On our third day here, I grabbed an egg bagel sandwich, tea, and orange juice at an unassuming shop called Zanny’s (friendly service with average food that got the job done) near Frederick Douglass Circle Plaza on the upper west side of Central Park, then walked up Manhattan Avenue to enjoy views of Morningside Park (a considerably smaller park compared to Central, but gorgeously green nonetheless) and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (the fifth largest Christian church in the world designed in Romanesque and Gothic Revival, its semicircular apse of the eastern wall towering over Morningside).

We managed to coordinate our train schedules  so that I boarded the same D train at the 125th Street Station that Natalie, Timmy, and Kim boarded in Brooklyn so that we would arrive together in the Bronx to visit the New York Botanical Garden. This was my first visit to the Bronx, and I really quite enjoyed it. In my post for my first day in town, I hinted that I developed a newfound love of the outter boroughs. And it was this trip to the Bronx that solidified that feeling. The Bronx still has those characteristic New York charms (brick apartment buildings with wrought iron fire escapes, for example), but it’s quieter and slower compared to, say, Manhattan. Indeed, if I were to live anywhere in this city, I might choose the Bronx.

The Botanical Gardens themselves are also quite a marvel, and I highly recommend the somewhat lengthy journey (if you’re staying in Manhattan or Brooklyn) to visit them. We started our visit at the Mertz Library Art Gallery where we enjoyed an exhibit featuring work by Georgia O’Keeffe during her visit to Hawaii in 1939 on a commission from the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now called Dole) so she could create promotional images. These painting are apparently not very well known, and I’m not sure if it’s because lots of the paintings from this trip aren’t necessarily, er, very good. (Sorry. I hate saying that let alone thinking that, because I’ve long admired O’Keeffe’s work.) But I must say, these paintings just aren’t as good as much of her other work. There’s an unrefined quality about the paintings; they lack that characteristic abstraction of the flower with soft, undefined lines that blend in and out of vibrant colors. Instead, the shapes are blocky, the colors are plain, and the lines are obvious. This may be a symptom of the fact that she was creating promotional images for a large company so she had to dial back the abstraction, but it was still disappointing work nonetheless.

Following the O’Keeffe paintings (there were only a handful of them to view), we continued on through the exhibit in the Mertz Library. There was a short film to watch that detailed O’Keeffe’s work in Hawai while highlighting her letters from her time there, and there was also an expertly prepared exhibit of all the plant life in Hawaii and the dangers of invasive species. I must say, while O’Keeffe’s work might have been disappointing, I still really enjoyed the exhibit, and I do recommend it despite my somewhat lukewarm reception.

Next we walked through more of the grounds. Our loosely-planned route took is through the Rock Garden, the Thain Family Forest, the waterfall on the Bronx River, the Goldman Stone Mill, the Azalea Garden, the Luce Herb Garden, and the Perennial Garden. While it was still stunningly beautiful in its own right, I would love to make a return trip to the gardens in late spring and early summer to see everything in bloom. That said, it was so nice to be here in the off season, since the grounds weren’t busy at all. It was really very nice.

While the grounds may have lacked color in favor of late season foliage of dark greens and occasional pale yellows that signaled the beginning of autumn, the Haupt Conservatory was a real pleasure to enjoy. Indeed, it ended up being the highlight of our visit. The conservatory is the largest Victorian era glasshouse in the United States, and it is named after Enid A. Haupt who was a publisher (she was in charge of Seventeen magazine from 1953-1970) whose generous gifts supported horticulture, the arts, architectural and historical preservation, and cancer research.

A giant 90-foot glass dome greets visitors at the entrance. The whole conservatory is a giant rectangle, so guests can work their way either clockwise or counterclockwise from the domed entrance to view all 11 galleries without having to double back. And what a stunning collection of plants from all over the world! As their website indicates, you can find “majestic palms, prehistoric cycads, endangered orchids, and cactus curiosities.” The flowers are vibrant, exquisite, and fragrant; the cactuses are marvels in living sculptures; and the ferns are such wondrous reminders of a truely successful species spanning eons. This conservatory was just absolutely fantastic! Do visit the New York Botanical Gardens. They were a definite highlight of my entire time here in New York.

