The next day found my Canadian travel companion and me on a bus to Edinburgh, a city that greeted us with open arms, bagpipes, and broad bearded smiles. Edinburgh was a beautiful city from every angle, give or take a few hundred homely backpackers with questionable hygiene and shivering livers. Influenced by the raving reviews on hostelworld.com, Chelsea and I checked into the Caledonian Backpacker’s hostel, a place that forever raised our expectations for hostels. The Edinburgh backpacker’s hostel is built into an old ritzy hotel; five stories of modernly remodeled international shenanigans. Every wall, door, and relatively flat surface inside was adorned with painstakingly detailed mural paintings. The art style was funky and weird. Chelsea and I postponed our intentions of exploring the city to simply wander the endless halls of the hostel in awe. Whiskey got involved with the evening and the two of us returned to our dorm to build a blanket fort. I went to open the shuttered window in the stuffy dorm and was punched in the face by a jaw-dropping view of the Edinburgh castle perched on its rocky hilltop.
The next day, we left our packs at the hostel and went exploring. For a capital city, Edinburgh is fantastically compact and easily traversable by foot. We wandered through the shopping districts and tourist hotspots before turning from the beaten trail in favor of shaded parks and regal old cemeteries. In a cafe with wifi, I sent an email to a woman living in Edinburgh who I knew through a few degrees of separation. My 96-year old grandpa had once had a girlfriend in northern California named Maggie, with whom he had shared a puppy and a few happy years. Maggie’s daughter, Marsha, grew up to settle in Edinburgh with a Scottish man named George. We decided to walk to Marsha’s house on the far side of the city, despite not getting a response. But unfortunately, Marsha was wasn’t home.
Luckily enough though, Marsha and George’s home was located right next door to the Edinburgh museum of modern art, so we wandered over to peruse the exhibits. Admission was free and the artwork was spectacular. While in the museum, my phone chimed with an email alert. The hostel we were staying in was apparently overbooked for the weekend due to a rugby tournament and we were now required to check out as soon as possible. This stirred Chelsea and I into a bit of a panic. We forgot all about the artwork around us and instead concerned ourselves with connecting handheld devices to the museum’s wifi in search of new accommodation. But things were looking grim. There wasn’t a single hostel or hotel bed left vacant in the city and we weren’t getting any positive responses from the Couchsurfing hosts we were reaching out to. A passing museum worker suggested we try getting a bus to Glasgow and trying our luck there. Our hearts sunk at the thought of leaving beautiful Edinburgh any sooner than we had to. Unsuccessful in our endeavors, we left the museum to picnic on a grassy hill out front (a hill so eclectically shaped and groomed that it itself was a piece of modern art). Chelsea seemed very worried about our situation, but I assured her that everything would work out. Serendipity is a vagabond’s best friend.
We walked back to the hostel and collected our packs. The desk workers seemed sincerely sorry that they were kicking us out and offered to help us find another place. But their Internet searches turned up as little as ours did and they too suggested broadening our search as far out as Glasgow. But then my phone rang and I was greeted by the enthusiastic voice of Marsha, the distant family friend we had tried to visit earlier. She said that she would be back in town in the morning and would be more than happy to put us up for a few nights. I told her that that sounded wonderful, but that we might not be in Edinburgh in the morning due to a drastic lack of accommodations in the city. But Marsha put us in touch with her good friend Shirley, who was happy to let us crash in her apartment for the night.
So with the stress of the day lifted from our shoulders, Chelsea and I hiked the cobblestoned streets of Edinburgh toward our rendezvous with Shirley. Along the way we saw a restaurant called The Mussel Inn, and remembering the way Chelsea devoured mussels at Loch Ness, I insisted on treating her to a nice seafood dinner. It was a delicious meal with wonderful service from a hilarious waiter who really pushed the free bread. Chelsea and I gorged ourselves on garlic cream mussels and cheerfully rolled around in tipsy conversation.
After dinner, we continued to our rendezvous with Shirley, who ended up being a true gem of a woman. Out enjoying a girl’s night out with a group of friends, we met Shirley at a tavern crawling with locals. She was animated and riotously vulgar for a woman with two grandchildren. She pulled Chelsea and I into big hugs as if we were long lost family before introducing us to her friends and running off to get us some drinks. In a couple of hours, Chelsea and I had gone from homeless to part of a family. Serendipity had found us!
Shirley’s apartment was just down the road, a quaint little flat that was decidedly cozy and warmly decorated. We lounged in her living room next to a small fire and chatted late into the night as bottles of red wine were depleted. Shirley said she would be out early the next day for the big rugby game between Scotland and New Zealand. She left us a key and wished us good night with big kisses on the top of our unsuspecting heads. The world needs more people like Shirley.
