Royal Mile

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh extends from the Edinburgh Castle to the Palace at Holyrood. Last Saturday, I walked down to the Royal Mile and explored some whisky shops. These are some pictures I took that day with brief commentary.

I first went to St. Giles, Cathedral. Church of Scotland. My favorite thing inside is a collection of colors (flags) carried in battles from the past millenium. No photo rule I respected on the flags.


Somehow, I ended up paying a whopping £13 to be admitted to the Castle. This time, there was no angry, armed guard. I did not take a photo the Scottish crown jewels and the stone of destiny because the guard seemed ready to enforce the no photography rule. I did take a lovely tour with this guide.


Here is a view out the north facing side of the castle, below is New Town.


The soldiers of the castle adopted dogs from time to time. If the dog or owner was important enough, the dog was buried in this little doggie cemetary.


This building was erected as a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who died in WWI, the war to end all wars. In the middle is an alter with the names of all the soldiers who died in WWI on a scroll in a casket-like chest. Unfortunately, WWI did not end all wars, but the Scotts, always looking to save a buck, simply add names to the scroll rather than build a new monument. But, every Scotsman who has died in service is listed in that chest.


This castle was built on this volcanic rock and sits high above the city. It has been taken only by siege and once by stealth, but never by force. The alter in the previous paragraph is built onto the highest point of this rock which burst through the floor as the foundation of the alter.


The castle has been used to hold prisoners of war for many wars, including what they call the American War for Independence. When you tour the prisons, there is a room with three doors on display where prisoners have carved names and dates. Some of the dates were very old. This, however, was by far my favorite, an early version of the Stars and Stripes carved by a prisoner. (While I was relatively certain there was a no photo rule here as well, I looked for both a sign and a guard. Seeing neither, I photographed a 230 year old door carving which should be fine.)

A Pastoral Visit

I had my first visitor in Edinburgh, none other than Fr. Nick (my pastor in the US) and Paul (his friend and traveling buddy) who are visiting Scotland for ten days. (Before passing judgment on Paul's hair in this picture, keep reading.)


They arrived in Edinburgh on Sunday and I walked down to their hotel to meet them for dinner. We decided to head over to New Town to the posh restaurants and pubs of George Street. When asked if they were hungry, both Fr. Nick and Paul replied that they were thirsty so we looked first for a pub. We had past several unimpressive places when we stopped to take a picture of the Edinburgh Castle towering over New Town.


This lovely photo op was followed by an epic moment. As we walked to the next pub, a rather full seagull jettisoned its waste in our general direction. Protected by the holiness of the priest by my side, the very loud splattering sound revealed that Nick and I had made it through unscathed. However, the sound of irritation in Paul’s voice, “You’ve gotta be s@!#in’ me!” warned of Paul’s misfortune. Only upon his turning toward us did we see the full magnitude of his misfortune. Having known Paul for roughly twenty minutes, I felt very bad for him and headed for a bar to find some napkins; Fr. Nick, as only a true friend could, simply forced Paul to pose for pictures while he heckled him and laughed hysterically. I was getting napkins so I didn’t take a photo. While Paul was attempting to clean himself up in a pub bathroom, I did take this photo of the display on Nick’s camera. It gives the general idea.


We began with some Tennant’s at the Rose and Crescent. This is like pint number one, so despite the picture, we aren't remotely intoxicated. However, this picture does capture the spirit of the evening better than the subsequent picture.


Fr. Nick suggested we take another as proof of our sobriety after previewing the first picture. I agreed but somehow bug-eyed!


We then had dinner at Le Monde, a new age bar/restaurant on George Street with a decent sized menu. After many questions and long discussions with the staff, we all got fish and chips. Delicious for sure, but somehow not the same as the stuff from the little chip shops. I’m sure this was better for you, and even tasted better, but it wasn’t the same. Fr. Nick decided that instead of ordering side dishes, he'd have a second meal via Guinness.


We walked back to High Street and stopped in one more pub for a pint, a very nice bar with a Caledonian 80. After a bit, I headed home on a bus (it was just too cold to walk).

We had made plans for night number two, but I had to change them as the restaurant near Leslie's was closed. So, instead of a night of single malts at Leslies, we went for the subdued couple o’ pints and some Scottish fare at Greyfriar’s Bobby Bar just outside the Greyfriar’s Kirk yard. I felt like Nick and Paul had to know the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby before they left Edinburgh. (If you’re new, I wrote about this before.) I recently took this picture of the Greyfriar’s Bobby monument.


It was great fun to have Fr. Nick and Paul visit, and I hope they enjoyed my company as well. They are off to the Highlands to castles and distilleries and St. Andrew’s Golf course, and I am off to Cambridge tomorrow. I’ll let you know how my trip goes and be anxious to hear from Nick about the rest of theirs.

Anyone for Bowls?

My friends had invited me to join their tennis and bowling club and made a strong case that it would be a lovely thing for the whole family. I was skeptical. First, no one in my family plays tennis and how fun could lawn bowling really be. On top of that, what would you do with the kids? Nine days ago, they convinced me by simply taking me to the club for a picnic and some lawn bowling.