Following the gardens and a satisfying lunch at a Caribbean buffet at a Cherry Valley Marketplace, we headed to the Meat Packing District in Manhattan to visit some art galleries, namely two Gagosian galleries (one on 24th and the other on 21st) and the Hollis Gallery on 26th. The Gagosian on 24th was featuring the work of Mary Weatherford in an exhibit called I’ve Seen Gray Whales Go By. This is a brilliant collection of work. The paintings were highly abstract and expressionist, which I just love. There were, I think, six or seven paintings total, and they were all fantastically giant, towering over the quite open space of the gallery. Each painting was a flurry of colors of oversized brush strokes (I think she must use some kind of large sponge) that danced, glided, and darted across the canvas. Each painting also had at least one (sometimes several) neon tubes affixed to the canvas. She lit the tubes in vibrant colors of reds and blues, and they raced in a long line from one corner of the canvas to another, sometimes running off the canvas entirely. These paintings were not only such impressive accomplishments, they were also just remarkably sensational treats for the eyes.

I’m not going to remark much on the Hollis (it was a collection of lots of different people’s works that didn’t really catch my eye), and the other Gagosian featured a work by Urs Fischer called PLAY. It was a slightly amusing installation of colorful office chairs that moved about the space on their own accord. It was fine. It made me smile.

Following the galleries, we made our way to the Staten Island Ferry. We (perhaps naively) thought we could walk to the ferry from the Meat Packing District. Google indicated it was an hour-and-a-half walk, which seemed doable. A strenuous stroll, I suppose, and we weren’t pressed for time. However, after about 45 minutes, we decided to hop on the subway on account of our sore feet. Still, it was nice to catch brief glimpses of the High Line (that elevated, disused railway converted into a park and greenway that I fell in love with the last time I was here) and large sections of perhaps my favorite neighborhood in town, Greenwich Village. (More on Greenwich Village for day 6! Stay tuned!)

I really enjoy the Staten Island Ferry, as it’s an inexpensive (it’s free, in fact) way to catch amazing views of the city, New Jersey, Ellis Island, and the Statue or Liberty. We rode it on a particularly grey, foggy day, but I do rather like grey, foggy days. While much of the city may have been hidden by the fog, it was still a spectacular sight to see, a cloudy haze enveloping the upper stories of the buildings, a ghostly shadow obscuring everything beyond Lower Manhattan.

Staten Island itself is kinda boring. (Sorry.) So we headed straight back to Manhattan to enjoy some of the best Turkish and Mediterranean food I’ve ever had at a restaurant called Aba. And we ate so much! If I’m remembering correctly we started with phyllo scrolls (pan fried, cigar shaped phyllo pastries stuffed with feta and parsley), fried calamari, and lebni (thick yogurt with walnuts, garlic, dill, and herbs). Then for our mains we had doner kebabs (ground lamb and beef cooked on a rotating spit), Turkish meatballs (made with ground lamb and beef and seasoned with Turkish spices), sultan’s delight (chunks of lamb in a tomato sauce over eggplant purée and kasar cheese), and stuffed cabbage leaves (stuffed with rice, ground lamb, onion, tomato, dill). And if that wasn’t enough, we finished the meal by sharing a Turkish custard that had a caramelized base. It was all just so, so good! Some of the most delectable and enticing flavors I’ve ever had! Do go! Make sure to bring in your own bottle (bottles?) of wine, as they don’t have alcohol on the menu.

We were all quite impressed with how we managed to pack all this in on a single day, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Sadly, at this point, my time with Timmy, Natalie, and Kim was fast coming to a close, as they depart on Tuesday. However, tomorrow I’ll be joined by Amy and Aaron as they fly to NYC from their adventures on Toronto.

Stray Observations:

1. Today I noticed that some of the routes of the NYC Subway were rather poorly designed. I noticed that there isn’t really a good way to go from Queens to Brooklyn via subway, as there aren’t really any north-south routes connecting those two boroughs. Instead, it frequently is necessary to take a train from Queens, head west into Manhattan, then loop back around south and then east to get to Brooklyn.

2. We got to walk on the High Line for only a very little bit on account of a performance taking place when we arrived, necessitating our fast return to the street. Even still, I’m so glad I got to see it once again even for a little bit, as it really is one of my favorite places to visit in New York.

The morning of my second day back in New York, I made my way from my room in Harlem all the way to one of my favorite delis, Russ and Daughters, in the East Village on Houston Street. I fell in love with Russ and Daughters on my last trip here, and I fell in love with it again on this trip. And I believe that on all my successive trips to New York, I will always visit this fantastic place. They always have such fresh selections of fish, bagels, cream cheeses, and everything else. And I was also so happy to introduce this place to Natalie, Timmy, and Kim, who also really enjoyed their visit to Russ and Daughters.

