It was another 4am alarm day, the second in a row now, but filled with enough excitement and enthusiasm that we didn't mind a bit.
Today we were going to Scotland!
We packed up the little we had left to pack, got ready for the day, and after stripping the beds down, we left our hostel room as empty as we had found it.
Though we were leaving a great three hours before breakfast would be served, the hostel people had made up little breakfast bags for us with date cakes, fruit, croissants, and a bottle of water. Two guys even were manning the hot chocolate fountain, handing out steaming coffee cups full as we walked out the door. How awesome are these guys?
Well, it was another four hour drive to Scotland from York, and while most of the group wisely took the opportunity to catch up on some Z's, I, well....I couldn't miss the chance to watch us cross over into long-awaited Scotland!! I'll be honest, I have loved every minute of being in Ireland and Wales, but my blood has strong English and Scottish roots, and those roots have been tugging at me for many years. I don't know why, but I have so dearly hoped I could walk upon the lands of my forefathers and mothers for as long as I can remember. I'm so proud of my heritage and I've decided that's a major part of who I am; my ancestry is in my music, in my love for the country, in my stories, and probably a bit in my temperament (fortunately I've also taken up the Word of Wisdom). That place is just such a big part of who I am for somewhere I've never actually been, so I could hardly believe that the van was taking me there that morning. So no, I didn't sleep. Happily. :)
To my absolute delight, the landscape drastically changed as we traveled ever farther north. The vast expanse of great shrub-trees and small leafed tress that fill most of the UK became less and less frequent, until they were all but gone. But Scotland has no shortage of trees, gentle reader, as it is filled with the most incredible pine forests. Massive, dense, and incredibly dark green pines filled my window. They grow so close together and they are so so tall!! One moment you are just staring out at a beautiful wheat field, with the typical jagged hills recreating every horizon, and then suddenly a literal wall of pines erupts from the side of the window, and then all is dark and green. Sometimes this scene of thick warm darkness continues for a few seconds, sometimes for miles, but eventually the wall disappears as forcefully as it arrived, leaving the viewer once again in admiration of a pasture of grazing ponies or of a river. And where it isn't green, black, or gold, now there is purple. The purple thistles are always in bloom throughout the year, and a field full of those is truly a breathtaking sight.
As we neared the border, we saw a gigantic statue of what looked like an angel. It wasn't elegant and it wasn't well defined, but it looked like a supremely massive metal person with gigantic outstretched wings. More like airplane wings than anything else, but wings nonetheless. It was kinda cool.
When we were almost at the border, a wonderful thought hit me hard. I've actually had this thought ever since yesterday as I walked through York, though I forgot to mention it then. Every year, there is one moment (around August each year, now that I think about it) when the air just feels like Autumn. Fall is my absolute favorite season, and though it sounds completely amazing to you I'm sure, gentle reader, I can definitely feel the change just as the season finally arrives. The air just feels different somehow. It's beautifully crisp, warmed by the sun but more brisk on it's own. The sun itself feels like it's losing power upon the world, but it's proud; though it can no longer heat up the area like an oven, it compensates by deepening the color of everything with powerful gold hues. There are hay trucks everywhere, the clouds are fat and white, and eventually, the incredible happens: all the green leaves change to a myriad of autumn colors!!! What an incredible God we have, that would make such a beautiful season once every year.
When we finally came upon the big blue sign welcoming us officially to Scotland, Abbey surprised us all by yelling a question up to Tom from the back of the van if he could stop for a few pictures. Reluctantly but kindly, Tom pulled over a little down the road and Miya, Lydia, Abbey, and I jumped out.
Um, you know how when you dream about something for so long, and then when the rare chance comes for it to come true, you wonder for a moment if what you hoped to feel was just made up? That it wouldn't actually feel as incredible as you hoped it would be? That it would actually just feel completely ordinary? Well, as I jumped out, those thoughts did cross my mind.
What if?...
My feet hit the ground. Those thoughts were instantly and forever gone. I was in Scotland, and it dang well felt like I was finally in Scotland. It felt so good that I may or may not have danced around a bit. Okay, forget any shame, I danced around like a crazy blonde, smiling and laughing and soaking in every ray that hit me.
One more lifelong dream fulfilled.
Tom yelled at us to get back in, so we scurried back in and closed the door. Miya and Abbey had decided to run clear back to the sign though, and they were not in sight. We opened the door and yelled out to them. A few seconds later, we saw them running to the van, about 70 yards away. But Tom decided to start moving anyway. They looked horrified as they watched us pull out and leave, but we stopped again only about 10 yards later. They jumped in, we shut the door, and we were off again.
We stopped about a half hour later to look out at an abbey on the other side of a wide stream. It was very beautiful, but the real purpose of the stop was for a bathroom break. I had no use for it at the time, so I actually went off on my own down to the stream behind a small hill. I was back at the van less than ten minutes later. I hadn't been missed, so that made things easy, and will never forget that cool experience which I won't document here.
Once we were all stuffed back in the van (many of us were beginning to wonder if we would be permanently stuck in the sitting position by the time we got to Edinburgh) and drove about another hour to our hostel.
Once again, we were too early to check into our rooms, so we unloaded the van and put the majority of our things in the back luggage room. I quickly pulled a bunch of the bigger things out of my backpack, like my vacuum bag of clothes (divine inspiration those bags, I'm telling you! They give one the power to store 6 days worth of clothes and a towel in a single backpack with room to spare!), and a few other odds and ends and put them on the shelves with the other things. It looked like rain outside, so I stuffed my massive yellow jacket in my backpack that had my lunch and money, slung Leo over my shoulder, and walked out with the group.
We then walked about a mile and a half to Royal Street, the street that leads up to Edinburgh Castle on the other end of town, and also the street that is completely closed off for the Fringe Festival. It was super cumbersome hauling my stuff up there, for I realized that Scotland's jagged hill landscape did not exclude the cities. In fact, the city seemed to be built by pouring asphalt and concrete just on the tops of the hills, as the whole area was steep hills and valleys. I even saw a few buildings where one corner would be at a specific level, but as you continued down the sidewalk, you were three floors down by the time you crossed the width of the building! It was crazy! But I just knew that bringing Leo was going to be more than worth it, so I made it my goal to stay right up with Tom until we got wherever we were going. I actually stuck with him, up until he made one of his famous jay-walk maneuvers across a street that was all too crazy. Matt was the only other one to make it across with him, and it was actually a close call for them both. Since Tom doesn't look back though, I was behind the rest of the way. Oh well.
When we made it to Royal Street, we met a thick wall of people! The whole street had been closed off to cars, so the entire stretch of cobblestone road was full of performers, tourists, actors, and dancers. The Fringe Festival is like Scotland's drama version of the Sundance Film festival. You walk around and see a bunch of different shows and plays that troups come and do. Some are free, some aren't, and I didn't really care about a single one of them. Sorry, I'm not ashamed to say that it just isn't my thing, so I wasn't going to spend a second of my potentially only day in Scotland doing something I didn't love. Call me selfish if you like, I've been called far worse, but it was just something that I had to do.
I saw a bunch of shop booths and pavilions being set up, so that was very encouraging. It was only about 10am, so even though we had been up for six hours and it felt like it should be mid-afternoon, we had a whole day before us still. Brillinat!!!
Tom led us all the way up the hill along Royal Street to the entrance of the military tattoo stadium (the stadium where the fierce Scottish pipe bands would be massing and competing throughout the week) and to the gates of the Edinburgh Castle. Honestly, I wasn't excited. I was ready to be set loose on Edinburgh, but we had to go through the castle for at least an hour first. So we waited by the entrance while Tom picked up our tickets. About twenty minutes later, we were in, and told to look around. I teamed up with Abbey, Josie, Theresa, and Lydia, and we looked through a ton of the restored castle museums. We actually went through a really amazing exhibit all about the Crown Jewels of Scotland. It was a single-file tour through the majority of the castle, with exhibits all along the way telling the story of how the sword and scepter were made, how they were used in coronation ceremonies, how they were broken and smuggled away from Cromwell, and then locked in an oak chest in a room that was sealed up and forgotten for 111 years before it was rediscovered after a tremendous treasure hunt. Now the Crown Jewels are on display and are absolutely stunning.
We also walked through a short military exhibit, showing how the uniforms and tactics of the Scottish military developed through the years. I thought it was cool to read up on how many thousands of pipers died in the great wars. They would be the first to rise out of the trenches and play as the men would storm out behind them to rush the enemy trenches. They couldn't carry any arms or shields to defend themselves, obviously, because they carried a large two-handed instrument, but they always did because they knew it gave their men courage. That is truly admirable bravery.
Well, by this point, I was glad I had seen some of the best bits of the castle, but I was more than ready to go. Fortunately, the girls that were with me were really starting to get hungry, so they were just as anxious to get out on the town as I was to find some lunch. I munched on a granola bar I think as we hit the gift shop on our way out, and that was more than plenty for me for lunch.
At long last, we finally made our way out of the castle together, but I was more and more ready to split. I was dying to get my violin out. I was so nervous I could hardly stand it, but I was more excited than afraid. I didn't know where I was going to go, what I was going to play, or how long I would last before the people asked me to take my screeching somewhere else. I knew I wasn't going to make any real money, and I was okay with that. I just HAD to play my celtic music IN SCOTLAND for just a few minutes anyway. I was so afraid that people were going to hate it, that I had it horribly wrong and would offend the ears of every Scotsman and Scotswoman around that crazy busy Festival street, but I knew I'd shoot myself if I gave up this chance out of fear. Then I passed by a young girl who was playing her violin on the street walk, working through some basic jigs and reels as her grandfather smiled and held her stand steady, and my fire returned. If she could hack it, I had to try.
So with a crazy amount of nervousness, I walked over to a policeman and asked him if I was allowed to perform on these streets without a license. He said that if I played within a certain roped off section where most of the actors were, then I would need a license, but anywhere else along the road, I would be fine without one. I breathed a sigh of relief, turned around, and started back up the road towards the castle, where there were more people.
I kept telling the girls that they didn't have to come with me, but they were such sweethearts and said that they wanted to see where I would be. They looked a little shocked when I told them that I wasn't going to lunch with them. I promised that I wasn't hungry at all, but I just had to get playing before I lost any more time. I found a nice spot with an indent into the sidewalk by a shop, with room for me to play and not decrease the size of the busy sidewalk. But when I checked with the shop owners, they said that they didn't want anyone blocking that area. Cool.
I went back out to the girls, and they were really starting to fade. I told them to go get some lunch, but they protested. I told them that they they only needed to look along the other side of the street and they would be able to find me once they had finished their lunch. They protested a bit more, but I persisted, and a few minutes later I was alone.
I was really starting to feel scared now, but I kept the brave act up as best I could. I walked across the street, scouted out a few spots along the street for a good spot, and then found one in the shade with another slight indent. It took me a little bit of time to find it, as I was just beginning to set up somewhere else in the sunshine, but a piper beat me and started playing about ten yards down the walk. But my new spot had a lot more people. It was kind of a bottleneck area, which I really liked, and so the crowds that came through were thick and constant. And a quite a bit terrifying, but I went through the motions I've done so many hundreds of times. I got Leo out, and set out my case. I tuned quickly, spent a minute warming my fingers up through a few scales and vibrato drills, and then I was still. I looked around at where I was and what I was doing.
The panic part of my brain sounded off. What was I going to play? Could I do it? What if I sounded awful? Were my strings too old? Should I change them out? This wasn't my best bow. Was I going to be too loud? Maybe I wouldn't be loud enough? Would these people hate me? What was I supposed to do when they looked at me? What if?...
I gazed across the busy streets. There were scottish flags hanging in the windows, a couple of pipers playing down the lane a ways, I could see the castle up the hill a little bit on my left, and then I looked at the violin in my hands. In that moment, an enormous smile burst across my face as I internally screamed SHUT UP BRAIN!!!! With a huge burst of noise, I slammed into my first chord of a Celtic tune, and my fingers found their way along the wood I knew so well.
I was shocked at how in tune I was! Leo and my new violin are proportioned differently, and I've spent so much time retraining my fingers to play according to my new violins proportions that I wasn't able to hit all my notes in perfect pitch the last few times I've played with Leo. But this time, they just came dead on, note after note. It was the people upstairs, I know it.
I played, and played hard. I smiled at the people as they passed, but not because of them, because I was there, and I was playing my music, and I was so truly and incredibly happy.
I played everything from classical Bach to Scottish straphesys, to ruddy American hoedowns. I played a ton of fast music, as that was what seemed to draw more people, and then I would play slow beautiful pieces once I had a bit of a crowd. I tried to say thank you to the people who would throw a coin into my case, but I kept messing up when I did, so I would just smile when I could. I didn't really look in my case, since I didn't want that to be my purpose for playing. So I didn't.
