Oct. 22: Day 5
Immediately after sending yesterday’s update, we walked out of the Internet Cafe into lightning, thunder, rain and sleet! So much for the incredible weather in Dublin. The thunder kept up throughout the night, and we woke for an early flight to more of the same. Puddleglum had an early victory. No sooner than we arrived at the train station for an irreversible trip to the airport than he realized that he had forgotten his needed gloves back in the B&B. As you might expect, they were his good ones and his hands were VERY cold, particularly when he got to the end of the train ride to await the airport bus: waiting spot was uncovered. And it continued to rain and sleet and thunder while he stood shivering (gloveless) in the chill.
Nonetheless, we made it to Edinburgh (pronounced EDIN - BORO for the uninitiated like myself) OK on Ryanair–the Southwest Air of Europe. The weather here is somewhat better than Dublin–just plain rain, along with a cold wind off the Firth of Forth.
Edinburgh itself is a beautiful old city. Highlights today included visits to St. Giles church–home church of John Knox (aka Ian Knox as he called himself), to the Edinburgh Castle, and a swing by the John Knox home–which in another tribute to Puddleglum, was closed. We’ll try again to visit there tomorrow since the sign says that it will be closed for renovations for one year beginning Friday!
St. Giles is full of monuments to almost everyone–except Knox. There is a statue of him, but it is unnamed. We ventured to the famous parking spot 44 outside the church where he is presumably buried, but it was covered up with construction scafolding for work being done on the Scotish government building immediately adjoining. The lady at the St. Giles desk intimated that Knox was buried in a grave that would have other remains dumped on top of his. And the whole lot was moved to another church when the nearby government building was first erected. So it’s not even sure that his remains are even there. That’s probably just like he would have liked it: his glory was in Christ, not in his own mortal remains.
The Edinburgh castle overwhelms you with too much history. We kicked off our visit in a heavy rain, and once again Puddleglum triumphed as his umbrella was blown to smithereens by the North wind. Things improved after that. At the very top of the castle mount is a small chapel built by King David of Scotland in memory of his mother Margaret, around 1100 AD or so. It’s the oldest artifact on the site. Then we viewed other rooms and artifacts in monument to the seeming unending wars between Scotland and England, with mention of notable guests at the castle including Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots (who gave birth there) and various future kings of both Scotland and England. It was hard to keep track of all of it. So much of the warfare was done by Christians against other Christians (in quotes) that you can see why some outside the faith are sometimes skeptical of our faith. I’m sure Peter can give some insight into all of this history based on his recent class at Covenant. The other impression is that the 200+ years of American history are extremely SHORT by comparison with the Scots, the Irish and the English.
This evening our colleagues at ChristChurch are leaving on board Delta for Manchester. We plan to meet up with them after a train ride from here to Dundee. Before we leave we hope to do some more sights along the “royal mile” including a stop at Knox’s house. According to Rick Steves, the well known tour guide, Knox never actually lived in the house, but those who wanted to preserve it claimed his ownership to prevent it from being bulldozed back in the 1800’s.
This evening we are staying at a very comfortable hotel in a quiet part of town which includes high speed Internet service as part of the room rate, which explains how I can go on at length after a very strenous day walking up and down steep hills. It’s in the middle of a classic English pub which forms the lobby of the hotel. The group here is watching football (aka soccer in USA) and the cheers are going up as much as for any Cowboy game or OU game.
I hope to write again tomorrow, but Internet service in Dundee is unknown for the moment. Please stay tuned.
Best regards,
CapnDrinian