After taking a number and waiting for a bit (the wait is always worth it), I decided to have an “everything” bagel with Irish smoked salmon, dill and horseradish cream cheese, and onions, capers, and tomatoes. It was so, so good! Everyone else got variations on that (different kinds of fish, different kinds of spreads, etc.), and it was all equally good. There was a local patron in the shop who told us all about the “proper” combinations of ingredients to put on a bagel. (To my shame, I’ve already forgotten the details of what he said.) When I ordered mine, however, they got it ready without blinking. When Natalie and Kim asked for theirs, the man asked, “Are you sure?” We weren’t sure if that meant they chose a poor combination of ingredients or not, but their choices still sounded good to me. (Sorry. Can’t remember exactly what they got.)

Following Russ and Daughters, we had to dash to the subway for a somewhat lengthy train ride to Coney Island. (We ate our bagels and fish on the train to save time.) Coney Island is one of those bucket list items, something that everyone should try to see at least once, and I’m so happy to have visited this icon and crossed it off my bucket list.

I also just love traveling in October in the “off” season. Coney Island wasn’t full of people as I might’ve expected in, say, July. It was so nice to be able to take it all in without screaming children and slow-walking crowds. At the same time, the lack of people made the whole place seem a little sad: no one riding carousels, no one trying to pop balloons with darts to win a comically oversized teddy bear, no one buying Nathan’s hot dogs. All the cracks in the old paint jobs on the rides and all the unclaimed seats on the roller coasters seemed just a little bit extra sad.

That said, there was no one in line for anything, so, with essentially no standing in line at all, we were able to ride the Spook-a-Rama (one of those Halloween-themed rides where riders ride in a small cart on tracks while things like air guns, loud growls, and chintzy animatronic skeletons scare them; I highly recommend it); the Wonder Wheel (a giant Ferris wheel that allows riders fantastic views of Coney Island and the city; I also highly recommend this ride, too, even those scared of heights, like myself); and the Cyclone (a wooden roller coaster from 1927 that maximizes its use of space to provide just the right amount of drops and twists and turns to provide that exhilarating frightful feeling that impossible physics causes; I also highly recommend this one as well).

Sadly, we were still so full from Russ and Daughters that we weren’t able to fit in a Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog, but maybe next time.

After Coney Island (it was hard to leave the island, actually; it’d be possible to spend a whole afternoon here), I had to catch my second play while in town. And I had the absolute pleasure of enjoying I Hear You and Rejoice at the Irish Arts Center, featuring the very talented Mikel Murfi in a one-man show that he also wrote and directed.

And oh my goodness! What a bravura performance and an astonishing show! Murfi plays a multitude of characters that all live in a small Irish town, and he calls up football coach and florist Kitsy Rainey, her husband and mute cobbler Pat Farnon, a shop owner who sells newspapers, a family friend, priests, and several other characters including an assortment of a animals. The whole show centers around the indomitable Kitsy Rainer who has recently died, and we learn about her spiky temperament and dry and impeccable wit through flashbacks from the past and reminiscences from the present. Murfi expertly transforms his body, voice, face, and eyes into all these different characters to create a collage of a woman who touched so many people’s hearts. It’s poignant, it’s sad, it’s funny, it’s captivating! Never a dull moment! It was so, so good! And if you are either Irish or Catholic (or both), I think you’ll find this show especially tickling as Murfi tenderly pokes harmless fun of Irish culture and Catholic ceremony. Generally, though, this show was such a pleasure to enjoy! Bravo! Bravo! I want to see it again, but I have so much other stuff to do while I’m here!

Following the show, I met up with the others at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (via a walk through Central Park; always nice to visit the park to enjoy the musical performances and the living statues, look at all the people with their dogs and frisbees, admire all the rowboats on the lake). My friends had just finished a much-too-short visit of the museum on account of it closing early on Sunday (parts of this city do, indeed, sleep), and after I gushed to them about the show I just saw, we made our way to Greenwich Village to dine at a pizza shop called John’s of Bleecker Street.

And WOW! What pizza! We got three large pizzas, one with pepperoni, one with anchovies and mushrooms, and one with sausage and garlic. (I think. My memory got a little hazy on those details.) I think sometimes with pizza the sauce makes the pizza, and this sauce was so fresh and so balanced with herbs and spices that I found nothing to fault. I do highly recommend visiting John’s of Bleecker Street for some rally fine pizza.

