These friends of mine

In February 2005, nearly 15 years ago, my ex-husband introduced me to a political forum that he'd been part of for a few years already. Most of the folks on the forum had met on a gaming group and moved to this forum in order to better discuss world politics, the news, and whatever else sounded interesting that wasn't particular to the game. They live all over the world and have a myriad of different jobs, so it has made for some interesting perspectives in the geopolitical arena.

Over the years, as the internet has changed and social media platforms have taken over most forum boards, our group has dwindled down from the 500-plus posters we had to a core group of about 50 of us. I am the soul remaining regular female poster. Many of these men I consider very good friends, or as I've told them, like brothers. You spend 15 years sharing your life stories and hearing theirs, it's hard to imagine life without them.

You've heard me mention several friends I've met on this trip: Isaac, Tracy, and Brian. Isaac and Brian are from that forum group.  (Tracy is a good friend from Portland.) The day that Brian and I left Edinburgh, we traveled down to Preston to meet another friend from the forum, Pete.

The train ride was uneventful,  and I slept on Brian's shoulder most of the trip. (Okay, arm. He's a very tall  man, and on my best days I wouldn't be able to reach his shoulder.) I felt like I was coming down with a cold and he graciously let me try to sleep it off.

Meanwhile, Brian and Sarah, Pete's bride of 32 years, were working out arrangements to meet up. Pete, apparently, remains a Luddite and refuses to use a Smart Phone or text. Thank the heavens for his wife!

When we arrived in Preston, Pete, Sarah, and their 17-year-old son Teddy met us at the station. They walked us to our hotel, waited while we checked in, and then brought us to a lovely pub for a drink.

The pub was built sometime in the 17th century, I believe, and Sarah made it a point to take me to see the well in the center of the floor in the basement. Well lit, the deep stone walls and clear water at the bottom were easy to see under a very thick clear cover that we could walk on. Sarah stepped on the cover and jumped a little to show me it was safe, but I stayed to the outside. Six inches of plexiglass may have protected me from those depths, but I'm not the girl to take that chance. (No pictures, I'm afraid, as the pub was packed and I felt touristy enough.)

We relaxed, chatted, and swapped stories of our lives over drinks. Then Sarah and a very patient Teddy headed off to see visiting family while Pete, Brian, and I found food. We walked a good half mile to this little vegetarian Indian sweets shop that also served food. (Not kidding; that's how it's billed and how it presents itself.) The food was cheap, filling, and tasty, though a little too spicy for Brian's palate. It also tasted nothing like the Indian food I've had in the states, which I found interesting given it was owned and operated by an Indian family.

From food to another pub, where a young man at the table next to us was explaining to his mates that the entire middle of the US had nothing. Nothing at all, you see. I glanced over and raised an eyebrow. One of his mates caught my eye and started laughing, which made the young man turn to look st me.

"Yeah?"

"Careful there, friend. That's my home you're talking about."

His mates start laughing at him and telling him to watch it. He doubles down.  "No, but for real. Tell them. There really isn't anything in the whole middle part of the country."

"I disagree. I'd argue that corn and soybeans count as something. And there's a whole lot of that there. " I grinned and took a drink while he said, "See! I told ya'!"

We then started talking about how big the US is compared to the UK, and why what he was saying really was impressive. In short, the area he was talking about as having "nothing" was three times larger than the whole of the UK. That nugget of information actually impressed his mates. The young man asked us how many time zones the US had, and Brian and I had to define what he meant by that. Are we including Alaska and Hawaii? Does that make it five or six? Silence from the table as they stared at us.

Pete has driven a huge part of our country on two different road trips with another friend from the forum, Josh. They'd done a grand tour of the east coast, the south, and ended up in Chicago. Josh is American (as much as an Alaskan can be, anyway *wink*) and he'd taken Pete around on a misadventure to meet a bunch of guys from the forum. They had a blast, and Pete still tells the stories with fondness. They took a second trip up the western shoreline from San Diego to Seattle, but Pete wasn't as impressed. He said the PNW was effectively England, so it wasn't as interesting. (He's not wrong.)

