Vertical Limit, Scottish Edition

Every time I walked outside and saw Arthur’s Seat (see below) I knew I had to climb it as soon as possible. As I told one of my friends, who told me to stop being obnoxiously poetic, it was beckoning me. Trouble is that Scotland is a cold, wet and windy place, so I didn’t want to be on top of an 800 ft. mountain when a rain / wind / hail storm started. So I was waiting for the right opportunity. Saturday morning began much as many other Scottish mornings have – driving rain blowing across the golf links outside my window, but, sure enough, by noon things had cleared up. Some friends and I had talked of making the trek up to the top the other day, so the forces were rallied – myself, Cindy, Rachel, Jack, Anna, and Katie, and we decided to go for it. Before we went, we decided we should have some additional company, in the form of biscuits (UK “digestive” cookies which are really damn good, and filling too), and a bottle of “The Famous Grouse” (the name, the very regal looking grouse on the bottle, and saying “Id like to have a visit with the grouse” bring me joy), which is apparently “Scotland’s Favorite Whiskey.” So we were quite prepared. The mountain itself didn’t take long to reach, and although there seemed to be a number of paths leading towards the summit, we opted for the especially dramatic looking one that cut across a sheer rocky face in a rapid ascent to the top. It took us maybe 45 minutes walking up steep steps, and some rocky paths to reach the summit. Once we were there, and paused to have refreshments, we really noticed the wind. It was somewhat like Hurricane Isobel, except that there weren’t trees falling down and I was on top of a mountain in Scotland instead of cowering in my house. At times it was a little difficult to walk, and some of the girls said they were nearly blown over. I had a good time running face first into the blasting wind and feeling like I was about to take off or something (I would like that I suppose ;) ) From above, I was again struck by the architectural “feel” of Edinburgh – the old, weather beaten stone buildings alongside the somewhat grim modern / 60s era office towers and apartments give it a kind of harshness that is difficult to describe. Maybe the winter light contributes to that as well. You can see that it was by no means completely sunny, and as beautiful as it was to watch dark clouds begin to creep over the sun, we were already really cold and a rainstorm would not be a pleasant event to experience on Arthur’s Seat. The climb down was a little more difficult (see pictures), but there weren’t any real problems. I did miss having Nick Christie-Blick there pausing every few seconds to comment about the geology – Im sure he would have loved the place. We reached the bottom just as the rain started, and went and had a long late lunch at the Palmyra Kebob House, whose falafel, I contend, is far superior to Amir’s. The Indian and middle eastern food here seems to be better than it is at home in general, and there are far more Arabs and Africans in Edinburgh than I have noticed in New York. That reminds me – people in the UK seem to be generally much more pro-Palestinian than they are at Columbia (I guess considering that I am speaking of Columbia, that should come as no surprise), but I have certainly noticed it. Edinburgh University has a prominent pro Palestinian group, (Im not sure where the Jews are hangin out…) and the issue has come up a couple of times in places I would not have expected it to do so in the states. While its not a big deal, the different perspective from the one I am used to is interesting. That’s all for now…