The next morning we explored the botanical gardens near Shirley’s place, but returned shortly after due to rain. While we were sorting through all the junk we had accumulated in our backpacks, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and finally got to meet my Grandfather’s honorary daughter, Marsha. Like Shirley, she greeted Chelsea and I with more pomp and circumstance than we felt we deserved before whisking us away in her SUV. Even though Chelsea and I had seen the handsome façade of her house the day before, we were not prepared for the lavish wealth of the interior—Marsha and George, as it turned out, were quite well off. George, who can seem a bit gruff when you first meet him, was a light-hearted and humorous guy. He had lots of good things to say about my American grandfather and commented on how I seemed to take after him. After a home made dinner, I managed to reach my 96-year-old Grandfather on Skype so that he could see and talk to Marsha and George again after so many years apart. It was a very nostalgic, heartwarming family reunion of sorts.
Chelsea and I stayed with Marsha and George for three days, exploring more of the city at every opportunity. We discovered a beautiful riverside path that meandered its way lazily between their house on the outskirts of the city and downtown Edinburgh. It was a cyclist and dog walker’s paradise.
During one of these long walks on the outskirts of the city we stumbled across an abandoned boarding school the size of a castle. Sticking cartoonishly in the ground in front of it was a FOR SALE sign. I’ll be keeping that place in mind…
We took a great walking tour through the medieval district, our guide’s authentic accent making the history of every cobblestone spring to life. The walking tour ended in the courtyard of Edinburgh university where our guide had to attend class that evening—whether this was true or not, his ‘poor student’ ploy earned him generous tips from everyone.
Wandering on our own again, we flanked the massive Edinburgh castle with camera-fire from every angle, visited the extraordinary National Museum, and drank Scotch like it was going out of style at a place called The Wee Pub. I even got to be a part of a street magic and comedy show!
We enjoyed tea and coffee at a place called the Elephant Café, a place famous for being where J.K. Rowling scribbled the initial chapters of the Harry Potter series on napkins. Having researched it beforehand, I went into the Elephant Café expecting to see Harry Potter paraphernalia everywhere. But aside from a few newspaper clippings about Rowling tacked to the wall, there was nothing to hint that one of the most successful children’s’ series of all time had its roots there. The whole Café was painted scarlet red with gold trim and decorated with a minimalist’s touch. In accordance with the name of the place, there were some Elephant paintings adorning the walls and a few small elephant figurines nestled into small shelves. It was a nice place, but a bit of a disappointment for a big Harry Potter fan like myself. But then I saw the bathroom and all was forgiven. Every inch of every surface in the bathroom had been vandalized with colorful graffiti—all quotes from the Harry Potter books. My favorites included the arrow pointing down the toilet labeled ‘Entrance to the Ministry of Magic’ and the automatic paper towel dispenser engraved with ‘Accio Parchment.’ I added my own quote in permanent marker above the flush handle that said Mischief Managed. I spent so much time reading everything that I was genuinely startled when someone else walked in the men’s room to use it for its intended purpose.
It was dark by the time we left the Elephant Café. The moon was almost full with a mist of clouds circled around it. There was a chill in the air that inspired us to take a walk through Edinburgh’s oldest graveyard, Greyfriars Kirk. It was a spectacularly spooky old cemetery complete with crumbling tombs, bramble-tangled headstones, and an unsettling whistle in the wind. Some of the names engraved in the headstones began to jump out at me as we walked—Vernon, Alastor, Seamus, McGonagall, Riddle. I realized that this place must have once been a source of inspiration for Rowling in the infancy of her writing career. It would have been an eerie place to frequent, but certainly a brilliant resource for eye-catching character names. On the way out of the graveyard we saw the statue of Bobby our tour guide told us about. Bobby was a Skye Terrier who legend tells us guarded the grave of his master and best friend, John Gray, for fourteen years before passing away himself. It is apparently good luck to touch the statue of Bobby on the nose when leaving the graveyard so that his loyal spirit will watch over you during your travels.
Our last night in Edinburgh was spent dining in with our lovely hosts and our new friend Shirley. Marsha prepared an amazing four-course meal that left me weak at the knees and heavy in the heart at the thought of leaving. We shared lots of stories and laughter over the hearty meal before saying goodbye and goodnight to the wonderful to Shirley and then promptly falling into food comas.
Chelsea and I were up before the sun to catch a bus heading west out of Edinburgh. We said our sleepy goodbyes to Marsha and George, thanking them for their kindness and generosity before leaving. The bus ride was long and uneventful; both of us greedily tried to catch up on sleep for the duration of the trip. We passed through Glasgow without getting off the bus; something Chelsea and I were somehow not too distraught about. While Glasgow has a legendary culture, we had our sights fixed on another destination. When we finally got off the bus, we were looking up at a towering passenger ferry docked at Port Glasgow. We were sailing to Ireland.