After a while, I was suddenly surrounded by the girls of my group! They were clapping to the beat and laughing, it was awesome! Abbey then handed me a big plate of something that looked really good. I stopped playing and she told me that they had all gotten lunch and then stopped at a crepe stand and they got me one! It was a raspberry and brie, and it looked amazing! My arms were getting a little tired, but I still really wasn't hungry at all. I was loving the chance to rest my arms a little bit, since I hadn't stopped playing since I started, but I really just wanted to get back to it. So I thanked Abbey and the girls for being so darling, took a bite, and then checked my watch. To my disbelief, it had been a full two hours since I set up shop!!! I couldn't believe it! I looked at my fingertips and they were indeed the dark grey that comes with playing time. The girls stayed for a few more minutes and then said that they were going to a nearby museum. I told them that I just wanted to stay there. They said they wanted to come by again, so I told them that I probably wouldn't leave before they had looked through a museum, so we bid each other farewell and I hid the rest of my crepe behind my case lid.
I tried not to, but I happened to look in my case at this point. Again to my disbelief, I saw that most of the bottom of my case was full of coins, and most of them were gold!! That means pound coins! I was so excited, and then a bit sheepish, so I pushed about half of my coins under my rag before I stood up and resumed playing.
Oh, it felt so amazing to play and play and play. I noticed that people tended to stop for some songs more than others, so I started an order of the seven or eight songs that were best. Four times a person stopped and listened to me play for about three full songs before they left. One of them was a Chinese man who thought my violin was extremely beautiful and asked to play it. I told him that I actually don't let anyone play my violin, but thanked him for noticing. He came back later with his wife and he actually came up and started pointing out and touching my instrument while I was playing. They stayed there for about ten minutes doing that, and then another fifteen after they stepped back a bit. They were a bit annoying, but there was no harm at all.
Once a guy dropped a handful of gold coins in and asked if I knew any Bach. "The chaconne or partita 2 or 3 please?" he asked. I smiled. I knew them all. I picked the chaconne though because I had worked on it the most recently, though I have never finished it yet. It wasn't perfect and I would have killed for my Bach book then, but the people upstairs put the fingerings I didn't know I had memorized into my head and I was able to play it until he left.
Once a really solid guy passed by and tossed a few coins in, and then came back later with his wife. They stopped and listened at the corner for a while, then his wife came over and threw in a handful of coins and told me her husband asked if I could play any punk. Punk? Sure, if I could think of a tune. But I embarrassingly couldn't. I asked if they knew a popular band they would like in particular, but they just shrugged and said that it was all good and that they liked what I was doing.
Once a little Scottish girl and her mum came by and chatted with me for a little bit. The girl had just started taking fiddle lessons and so she said she liked to watch how I did it. They were so cute!!
Once when I finished a song, I heard some people clapping. I looked around, noticed two guys who were leaning out of two windows in the buildings just across the street from me, and just the usual passersby. So I played through another song. When I finished, the polite and happy clap sounded again. I looked around, and looked up again at the two guys looking down from the two windows, and saw them still clapping for me. They stayed out and listened for probably a half hour before they went back inside, leaving the windows open.
There was a point where my side of the street had cleared up for a bit and there were a lot less people. I looked across the street for the eighty-gazillionth time, and saw a man who was sitting out in front of the shop on the steps. As soon as I saw this guy, a name flashed through my head. Professor Gale. No way, it wasn't him. I was in Edinburgh, in August, on a random street, just sawing away at my violin. This guy was across the street and I was just mistaking him for my old Psych 304 professor. There were thousands of people on this street. He probably just had one of those faces. Could it be? No, no chance....holy crap, my old psychology professor was sitting across the street!
When he stood up, I stopped playing and called out 'Professor Gale?' I couldn't believe it. He turned his head towards me, smiled at me, and walked over. I've had probably eight or nine psych professors at BYU now, and this guys is the only one that I run into on campus. Which is weird, because it wasn't my favorite class and we really didn't get to know one another in class. Mostly just as we recognized each other on campus. And now in Edinburgh!!!!
He asked me what I was doing, I told him I was here on a BYU trip, and asked the same of him. He said he and his family were on a cruise and the boat was waiting nearby so they were touring here for a few hours. His family came out of the shop he had been sitting in front of, and he called them over to meet me. They were so fun! We chatted for just a bit, and then they left with a warm goodbye. Ha, I love the odds!! Thanks people upstairs! You've done it again!!
Well, I played and played and played, until my arms felt like they were going to fall off and I started missing notes because I couldn't move as fast as I needed to. I checked my watch again. Another two hours had flown by. I figured since I wasn't playing well now and still wanted to do some shopping, I should pack up.
I looked in my case. The bottom was full of money. Almost all of it was gold pounds. And over in one corner was a five pound note. Thats ridiculous! I totally glazed over like a stupefied goldfish as I loaded a dozen handfulls of coins into my green drawstring bag. It was ruddy heavy! I couldn't even believe how many coins I had been given. Holy moely, that was an amazing moment.