This bowling is not like the lawn bowling set one picks up on clearance at Wally-world. The slightly skewed ellipsoids are called bowls and they definitely do not travel in a straight line (unless hurled through air). They are rolled (bowled) along a trajectory that bends toward the target, a white ball named jack. As you see in my picture below, the bowls are marked with a small dot and a larger dot. The small dot is the direction to which the bowl will turn. This seems pretty simple, but I have sent a few bowls down the green only to be absolutely appalled as they started turning away from the illusive jack. (Reminder: blow up the picture by clicking on it.)



If you watched much curling during the Olympics, it is very similar (except there are no brooms, the ground is warmer, and it is much harder to slide along on one foot). The idea is to get your bowls closer to the jack; you score 1 point for each of your bowls that is closer than all of the opponent’s bowls. That’s the whole game. Since octogenarians run rampant on the bowling greens, you are misled to believe the game is easy. Our first attempts left an array of bowls that looked like the jack was sitting on top of a hill. We got better, but still have little chance to compete against the old men on the bowling green. Here’s a better introduction.



Apparently the game is dying in the US, but is alive and well in Edinburgh. Essentially every neighborhood has a bowling club. I wonder if I can put a bowling green in my back yard? George Washington had one!

PS: This hundred push-up challenge is humbling. I tried starting on week 4 and after one work out, dropped back to week 3. The last exercise of the two days is to max out and do at least X push-ups. Um, I can't.

Push-Update

So you may recall that at the beginning of April I stated I would do at least 2000 push-ups in April. All was going remarkably well. On April 14 I had completed 1455 push-ups. I was pacing to shatter my goal of 2000. Then something happened. I can’t quite put a finger on it.

Oh yeah, I stopped doing push-ups. I did 85 over the next 13 days. So it was April 28 (1540) when I realized I was about to fail a self-imposed challenged not because of injury or conflicting obligations, but because I had given up. It turned to midnight, no push-ups. I now had 48 hours to complete 460 push-ups. Yikes, that was nearly half of my goal for all of March. So I cranked out 90 and went to bed. When I woke up, I was sure I was defeated. I still had 370 push-ups to go. But I did sets of 30 or 40 and busted out another 250 before midnight. So the 24 hours that was April 29 was witness to 340 push-ups. Now I was saved if I wasn’t too sore to do any more.

The next day I was sore, but not too sore. I did 90 before I went to work. That evening I went lawn bowling with Jared and Cora (more on that later) and went home relatively late. Just before 11:30pm, I realized I had a few more to do, so I rolled off 31 so as to exceed my goal.

2001 push-ups in April

(17% of them on April 29)

3451 since March 1

So what about for May? What's my challenge this month? I like the idea of doing two thousand push-ups as I really want to get to ten thousand. However, I feel a bit silly breaking them all up into little sets of 30 or 40. So, I'm going to build push-up endurance by starting in week four of the 100 push-up challenge wildly named onehundredpushups. When I am done, I'm buying a t-shirt. Who wants to do this with me?

PS: After posting with large gaps in between, I posted two in a row here over the weekend. Scroll.

I Love Volcanoes

So we all know there was a little hiccup in the aviation industry in Europe caused by a little volcanic activity out of Iceland. Okay, so it wasn’t little and it was more than a little hiccup. Anyway, I flew back to Edinburgh on the 26th, the target for having cleared the list of backlogged passengers. I had anticipated an offer of compensation to not fly, but no such offer was presented, likely do the funds lost during the ash cloud fiasco. Anyway, what this meant was that the planes were absolutely full.

To me, the planes being absolutely full meant a little upgrade to first class on the Des Moines to Chicago leg. Then, there was a mechanical issue and we took off 60 minutes late. Now Des Moines to Chicago is a 52 minute flight, so a good tail wind wasn’t going to be sufficient. I landed 27 minutes after my flight for London had left. At first, I feared this would be a significant setback as they might move me back from economy plus to the standard economy seats. In the end, to my pleasure, my star alliance silver status instead bought me an upgrade to business class for the transatlantic flight.

When I was rebooking, they offered me business class for $800 which I refused. So, the volcano was kind enough to score me an $800 upgrade. Is the upgrade worth the $800? My frugal (i.e. cheap) nature instinctively wants to say “no” but then I sat there. First of all, each seat has many levels of adjustment like a good lazy-boy recliner. The best part is that with the push of a button, the seat goes to 180°, a complete, flat bed. I have never slept this well on a plane. It alone was worth $100 if being rested upon arrival is important (which, really it wasn’t for me).

