Fort William, Scotland

View from the train - there was

no view from the bus - it was night

I took the overnight bus from London to Glasgow. That went smoothly except that my alarm clock was jostled in my luggage and went off at three in the morning in the overhead rack. Luckily we'd recently had a rest stop and most people were still awake. My arthritis did not like that ride!

More view from the train

I only spent about an hour and half in Glasgow - enough to walk from the bus station to the train station and have something to eat. What I noticed right away - and which I saw to varying degrees all over Great Britain - was how heavy the women are and to a lesser degree the men - heavy enough to outweigh me. I'm talking tendency here, not everyone, of course.

More from the train -

Scotland - sheep and old graveyards

So different from the French and, of course, it set me wondering about ethnicity and diet. In Paris, the new mothers were painfully thin and looked as though they'd never been pregnant (I'm not advocating for this). In Great Britain there are so many really heavy mothers and, likewise, many of their kids. But I did see a lot of really thin young men. It was really quite a shock. People eat an incredible amount of "chips" - they come with everything - and they are famous for loving their "sweeties". But the French have frites and pastries. Scotland also has lots of bleach blondes. I did enjoy seeing all the greenhouses in so many backyards in Glasgow - the only way to grow many vegetables, I imagine.

More from the train

From Glasgow, I took the train to Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis - the highest mountain in Scotland (which isn't saying much). I really was going to this area to see Glencoe, but it was more remote and I wouldn't be able to make it in time for the ferry to my next stop if I stayed there. I was going to Glencoe because it was the scene of a famous massacre (which some people have never gotten over) by the Campbells (I'm a Campbell) of the MacDonalds in 1692. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe if you want the full story.

Clear cutting seen from the train

I saw lots of clear cutting all over Scotland and Wales. Most of their trees were cut down long ago. Now there is a logging industry that plants conifers (Sitka Spruce, etc.) and then, of course, cuts them down. So lots of Scottish forests are just tree farms.

The train ride was beautiful. I took lots of pictures, which was kind of silly, since most of them have reflections in them and we were going too fast. The woman sitting across the table from me took even more. She was from Australia. I ran into a lot of Australians everywhere I went.

Abandoned farm from the train

While on the train and looking down on a valley, we came alongside a golden eagle. It was spectacular. There were also huge rhododendrons along the railway - 30' high. They are in many places in Scotland.

My B&B in Fort William

All the B&B owners I met in Scotland were really nice and helpful and they serve a huge "full Scottish breakfast" - eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, baked beans, broiled tomato, sauteed mushrooms, and either black pudding (blood and oatmeal) or haggis (heart, lungs, liver of a sheep mixed with onions, oatmeal, and suet stuffed into a sheep's stomach) - yes, I ate both, but only once.

My room - window with the red trim

It's actually quite nice to have that big breakfast (unless you're one of those people who can't eat much in the morning) because it meant that I didn't need to buy lunch.

My window from inside

This B&B had been the rectory and then a school connected with the church down the hill. It was built in 1880.

View from my room

I took the bus to Glencoe, but I couldn't actually go into the glen itself - which is supposed to be fantastically beautiful (you go for the beauty, not to learn about the massacre - which happened over a wide area), but you need a car. Didn't matter much anyway, because of low cloud cover. 

Monument to the MacDonalds

But I did get to see the monument to the MacDonalds - memorial still held every year.

Wax MacDonalds in the Scottish Life Museum

The museum in Glencoe had a panel explaining the aftermath of the massacre which proves that nothing changes with politicians and the military (or kings). The MacDonalds had been acting (though some refused) under orders from the English military and there was an investigation of all involved afterwards. Needless to say, all the guilty parties were let off the hook in one way or another. 

Sailing in the gloom on the loch at Glencoe

Reparations were promised but never paid. There was a long list that reflected today's investigations by the police, the military, or Congress - just a farce. The elite are the elite are the elite everywhere.

"Consensus" island at Glen Coe

The little island on the right was used for a long time (pre-massacre) as a site for getting people with differences to figure out a way to get along. If two people had a disagreement, they were put on the island until they came to consensus.

Ruins of the original Fort William

Fort William is a rather down-in-the-dumps town, as are most towns. The recession/depression has hit a lot of small towns hard and there aren't enough tourists or opportunities to support them.  A young woman said that a lot of small businesses had shut down just in the past year. And just as peasants and small villagers were considered irrelevant during the Clearances, I think members of the working class in these small towns are also considered irrelevant.

The loch at Fort William

Unfortunately, you can't live on physical beauty alone. 

I did get better food than I expected, though I had to search (and, of course, pay). But they do have some pretty unappetizing things. How excited can you get over "scrummy salmon" and "mushy peas?"