Our evening closes with a visit to a comedy club in Brooklyn called the Knitting Factory. They happened to have a free open mic night, so we decided to take advantage of the savings. Comedy clubs can sometimes be hit or miss; you never quite know what you’ll end up with. Invariably, about half of the comics will be good and half will be mediocre. And so it was tonight. Two of the comics out of the four we saw were quite good. (We only stayed for the first half.) Kevin Yee was especially memorable, as he sang during his bit about how (and I’m paraphrasing), “No matter how hard you try you can’t get pregnant from gay sex,” to music that was impossibly peppy and, er, gay. But it was so, so funny.

Stray Observations:

1. While at Coney Island, it was also really cool to see and walk on the iconic boardwalk. However, I was a little disappointed to find out that there isn’t just one Zoltar machine, but several.

2. Coney Island also allows great views of the Atlantic coast. All the more reason to make sure to ride the Wonder Wheel.

At long last, I’ve returned to New York. Almost three years to the date, to be exact, since I was last here. I fell in love with this place then, and I fell in love with it all over this time. I managed to check out even more of the city this time (last time we were mainly in Manhattan with one side trip to Brooklyn), and in the process I’ve discovered a new found love for the outter boroughs. (More on that for my third entry.)

My first day here wasn’t a full day by any means. My flight arrived at LaGuardia at about 4:30pm. This left only three hours for me to check in at my AirBnB in Harlem and then make my way to Hunter College by 7:30 to attend my first night of theatre.

The last time I was in New York, I was surprised to feel those little pangs of culture shock. This city is so big, so fast, so busy, so noisy, so messy. It takes some getting used to. But, I seemed to adapt much more quickly this time around. Those pangs were still present, but they weren’t as strong, and they dissapated really quickly.

Before the show, I discovered a wonderful little French restaurant called Brasserie Cognac East located on Lexington and 70th. I only had time for two glasses of wine, sadly. I would love to return, as the aromas from the kitchen were lovely, and I have a feeling that I’d absolutely enjoy selections from the menu.

And then, just like that, having barely settled back in to the city, I was sitting down to Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, presented by Hunter Theatre Project and performed at Frederick Loewe Theater.

I feel I need to preface everything that follows with a disclaimer. First, I really want to like this production. And second, to my shame, I’m not terribly familiar with Chekhov’s work, so it’s entirely possible I’m missing something when it comes to certain historical traditions of how actors perform Chekhov. That said, I do have a pretty good grasp on what makes theatre good. And sadly, there were two artistic decisions that Richard Nelson made that impeded my ability to enjoy this show.

The first problem might seem minor, but it was significant enough that it detracted from the overall aesthetic of the work: the music was simply bad. It wasn’t even mediocre. It was bad. It was like listening to piano music for an elevator in a department store. But it was somehow worse than that. It was anemic, lacking in any emotional depth. But most of all, it was anachronistic. The whole production was so careful in its visual design to evoke a certain early 20th century, working class aesthetic (from the wardrobe to the props and so on), but the music (while only played between the four acts) was just present enough to be distracting.

The second problem (and this was the director’s fatal error; I can deal with a little bit of bad music), I could barely hear the actors. Even in this intimate space (the audience seated around the actors in a small black box affair), I was able to understand maybe 70% of the words, and in a play that requires an audience’s utmost attention to all the words, that’s a lot of missed words. I had a really hard time knowing what was going on, beyond a forced love interest between two of the characters on one hand and something about selling the house on the other. (There was much more going on than that.)

This all said, it probably would’ve been better had I had a firm understanding of the plot of this play going in. (It’s been around for well over 100 years, after all.) But it wasn’t that I couldn’t follow the plot or the relations and developing dynamics of the characters. The quiet, quiet delivery of the lines also caused the actors to deliver very understated performances. They were performances more suited to a very slowly moving and hushed independent film (a kind of film I really love, actually), but combine that style of performance with not being able to understand a lot of the words and not being able to zoom my eyes in on the actors to catch close up shots of their subtle facial expressions, and I lose lots of the intense drama that Chekhov’s words (well, Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky‘s translated words) actually created.

This is all really too bad. Because everything else about this play is so, so good: the lighting, the costumes, the design, the props, the minimally dressed set. All the actors also performed exceptionally well. I can’t fault any of them. I found myself particularly drawn to Yvonne Woods’s performance of Sónya, and Jay O. Sanders‘s performance in the title role was especially memorable. It just wish I could’ve actually heard them.

Anyway, there it is. I’m glad to be back, it’s just such a shame that my first night of theatre was kinda rough. Even still, I’ll be here for a whole week, and I think it’s gonna be fantastic.