Oh, did I mention that I didn’t try to go to sleep until after the three course meal? There was Champaign upon boarding, followed by an aperitif just after takeoff when I ordered my dinner from the menu. Then, I selected wine from the wine list which came just before my appetizer. Bread was brought around in a basket for you to select from. I was asked if I would like to switch wines for the main course, but I stuck with my selection for the braised beef. This was seriously good airplane food. For dessert, I selected the assorted cheese tray (rather than the cheesecake) to accompany the port they offered. I declined the selection of liqueurs. I considered ordering an after dinner Scotch, but decided I didn’t really need to get introduced to any of the hidden air marshals.

So after the little dinner, I talked with the geneticist next to me for a while and then hit the “bed” button. I slept for about 4 hours straight… on a plane. When I woke up, I was served breakfast consisting of a lovely fruit plate, yogurt, and endless croissants. During this time, I watched an episode of The Mentalist on my 24 inch on demand TV. I arrived at Heathrow, in high spirits.

Of course I had also missed my connection to Edinburgh, so I was rebooked into row 6. This time dumb luck rather a volcano was on my side. The scheduled aircraft had a maintenance failure and the planes were swapped out. The new plane had exactly 6 rows of first class.

Is it worth $800 to fly business across the Atlantic? I say certainly not on a western journey. On an Eastern Journey, in my opinion it is definitely worth $150-$200. Therefore, having experienced it now, I would say that $800 is a tangible example of a good pricing strategy. A cheapo like me doesn’t value it enough to do it, but enough people will value this as a good deal to make it profitable.

Also, all the folks flying First and Business class are actually paying for roughly half of our economy tickets. They should be thanked as you board. Everyone in first class likes their ego stroked, so the next time you pass through first class, just say sincerely, “Thanks for paying for most of my ticket!”

Laphroaig 10yr, Islay, 40%

I wonder how much previous exposure influences your brain. I hope it isn’t this much. Are we really just puppets? Elpeebee had commented that Laphroaig was much like drinking a glove. The menu had medicinal in the first word. Is that why my review is as it is? Maybe the menu, Elpeebee, and I are all just correct simultaneously. For example, I knew it was complete rubbish when people were saying the Bengals were good last year.

Laphroaig 10yr
Islay
40% abv

Color: like a gold coin, oily, spots of darkness and spots that look clear, changing.

Nose: smells like a campfire by the ocean. Seriously. It smells like smoky salt water.


Palate: initially, it’s like cough syrup from the ‘80s. Remember when Nyquil wasn’t flavored, the green one?


Finish: splash of sweetness followed by a strong, hot aftertaste. Waxy and oily but not too oily. The aftertaste lingers, because, well, the beverage lingers.


Overall: so it’s way better than Nyquil, but I really thought of that when I first drank it. It’s fine. If I was given the choice between Laphroaig 10yr and Wild Turkey, I’d take the Laphroaig, but this is certainly in last place amongst the Islay malts I’ve ever had: Lagavulin, Bowmore, Ardbeg.

Three Whiskies at Once

There was a math conference in Edinburgh the week after Easter. In my field, there were a few big names in town. They’re big names in mathematics so if I told you their names you wouldn’t know the difference. Nonetheless, I went to dinner with some of them the first night as the fill in host since the actual host, Jared, was ill. The next night, I went to dinner with two of them as I had promised we would then go drink some single malts at Leslies! One actually bailed to do math, but Jared fought his illness to enjoy some fun times at Leslies. So I couldn’t take notes and can’t exactly tell you the appropriate categories and all. But, as I’ve mentioned in the past, that isn’t so useful anyway. Instead, I’ll tell you what I drank, my recollection (the night after) of my impression, and if I recommend that you give it a try.

These are presented in the order they were consumed. This matters in that by number three, I might have liked straight vodka, who knows. I had read that Gelnfarclas was fantastic and better than the Balvenie Doublewood. I went there first. Then I went with a selection made by our guest, Joel. Finally, as you always should, I journeyed to Islay to try Caol Ila.

Glenfarcas 10yr, Speyside, 40% – surprisingly stern, intense alcohol, substantial finish. I have to say I didn’t love it. Smelled more like alcohol than anything. If stuck in a closet and the only way to get out was to drink Glenfarcas, don’t worry about me, I’ll make it out. However, given a selection I’m not ordering this. If I were you, I wouldn’t either unless you feel the rest of my single malt reviews are way off base.

Clynelish 14yr, Highland, 40% – this was lovely, but remember that it came after something I didn’t like. I think the amount that I liked this may have been overstated due to the meany above. Anyway, it was soft and fruity, finished nicely, and had a nice scent. It was lovely to drink.

Caol Ila 18yr, Islay, 43% – ummmm, amazing! Smells very very smoky, almost as smokey as Lagavulin (they guy next to me let me smell his Lagauvulin when I thought he had incorrectly given me Lagavulin) . This is fun to smell. The taste is substantial, but here’s the amazing part: the finish is instantaneous. It was phenomenally smooth. Here I warn that this was the ml 71-105 of single malt, but I am quite confident that this finish was authentic. Granted, I drank a bit of whisky before this one, but nothing could have over amplified the finish to make it so smooth. If I wanted a smoky Islay that was super easy to drink, I’d order this.