By the time I had Leo cleaned and loaded up, the stupor had mostly worn off. I stood up, put my backpack and case on, and picked up my now slightly crumbly (but still very delicious) crepe, and felt like a regular discreet person again.
Now that mission one was complete, mission two began. i had been waiting the entire trip to get a necklace in Scotland, so i went to a few shops. During the course of the trip, I have checked every single jewelry section in every shop I've been in, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I was told I've been to 50 now. While a lot of the stuff I found was nice, I have found almost nothing that was just right. Almost everything is handmade stuff that just isn't me, or expensive pressed pewter. It's always been one or the other. There is a lot of gold and sterling silver too, but it's always been extremely expensive and has never looked like something I would wear. I did 'by chance' come upon my gorgeous ring in that totally random shop outside the Slate mine and got it for £3. I haven't taken it off since, and since it hasn't lost its shine at all or turned green, it turns out it's sterling silver.
But now that I was in Scotland, I had to get a necklace. So I looked at a few more shops, found more of the exact same, and was almost ready to give in, when I saw an vintage shop. I went in, and it was all vintage jewelry. I looked around and loved what I saw. I knew that if I was to find something right for me, then this was the place. I looked around some more, and then finally found it: my knot in sterling silver. Well, its so close to my knot, and symbolizes the same thing, but this was is elegantly different. I debated between that one and another, but finally picked out the forever trinity knot from the hundreds around it. Then it was time for me to pick out a chain. The lady unrolled a massive velvet cloth with like 200 chains on it. My eyes swept over the huge collection of chains. They were separated by length, but there were all sorts of styles. When I found the area with my preferred length, it took me all of three seconds to pick out my chain. I asked if I could try it all on, and it was perfect. I paid the kind lady at the desk, and walked out with my necklace on at last.
I stopped at a few more shops along the way, picking up a few other little trinkets here and there, and then decided to go home. I went back to the place I had played, but didn't see the girls anywhere. I figured it had been a really long time for them to see a little museum and that they had probably just gone home, so I headed out of the busy city. We had walked for probably a half hour from the hostel, and I had been talking with a few people on the way, so now that I was alone and it was getting dark, I was very focused on trying to remember the windey way back.
Fortunately, the people upstairs rock! I remembered turns by shop names that I didn't even remember I had read along the way, but that kept happening over and over again! I made it back without a single error, stopping off at the mall on my way to check out a 90% closeout sale. Nothing was my size there though, which was a bummer, becuase they were selling really high end clothes for like seven pounds!
I walked into the hostel, grabbed my stuff from the back room, and went up to the room the girls had signed us up for. It turns out that they had only beat me back by about 20 minutes.
We went downstairs and had a lovely dinner at the hostel restaurant. I got a real British sweet pea soup, a chicken sandwich, and a salad for only four pounds! Can't beat that, huh?
We all went back upstairs, swapped stories, and showed the cool stuff we had picked up in Scotland. Lydia had got a small set of bagpipes for only fifteen pounds, and they work really well! Well, the first question the girls had for me was how much money I had made. I really didn't think I wanted to tell them, just because we're all poor college students watching a bit of a budget, so I didn't want to make anyone feel bad. I had no idea how much money I had made, but I guessed it was probably no more than twenty pounds, maybe twenty five with the note.
The girls wouldn't let it slide though, so I drew out my heavy green drawstring bag and the girls laughed at how much it bulged at the bottom. They each took a different kind of coin, totaled up their portion, and we added it all together:
£47.50
I could have died I was so excited, and embarrassed. Holy crap, I had made almost fifty pounds in four hours just by playing on the streets! And there were a TON of street performers on that one street! In the Fringe, there was a signup pole where people had scheduled time on the performance corners to do their thing, so people were performing Everywhere ALL DAY! And yet, I had somehow walked out with almost fifty pounds. Holy ruddy moely.
:D
Well, after that, it was shower, get ready for bed, scriptures, and a very grateful prayer. Lydia and I had decided to return with our group back to Cardiff, though we both loved Edinburgh. There was just too much that we would miss if we stayed behind, and we had nothing scheduled for our return. We were sad, but we knew that it was much better that way.
So for the first and maybe the very last time, I closed my incredible day in Scotland, the place I've always dreamed of going, and went to sleep. Thank you, my friends and family Upstairs, this was all you.
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