Arthur's Seat

14 July 2013

First, a quick note for my husband (technically the 15th of July, but close enough!):

Happy Birthday, Nico!!!! 

It's hard being away from my husband for so long. My trips and my blog are my ways of dealing with moving to a new country by myself. Even when I go to work, I spend a lot of time working in my lab by myself (I'm working on a lab tour post, so I can share my new "home" with everyone). The people I've met here have been great, but it's still a lonely time. I have things lined up to help me do things I love and meet people, like joining an orchestra and finding a swing dancing club, but most of these things don't start until the fall. I was looking forward to having my dog and husband at some point in August - however, the timeline has been pushed back due to heat. There is a temperature limit on shipping dogs on planes and it looks like Kasha can't fly until sometime in September. Hopefully, Nico will be able to join me by the end of September and I'm really looking forward to sharing all this with him!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post: 

Hiking Arthur's Seat

It was another beautiful, sunny day so I headed out for a "workout" - might as well take advantage of the prominent geologic feature of the area: Arthur's Seat. You can see it from almost anywhere in the city (like in the photo below). I also feel some responsibility to see it due to my geology career path :)

A view of Arthur's Seat as I walked over to hike to the top.
Historical significance of the feature in the foreground: This structure is called a dovecot
and it was used to house several hundred nesting pigeons in the 16th century.
These pigeons provided meat (pigeon-pie was popular!) and eggs year-round for
Lochend Castle, owned by the Logans of Restalrig.  They even used the droppings
in the garden. It was repurposed as a "plague kiln" for infected clothing in the  1645 plague. 

From the front (the cliff side), it looks pretty far up. However, the view from the beginning of the train on the back side doesn't look so bad:

However, this doesn't mean that it's not a bit steep in places - this little girl was crawling on her hands and knees. It was a relatively easy climb (<30 minutes including all my stops for pictures and sunscreening on the way up) and I think that anyone can do this hike. 

There was also a race going on this morning: the Bupa Great Edinburgh Run (http://www.greatrun.org/Events/Information.aspx?ctid=322&id=3). It has been referred to as the "UK’s most scenic urban course" and, from my perspective at least, it looked very fun. The end was especially scenic given that Holyrood Palace is right at the finish (shown in the picture below). In addition to water stops, they have bands playing along the race route. Maybe I will be ready to run a 5k by next year... 

Here are a couple of pictures from the top. The view is fantastic! I'm looking forward to doing this more often (especially when people come to visit...hint, hint!). From the top, I can see my building, even my office window (although my desk is not actually near the window). This old volcano makes for a beautiful, dramatic view (See this website for more details of the geology of the area http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/field/holyrood/history.html)

Yes, I'm in shorts and a tank top! It's usually colder, even in the summer, but it has been really hot lately (up to 28°C - use the converter tool at the right to find out what that means in other units!). These are some of the only warm weather clothes I brought! It was also a bit windy. In the background, you can see Edinburgh Castle.

On the trail, I met two women on vacation together - one was from France and the other Australian woman had been the French woman's English teacher at one point in the past. They were speaking in French to each other and English to me and other people on the trail, but it was clear that French was easier for the French woman to understand. Conveniently, I speak some French! I got to practice my French - although we mostly spoke Franglais (combination of French and English, in some cases using a verb from one language but conjugating it in the other language). It was nice to find pleasant people to chat with on the hike up and it made the entire experience even more fun! 

I found a nice place to eat lunch. Here's a picture of the flowers decorating my formal "picnic table":

On my walk, I saw TONS of thistles, which are famous symbols of Scotland. I took some pictures today of this famous plant, but I didn't know why it was famous. Here's a quote from a website with a fun story on how it might have come about: 

In truth, no-one knows, but legend has it that a sleeping party of Scots warriors were saved from ambush by an invading Norse army when one of the attackers trod on a thistle with his bare feet. His cries raised the alarm, the roused Scots duly defeated the invaders, and the thistle was adopted as the symbol of Scotland. Unfortunately, there is no historical evidence for this, but Scots, like other nations, love a good story. 

From the website: http://www.visitscotland.com/about/arts-culture/uniquely-scottish/thistle 

This is what I climbed today - you can see the city on the left of the main part of Arthur's Seat, to the right - Firth of Forth (carved out by glaciers in the last glaciation)

Here are the hills right next to Arthur's seat: They don't look much bigger in the photo, but I promise that they look that way in person! They look steeper and the trails have lots of zig zags, so it looks more difficult. Here's a picture of my next goal: