Thursday 28 March 2002, 1740
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Another beautiful day. We feel like we've been mislead about the weather, but Evelyn and Frank assure us we're in the middle of a wonderful anomaly.
Crumpets and cheese and toast with raspberry jam for breakfast, and we just stayed at the flat in the morning. We had a lunch of pickled herring, cheese, bread and beer - pretty good.
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Rosslyn Chapel and its secondary roof. More pictures here. |
Evelyn took Catherine and me to Rosslyn Chapel by bus. We walked up to the New Town and waited for the 37 bus in front of West Register House. I was very happy it was a double decker and went straight to the top front. We went through a lot of the town (I took several pictures through the glass, including the "French Connection United Kingdom" abbreviated as "fcuk") and out through the suburbs which are nearly as cookie-cutter-house-hell as the U.S. But a lot of the town is very old, and an immense number of gorgeous old churches have been converted into community centers, theatres, and even pubs. Frank says Britons hardly ever go to church, especially as compared to Americans.
Rosslyn Chapel is a small church only about eight miles outside Edinburgh in the (very) small town of Roslin. It rotted for many years, and right now it's under a huge secondary roof which is going to be there until 2005 allowing the real roof to dry out. Of course this really changes the photos you take. Frank doesn't like it, but it has a huge advantage: there are stairs up, and you can walk right around the church 12 feet up in the air. Very cool.
The stonework inside is phenomenal. I did my best with my mini-tripod and both cameras, but the lighting is quite uneven. We'll see how that turns out.
I was momentarily locked in the chapel grounds at 1700 when they closed (Evelyn and Catherine had already gone out) but they let me out again. We walked to a nearby graveyard and took a couple pictures, then went to one of Roslin's pubs. Catherine ordered a half pint of Guiness. I wanted to try another whiskey, but I didn't recognize anything, so I ordered a half pint of Guiness too. But the bartender didn't have any more half pint glasses and headed to the back to get some. This gave Evelyn time to point out that they had "Highland Park" whisky which she likes. So I asked for that instead, and one of the locals (who'd already been joking with us a little) supplied "a half pint!"
We took the bus back, met up with Frank and drove to Kalpna, an Indian vegetarian place they really like. It was excellent. Catherine and I payed. It was fairly expensive at £55, but we had everything - papadums and chaat for appetizers, aloo gobi (potatoes and cauliflower), dhal, spicy eggplant, and creamy veggies with naan, poori, and rice for the main course. Evelyn had mango(?) kulfi. I had gulab jamoom, and Frank had coffee.
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