After a couple of beers at that pub, we wandered off to one more. This is apparently a European thing, by the way. One avoids getting drunk by never settling in at any one place. You have a drink, maybe two, then pack up and move on. Isaac introduced me to this on my birthday, and I think it's brilliant. Hard to get too drunk if you know you have to walk after a pint. The downside of this is that I left my new scarf I'd bought in Barcelona at one of the several places we visited, and by the time I realized it, I was too tired to try to find it.

So one last pub, one last drink, and Pete walked us to our hotel, gave hugs and handshakes around, then toddled off home. Brian and I had an early train to London, and this was easily the latest we'd stayed up yet. It was, afterall, 11pm, and we aren't so young anymore.

A castle, a market, and a cemetery - 25 hours in Edinburgh

When I changed my trip to include the UK - specifically to head up to Lincoln to hang out with Brian - he suggested that we take a day and go to Edinburgh. That sounded like a lovely way to spend some time, so he booked our travel and hotel, and after four days of lounging around, we hopped an early train north.

On the train, we met a lovely young couple on their way up for a weekend in Edinburgh. The young man had spent a few Chirstmases up there with his family going to the Christmas Market and was looking forward to going up again. I looked at Brian. He shrugged. He'd not known anything about a Christmas Market, but now we were both interested in checking this thing out.

The train arrived on time with no issues (yay!), and we trudged through a couple of "closes" (very narrow alleyways for pedestrians, generally with a crapton of stairs) to the hotel, dropped our bags off, and then headed up to the castle. Yes, there was a Christmas Market, but that would simply have to wait. There was a castle to explore!

Edinburgh Castle was first laid out 2000 years ago by digging into a mountain of black lava rock and building a wooden fortification on the top of it. Over the years - and variable governments - new, better, more intimidating buildings were built as a message to others to avoid stopping by without an invitation. Without question, this was a brilliant plan, as one look up at the mountain from below pretty much says, "Keep out!"

In our case, however, we paid 20 quid each for the privilege of an invitation, so we happily wandered around the multi-level, multi-building space. One of these buildings housed a large military museum that showed the various ways that Scottish men and women contributed to or abetted wars in and for the UK since the 18th century. (For whatever reason, other than a nominal display on the Jacobean Rebellion and the room where James VI & I was born, almost nothing at the castle referenced Scottish history prior to 1725 CE.) I admit that I struggled with this museum. Yes, some wars are necessary, but I've never appreciated celebrating them. I tried to explain to Brian that my issue stems from the idea that men have forever felt a need to "die like my father did" or to prove themselves as their fathers or grandfathers have done, which has inevitably resulted in more wars.

We left the military museum and climbed up to the Grand Hall where a musician was keying up to play on his lute. While he tuned his lute - and the audience - he spewed really bad history, and after my third rolling of the eyes, Brian asked if I wanted to leave. Yes, please. (And for the record - and those at the back of the room - water was perfectly fine to drink throughout history with few exceptions. *grumbles*) We then explored the King James VI & I halls, including where he was born, and where the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone were kept.

In some spaces, we were asked not to take pictures (like in the Scottish Crown Jewels room), and in others, I chose not to take pictures as I struggled with the contents of the rooms (like the military displays). As such, you'll note that a lot of my pictures here were more about the buildings outside and the surrounding views.

One building, however, held me enthralled, and I took a number of photos there of the stained glass windows. (It was only later that I found out that the windows were created in the 1920s.) This was the chapel dedicated to Saint Margaret, a Scottish Queen from the 12th century. The room was small, no more than eight feet by 12 feet, with a cordoned-off apse at the front. The aforementioned stained glass windows told the stories of several legendary citizens of Scotland, including Wallace (which should have tipped me off on their ages, but sometimes I'm slow). It was a sweet chapel for a woman who birthed three kings of Scotland and one queen of England.

Once we'd hit all of the major points of the castle, we wandered down to the Christmas Market to see what we would see. This wasn't a Christmas Market like any I'd seen before.

First, there were carnival rides. Second, there was no Christmas music anywhere in the space. And finally, the only Christmas trees that I remember seeing were in the Christmas Tree maze. Still, I loved it. It was vibrant and fun. There were delightful shops selling all the usual things like ornaments, kitcshy doodads, illuminated candle holders, etc. Of course, as we were in Scotland, there were also a bunch of wool items everywhere in a variety of plaids or other brilliant patterns in bright colors.

This was billed as a German Christmas Market, so the food tended toward German, like sausages, kassel, and pretzels. There were also a myriad of crepe/waffle stands, and mac & cheese. The vegan mac & cheese place in particular was fantastic. (Yeah, I know. I was surprised, too.)

The market spanned multiple levels that we walked a few times, then we wandered off to see the castle from below the hill at night. Brian and I took turns taking pictures, and then playing with our filters to get different effects. A lot of the pictures we came up with were beautiful, evocative, and at times, downright creepy.

I really enjoyed playing around with photography with Brian. He, like me, loves to play with angles and shadows to see what will come of the shot. Comparing pictures became a bit of a competition for us; one that we both won, I think.

The next morning, we got up early, checked out of the hotel, and walked out to the cemetery that I'd taken pictures of from the castle.

I have a thing for cemeteries, the older the better. I love trying to come up with stories about the grand tombstones one finds in these old, often abandoned places of rest, where entire families are laid out with dates and ages of their deaths. Morbid, yes. A great exercise in imagination and storytelling? Absolutely.

From the cemetery, we headed towards the National Museum of Scotland, a lovely compact art museum free and open to the public. (We got distracted by a monument in the middle of the road that appeared off in the distance. So, we walked over to it and, despite Brian's objections, down the hill a bit beyond it, before turning around and going back to the art museum.)

Once back on track, we found a delightful museum organized by dates, with a number of prominent Scottish painters highlighted. There were also two Rembrandt pen-and-ink drawings on display, which I found fascinating. (No pics of that, sorry. I was distracted and pulled away before I thought about it.) Another painting kind of threw me for a loop, so I took a couple of pictures to get input from my late-period costuming friends.

There was, as seems to be a theme, a Cranach painting.

As well as a beautiful set of paintings of the goddess Diana.

After the museum, we had a bit of time left, so we walked a little down a path where we found a fountain that Brian absolutely hated, calling it garish, and that I thought was adorable.

From there, we went to a pub across from the train station to relax before catching a train to our next stop: Preston. 

A break from the storm

On December 23, I flew from Rome up to Gatwick Airport near London, UK. From there, I made every viable attempt to make it up to Lincoln, where my friend Brian lives. He'd offered me refuge from the onslaught of all that is foreign, and to join me on the final leg of my trip. Unfortunately, life is what happens while we're busy making plans.

The train from Gatwick to Stevenage went very smoothly. From Stevenage to Retford, however, things didn't go so well. A gentleperson, finding life far too difficult during this holiday season, chose to take their life by stepping in front of a different high-speed train north of Stevenage. This brought us to an abrupt stop while the authorities worked through what happened. For 101 minutes, we waited to hear how we would proceed. By then, I'd missed my connecting train in Retford, which meant it would be a solid hour plus wait for the next. Brian, gods bless this man's soul, suggested that I disembark in Grantham where he would drive down to pick me up. This worked beautifully.

(My heart goes out to the good gentle who chose the way out that they did, as well as the conductor forced to deal with such a horrific event themselves. It's a really hard time of year, folks. If you need help, please, I know it's hard, but reach out. Pick up your phone, text a friend, or call 911 and tell them what's going on. You're worth fighting for.)

The next several days, Brian did his level best to help me kick back, relax, and simply enjoy down time. As you all know, I'd been pushing myself stupidly hard, and this reprieve allowed me to recoup some seriously necessary spoons.

On the first day, after a leisurely morning in, we drove into Lincoln (he lives in a suburb thereof) to see the Lincoln Cathedral. It turns out this was the only day while I was in the area that it was open. The church was stunning.

In the Cathedral, an imp lives. He's hidden well, but a keen eye (and reading the little plaques scattered throughout the church) will help you find him.

The Cathedral has over a dozen chapels inside it, each in a covey off to the side. For the first time, I found a section of chapels dedicated to Her Majesties' Royal Army, Navy, and Air Force. Each of these chapels held a listing of those local lads and lasses lost in various battles, as well as various plaques of remembrance and prayers for currently serving men and women. Out of respect, I didn't take any pictures of these chapels, but I did stop and say a small prayer while I stood in the chapels, wiping away a few tears as I left.

As Brian and I walked around the Cathedral, I marveled at the stained glass windows, the incredible wood and stone work, and just how freaking massive this church was. I get that it's a Cathedral. I really do, But dang...