Stray Observations:

1. Quite by chance, I happened to choose the exact same flight as my friends Natalie, Timmy, and Kim. It was such an absurd coincidence. We had no idea until we bumped into each other at the airport. So, we’ll all be joining together in our advtures until Tuesday when they leave. On that very same Tuesday Amy and Aaron will be joining me to finish out the adventure. (Amy and Aaron joining me then was planned.)

2. I used to joke that Minneapolis theatre audiences are much too kind, jumping to standing ovations when the work doesn’t deserve it. They also have a tendency to laugh at moments that aren’t actually funny, but rather deeply unsettling. However, New York proved me wrong tonight when the audience did both. I can forgive the standing ovation, I suppose (I’m clearly in the minority on my opinion of this Hunter Theatre Project production), but laughing at moments that aren’t actually funny? I’m sorry, but please knock it off.

3. Before the show, staff offered headsets to help aid in hearing the performance. I thought the headsets were for those hard of hearing, but I think they might’ve been for everyone. But I’m sorry, I’m not gonna wear a headset at a play when I shouldn’t need one.

It’s high time I’ve written about what I’ve been up to lately, as the last couple of months have been very exciting indeed. Here’s a rundown of past, current, and future projects.

Mozart amongst the Clouds (22 September 2018)

Elizabeth, Courtney, and Matt (my dear friends from my undergraduate days at Winona State) and I have long wanted to work together on something. For years we talked about a project where I would compose some miniatures for violin, viola, and piano. Elizabeth, Courtney, and I would perform the music while Matt would paint miniature paintings in response to the music. The idea being that Matt would paint during the performance and therefore have only a handful of minutes to create something brand new.

This idea for whatever reason never quite came to be. (Perhaps it will some day.) Instead, Elizabeth, Courtney, and I started looking through various works for violin, viola, and piano, and we quickly settled on Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio. We were all fascinated with the long tradition of performing music in homes, as the Kegelstatt Trio received its premiere in the home of Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, a friend of Mozart’s. Performing the trio in Courtney and Matt’s home became the first part of the plan, so Matt and I sat down together to discuss how we would involve him.

Matt is an avid animator, so he and I quickly settled on a project where I would write music and he would create an animation that would compliment the music. In previous collaborative projects, the process usually involved me responding to a work of art that was already completed (whether it was Gabriel Pionkowski’s interest in the void, Traci Brimhall’s poems of aubades, Harlan Chambers’s research in the Nanking Massacre, or Adrienne Louise Kleinman’s love of cats), but this time I was so happy to create the art first and Matt would respond to what I created. And what he created was so special, indeed! We will be releasing the animation on the various video platforms soon (hopefully in the next month or so), as we first are working on a professional recording of the music. In the meantime, I can share that images of clouds figured heavily in Matt’s four-minute animation, so I decided to call the work Nuages (i.e. French for clouds).

The outcome of all our work was a delightful afternoon of music, animation, food, and wine. Courtney and Matt were gracious hosts as they opened their home to 25 of our friends and family. We served cucumber sandwiches, cheeses, fruits, wine, cookies, and pies, performed the Mozart trio, then performed the Nuages piece, projecting Matt’s animation on the wall as we played. Everyone I spoke to afterwards seemed so, so moved by the whole afternoon, and I just can’t wait to release the animation to the Internet for everyone to see.

I’m also really excited for the future of my work with Matt. We already have initial plans for a longer animation, and I think it’s going to be great!

Eno amongst the Airports (18 October 2018 at Dead Media in Minneapolis)

The second project I’m working on involves musician Adam Biel. We’ve also long wanted to perform together, and finally this will be a reality. Adam is very interested in ambient music and drones, and some years back we got together to improvise. I created various free-tonal gestures on piano, and he created colorful drones on guitar. For whatever reason, we never shared our improvisations for a public performance, but I remained keen on performing something with Adam. Eventually, we settled on performing our own rendition of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.

I hope you can join us at Dead Media on 18 October at 7:00pm. Northern Isolation is hosting the event, and the evening will also feature the music of Modify and Neon Menhirs. I’m so excited that Adam and I will finally be performing together. I think we’ve created some really gorgeous music, and we would love to see you there.

Art amongst the Times

Lastly, every Friday evening in October at SpringHouse Ministry Center in Minneapolis, I will be working with movement and spoken word artist Tera Kilbride et al for a series of improvisatory performances of music, dance, and spoken word called Improv SNAP. I don’t mean to short shrift important details at the moment, but I will have more to share in the coming days. We have another rehearsal tomorrow night where we will be making many important decisions. I will be able to write more about this series in the next couple of days.

