I am impressed by all the old black buildings I see. Street after street, there are rows upon rows of apartment houses, castles, grand manors. The Edinburgh castle, of which the city is built around, casts an imposing imprint on my memory. We climb up jagged and beautiful crags, which are tall rocks and cliffs, in order to see the city from a bird's eye view.
I climb up 823 feet onto the city's tallest crag called Arthur's Seat. Uncertain about why the place has been dubbed so, I imagine it to be King Arthur from the old legends claiming the area for his own when he was blown away by the beautiful expanse of Edinburgh city. The rough wind whistles through my ears. The greenness and historical wonder of the city amazes me.
Coming from Australia, Edinburgh is nothing like I have visualised before. I have seen old buildings but not in this wondrous setting, with the crisp cool air and blustering wind from the top of the hill. The entire city looks like something out of a Hogwarts movie. I can see why JK Rowling mused and pondered over Harry Potter from Elephant and Bagel Cafe, which has a view overlooking the castle. It is no surprise that Rowling was inspired by the land she lived in.
In Edinburgh, Catherine cooked a haggis dinner feast for Jonas and I one night. (Definition: a steamed pudding made of finely minced sheep heart, lungs and liver, boiled in a sheep's stomach). It was not as revolting as I imagined.
A few days pass and my companions Catherine and Jonas travel to The Highlands to meet Ailsa, our mutual friend from China. Sitting on the train we pass increasingly dramatic scenery, with crags seemingly looming higher and higher as we journey north-west. When we finally reach her village, Glenfinnan, she meets us with her newborn Finn.
Ailsa, in her lazy Croc shoes, and a relaxed slingback to carry Finn, blends well into the pleasant scenery. She looks at home in a village where 60 people live, where everybody says hello to passerbys, where the peaceful lochs are just a few hundred metres walk away. We walk to an old church which is peeling paint and where the tired wooden pews are looking in need of more visitors, but there is charm with its stained glass windows- and when we walk out of the church, a view with unassuming beauty is laid out before our eyes.
The next day we adventure out to the Isle of Muck. We alight on the train upwards, and then catch the ferry Caledonian MacBrayne. It takes about two hours to reach our island destination, and my companions are the only ones to alight the ferry to arrive onto Muck, an island which can can boast a few cows, green farmland and one visible cafe. The rain patters away as we trod onwards, following the path that leads us to a beach. I can imagine that on a drier, sunnier day, the scenery might even be called gorgeous, but as it is, it is still beautiful in its wetness. It was fitting to experience rain in the wettest area of Scotland, and as we catch our return ferry, the sun mockingly shines upon us again.
Edinburgh gives me a taste of the coldest summer I have yet experienced. Perhaps my lack of appropriate clothing helped me to imagine that Scottish weather was like the beginning of Australian winter. However, a small reminder of home did beckon: The midgies find us in the Highlands (small mosquito-like insects that like to bite humans and suck blood) and like home, I meet their greeting with scratching.