After we'd spent an hour exploring the church, we wandered down the second most steep road in the UK, or so Brian claims.

It was most definitely steep, and despite Brian's obvious annoyance, we walked down to the bottom of the hill to see what we would see. There the street leveled out, lined on either side with a variety of shops and restaurants, all bustling with last-minute shoppers. As I'm not much of a shopper, I turned around to head back up the hill. Brian, needless to say, wasn't happy, but being the game guy that he is, went along. (He did make me stop halfway up to rest, er, enjoy the view, though.)

We went home and spent the evening making dinner and watching bad holiday romance movies. (I told you Brian was a game guy and a saint among men. :D )

The next day, Christmas Day, we went in search of ruins. The sun only shines for about five hours up this way at this time of year, but the sky was clear, the air was crisp but not cold, and we were ready to explore. First, Brian took me to see a Knight's Templer tower.

This tower is all that's left of what was once a large and thriving castle and church. It sits in the middle of a working farm, but as is the way in the UK, is open to the public so long as you're respectful of the residents. We went inside, and though it was obvious that there has been some restoration work, the bulk of the tower remains as it was 900 years ago under the watchful eyes of the greatest knights known to the UK.

From the Templer tower, we drove east to the ruins of an abbey called Tupholm, or Sheep Hill. Funnily enough, the field where the ruins are was filled with beautifully fluffy sheep.

The abbey had been one of seven different churches and abbeys in this area, though it was the largest by far. When King Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of all Catholic churches, the abbey became a grand manor for a few hundred years. At some point in the 18th century, the manor was abandoned, falling into ruins. Then, in the early 20th century, the remaining wall of the abbey was built up and into a stretch of small homes. Those, too, were abandoned and all that was left was a single wall with a myriad of different patchwork stones, creating a few ruins to explore.

Our final destination for the day was to the birthplace of King Henry IV of England, Bolingbroke Castle. This one fascinated me. I mean, okay, yeah, the other two were freaking amazing, but these ruins were the outline of the castle walls, with the moat still circling them. Plaques explained the different towers, what they were used for, and where the keep would have been inside the walls.

Brian and I walked along the tops of the remaining walls, which were easily four feet wide, and took turns taking pictures of the different areas. The sun streamed through the remaining windows, shining on the brilliant green moss and grass. It took my breathe away.

We drove back to his place, made a Christmas dinner of heated up savory pies and mince pies with brandy sauce, and then settled in for a marathon of Star Trek Discovery.

On Boxing Day, we rose relatively late because we had no real agenda other than going to see Star Wars. This was to be both Brian's and my first movie in the UK, as he hadn't been to a movie since he moved here last year.

Things I learned about movie theaters in the UK:

• They don't have butter for the popcorn - none, zilch, nada - and if you ask, they're frightfully apologetic but still have none to give.
• Their candy section includes some prepackaged candy a la the US, but they also have a bank of loose candy to the side that you can buy by the cup. Oh hell yeah!
• While concessions do not have butter for the popcorn, they do have sweet-and-salty flavoring which almost made up for the lack of greasy oil that I prefer. Almost.
• There are rude people here just as there are in the US, and there are also shushers here, just as there are in the US. Gotta love people no matter where you are. 

Loved the movie, but I won't get in to that here. Suffice it to say, it worked for me. Brian had minimal nits to pick, but overall, he liked it, too.

We headed back to his place, where we made a quick dinner out of leftovers, then settled in to watch more Star Trek. At a certain point, it got a little too dark for me, so we switched to Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. By the intermission, we were both done with that, so moved on to a great sitcom called Upstart Crow about Shakespeare. We both fell asleep on the couch.

This morning, we walked into Lincoln, hopped a train, and headed up to Edinburgh, where we are now. I'll post about that later. 

It's amazing to me how much being in a foreign country - in this case two - demanded of me. As I was trying to explain to Brian, while I was in Spain and Italy, I never felt that I had any real downtime for my brain. At all times, I was constantly trying to think of the right phrase, the right question, the right courtesy thing to do. That taxes a person. Add to that my physical effort, and by the time I flew to the UK, my mind and body were fried. The three days of relaxation with my friend, doing the bare minimum but still exploring, allowed me to reset for a bit. I now feel ready to finish my trip with the right frame of mind and the energy to do it well.