Boat during my evening stroll

Same boat during my morning stroll

Both the towns and the countryside are filled with falling down buildings. They make everything very picturesque (and I love photographing them), but I don't know if they are there out of historical interest (though I doubt it) or because it's too much trouble and money to get rid of them.

Abandoned building in Glencoe

There was a group of young people who were learning to play the bagpipes. They would practice in a parking lot and then spread out over the town and play for tips. Some of them were good and some were awful - yes, you can tell the difference.

Bagpipe student

And everyone is very tolerant of dogs. They're allowed almost everywhere. In the local museum, a woman asked if her greyhound could come in. She was told, "Of course!"

The church that's connected to the B&B

And I decided to try a different single malt whiskey every night I was in Scotland (except the first, because I was too tired from the overnight bus). I kept a list, but failed to record some of them. I didn't start out a Scotch (they don't call it that!) drinker, but it turns out I like it. I really love its nose that you can smell from quite far away.

Fort William

I went to the ferry office to figure out the best way to get to my next destination - the Isle of Mull - and the woman gave me the details for the usual way, but then she said there was a completely different approach with a local bus and a local ferry that I might want to try if I wanted "a wee bit of an adventure." Of course, I chose that. Next blog entry.....

I'm home and catching up

St. George's Pimlico, London

Well, I'm home - which seems totally wrong - and now I can catch up on the blog. I have an entire month to report on - England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I imagine I'll do a post every other day until it's done.  Though I had internet most of the time, it was so slow that a usual 2-hour blog would, most likely, have taken 4 to 6 hours. I was moving around too much to spare the time. So far removed from some of these placse, I'll probably forget a lot.

Scene along the "modern" Thames

I only spent a day and half in London. I was only there to take a trip down Memory Lane to visit the part of London where I spent the 6th grade - Highgate - with my cousins, the Kurths. My hotel was a couple of blocks from the Thames - much of it a modern eyesore. I'm not good about allowing old cities to modernize!

The Thames

I came in through the Chunnel under the Channel, which was very easy and fast. I stood in the taxi line at the train station with a woman my age who had started her retirement with a Peace Corps stint in Cambodia (she's obviously more selfless than I). She was from Boulder, Colorado and we were on the same page politically (as was practically everyone with whom I had an extended conversation on this trip) and we talked about how low the U.S. has sunk.

Parliament and Big Ben

I spent the afternoon - which was hot - strolling along the river to Parliament and Westminster Abbey, the only real touristy thing I did. Luckily, nearby are some of the important monuments that don't get as much attention.

Monument to the Slavery Abolition Act

Great Britain ended slavery in 1833 - and though they did have some violence around it - no Civil War was necessary and they were ahead of us in time - as they were with votes for women.

Monument to Emmeline Pankhurst -

a founder of the Women's Suffrage Movement

Lots of people stopped to take pictures of Emmeline and there were fresh flowers honoring her and her daughter, Christabel.

Fresh flowers for the Suffragettes

So it seemed appropriate that I arrived in front of Parliament as they were celebrating the third reading of the bill (I'm not sure if that's the appropriate term) in the House of Lords that would allow same sex marriage in Great Britain. I don't think they can actually get married until next year.

Arriving to celebrate

The celebrants were having a grand time with lots of singing and dancing. It was fun to be there - just as it had been in Paris when they were celebrating their first Pride Day since legalizing same sex marriage.

Ooh, too much food coloring!

I wanted to visit Westminster Abbey, but it closes to tourists at 3:30, so no go.

Westminster Abbey

There were a handful of protesters hanging out here protesting the celebrants.

Went to dinner near my hotel at a trendy tapas bar - I get much better tapas with Julia off Valencia in San Francisco. But the heat - and being in London - did make me crave a gin and tonic. They got that one right. On the way back, I passed this sign:

Speaks for itself

The next day I took the Underground to Highgate - considered one of London's most desirable areas and most expensive, where I lived in 1959-60. Climbing up the hill from the Tube I passed the monument to Dick Whittington and his cat (you can look up the story yourself, if you don't know it). It looks just as it did decades ago.

Dick Whittington's cat

I only remember passing it a few times heading down the hill to the movies - North by Northwest and that Disney one about the Matterhorn - can't remember the name.

"Downtown" Highgate

The center of Highgate was looking a little shabby for what is supposed to be an upscale place. The shopping has most likely moved somewhere else with chain stores. Things didn't feel particularly familiar until I started walking down the hill in the other direction from the Underground towards where we lived. No need to detour to the school, because it doesn't exist anymore (school of many famous people including Elizabeth Taylor, Roger Banister, Stephen Hawking, me, and my cousins). Did pass Samuel Coleridge's house - which was on the way to school.

92 Hillway - home

All the houses had their front yards redone to accommodate cars - rare to own more than one back when we lived there. Tastefully done with the lawns removed and replaced with pavers surrounded by plantings.

