I stopped here, baggage and all. The Let’s Go guide recommends it, but when you get here you realize that it’s not at all easy to get there as a backpacker. It’s not ‘awkward’ really, but since there’s no baggage storage anywhere in town, I had to hump both bags 20 minutes to the cathedral, and leave them behind the ticket counter. Luckily, Marta, the only one on duty, was quite accomodating. Apparently, the train station used to let you leave luggage there, but since the ‘trouble’ (their words, though I’m not sure specifically what they’re referring to) they canceled that policy. Now, the cathedral. Not much of it was still standing, since it had been burned down on several occasions, and sacked during the Reformation (16th century). The sandstone walls and columns weathered and crumbled after the lead was lifted from its roof. Amazingly, the grassy void in the center of the ruin used to be the site of the main steeple, 200 ft. tall. Summer grasses, all that is left. . .
Marta at the ticket counter was quite cool, and since I was the only one in the ruin on a monday afternoon, probably starved for conversation. That is, until her supervisor came back. But anyway, before that, she had somehow moved from explaining the grisly and particularly Scottish skull & bones carvings in the church, to discussing Scottish heritage in Canada (with me contributing my thoughts on Chinese heritage). Come to think of it, Nova SCOTia is pretty obvious, but for some reason it never occurred to me to consider the Scottish connection. Her theory is that the Canadian accent comes from the Scottish accent.