92 Hillway in 1960 with cousin Peter in front

Once upon a time, if the smog wasn't too bad (which it often was - when we washed our hair the water would turn gray from the coal soot in our hair), we could see St. Paul's Cathedral from the street in front of the house. Now the trees are blocking much of the view and so are modern buildings.

The view from 92 Hillway

The best thing about living on Hillway was backing up to Highgate Cemetery. There was a hole in the wall at the back of the garden and we could slip through and use the cemetery as our playground. The cemetery was a Victorian era creation and the original section was falling into disrepair and was very spooky (the west side). It was eventually closed to the public as unsafe.

Highgate Cemetery - West

The east side was quite neat and tidy and didn't offer any real thrills except that Karl Marx is buried there.

Karl Marx

My mother in front of Karl Marx in 1960

Now the east side is much more overgrown and there are a whole bunch of Socialist/Communist activists buried near Marx's grave. They now charge admission for the east side and you can only get into the west side with an expensive guided tour - which, of course, I took (you have to sign up a month in advance).

More West cemetery

The tour guide asked is anyone had ever been there before. There were only two of us and I told them that I used to climb through a hole in the wall and play there as a child. This brought no reaction from the guide. The other woman said she had taken the tour about ten years ago. The guide said, "Oh, that's great. After the tour we'll have to have you tell us how much it has changed!" I guess she wasn't even able to process my story. Good thing I didn't tell her that Chuck and I had squeezed through the locked gate in 1973 when the place was in such disrepair that it was officially closed.

Mausoleum for a rich man's young daughter

We got to see inside this mausoleum and I told the group that when we were kids, we always looked through the door at the dead and dying pigeons that had flown through the broken windows. Because I told my story, the guide told us the story about fixing the mausoleum up not too long ago. Apparently, by the time they started work on it, the pigeon poop reached to the bottom of the high window. Men in hazmat suits had to be lowered through the top and bring poop up in buckets before they could restore the thing.

Grave of a circus owner

Through the tour, I got to hear lots of interesting stories about those interred (including one about the circus owner) and about the symbolism of the monuments. As kids, we made up stories about what was behind the doors of the long alleys lined with crypts. Some of them were ajar and particularly spooky. On the tour, we got to go inside behind the crypts. I was really glad I took the tour, though I would love to have been able to wander more freely.

Waterlow Park

Not the most exciting picture of Waterlow Park - right next to the cemetery - but it's the part I remember hanging out in and singing Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. We all loved Uncle Fred's Tom Lehrer album.

Karl Marx Tea Room

When someone famous is buried in your town, you have to take advantage (actually lots of other famous people buried there, but he's the one who gets mentioned most).

Celebrating same sex marriage

Only a couple of comments about London - it really wasn't my focus except for the trip down Memory Lane. I think I heard more languages in London than I've ever heard. At times it felt as though I was hearing more foreign languages than the native English. Most common - Eastern European/Russian/Polish (I can't tell them apart) - I think the service jobs are filled mostly by Eastern Europeans.

And my first reaction to London was that the car is king there in a way that the United States can't match - and that was confirmed throughout the British Isles. Cars NEVER have to stop for a pedestrian and they act like it. And places to cross the street (with no protections - just indentations in the curb which can't be seen by motorists) can be few and far between. The map may take you to a corner, but it doesn't mean you can cross. And when the light is in your favor, the crossing time allowed is very short. Better move it! Paris was so much more civilized. Lots of crossing places and really long crossing times and, though French drivers acted as though they weren't going to stop for you, they did. Paris is a walking city - and the walker is supreme! 

And it's difficult to respect a people that relies so heavily on the tabloid. In my month in Great Britain, I only saw people reading a "serious" newspaper (which is a little more reliable) twice - on the train across northern Wales. Everyone is reading tabloids! But my political conversations were great!

Hotel in Ft. William, Scotland

Next stop - Scotland!

Wales is not the land of the internet

Forgot to show you the full moon

on the Isle of Arran, Scotland

I may be giving up on doing this blog while I'm in Wales - the wifi signals are just too weak!

Rainbow on the way to Mt.Snowdon

I'm sitting in a pub in Laugharne - Dylan Thomas' favorite place - because the wifi is not working at the B&B. But even where it works, it's not strong enough to really do this blog.

Church in the town where my

great-great-great-great-great-great-great-

grandparents were married - but before

the church was built

So, I still have to do London, the west coast of Scotland, and Wales! I hope I remember enough to catch up after I get home (unless something improves).

The shop dog at the only all-poetry bookstore in Britain -

Hay on Wye, Wales - name is Dante

But, if I find a connection that doesn't take forever (the average post takes two hours when things are going well), you'll hear from me again. Fingers crossed!

Every town in Wales has a castle - this one is in Conwy