Tera and I have already had a couple of successful street performances downtown, most recently on the 600 block of Nicollet Mall just today on 26 September. I had a really great time playing piano while Tera danced, and we both performed some spoken word as well. Tera and I both agreed that today’s performance was especially magical. “We created a play that no one saw,” she remarked. Some day, people will see it, though.

The Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District and On Nicollet host these street shows, and they are a very welcome addition to all the events downtown. I look forward to being a part of them again, and I can’t wait to perform the Improv SNAP series next month.

Airports are such bipolar places. They are filled with emotions only of the extremes: extreme happiness that you’re about to leave for somewhere spectacular or extreme sadness that you’re about to depart from somewhere spectacular; extreme happiness that your fantastic holiday is just beginning or extreme sadness that your fantastic holiday is just ending.

The morning of our final day here (we only had time for breakfast, returning the car, and heading to the airport), we were all feeling extreme sadness. I never like it when things end. Well, it’s nice when a bad play ends, when a horrifying presidency ends, or when a boring flight ends. But, it’s sad that even good things must end. All good things, as they say.

Waking up in the morning was especially difficult. I treated myself to one last sin of meat and had a full Scottish breakfast compete with black pudding and haggis (a curious taste and texture, the both of them). We had all packed quite well the night before, so there were just some odds and ends left to take care of. We bid adieu to our fantastic host, Mr. Peter Brown of the Dormie House, and headed out into an appropriately grey and rainy day that matched our feelings. The Scottish have a word for this weather: dreich.

But, while sometimes sadness consumes, we really have had a quite fantastic adventure. So, I thought I’d conclude with some good old fashioned lists of all the places we had been to, complete with my own ratings of each place. If the location has three stars next to the rating, that means it was my favorite of that particular category.

Rating system defined:
5=absolutely perfect; would come back again and again and again and never tire of seeing the place
4=really quite wonderful; I’d maybe visit again one or two more times
3=cool; glad I saw it but probably won’t come back
2=okay; I’m glad I can tell people not to go here
1=absolutely pointless; I want my time and money back

In total, we visited roughly 60 unique places:

We saw 8 castles/palaces:
Linlithgow Palace (4)
Edinburgh Castle (4.5)
Holyrood Palace (4)
Stirling Castle (3.5)
Braemar Castle (3.5)
Dundonald Castle (3)
Culzean Castle and County Park (4.5)***

We saw 8 natural landmarks:
River Clyde (Glasgow) (3)
Arthur’s Seat (Edinburgh) (3.5)
Loch Lomond and Trossachs (Loch Earn/Loch Tay) (3.5)
Cairngorms (5)***
Aberdeen Beach/North Sea (3.5)
Loch Ness (5)
River Dee (3.5)
Firth of Clyde/Country Park (4.5)

We went to 4 museums/exhibitions:
The Lighthouse/Mackintosh Centre (3.5)
Surgeons’ Hall Museum (3)
Culloden Battlefield (4)***
Loch Ness Visitor Centre and Exhibition (1.5)

We stayed in and/or explored 7 cities/towns/villages:
Glasgow (3)
Stirling (3)
Edinburgh (4.5)*** (It was really hard to choose this as my favorite over Braemar, but Edinburgh beat out Braemar only slightly because Edinburgh is a city, and I prefer the cities over all else.)
Crief (4)
Aberdeen (2)
Braemar (4.5)
Prestwick/Ayr (3)

We saw 5 cathedrals/churches:
Glasgow Cathedral (3.5)***
Canongate Kirk (Edinburgh) (3)
St. Giles’s Cathedral (Edinburgh) (3)
St. Andrew’s Cathedral (Aberdeen) (3)
Inverness Cathedral (3)

We went to 14 different restaurants/pubs:
Chaakoo Bombay Cafe (Glasgow) (5)
Caffe Nero (Glasgow) (2)
Blackbird (Edinburgh) (3.5)
MUMS Great Comfort Food (Edinburgh) (5)***
Meadow Inn (Crieff) (3.5)
Old Blackfriars (Aberdeen) (4.5)
Great Northern Hotel Restaurant (Aberdeen) (2)
Inversnecky Cafe (Aberdeen) (2.5)
Garlogie Inn (outside Aberdeen) (4)
Kittybrewster Bar (Aberdeen) (3)
Braemar Lodge Restaurant (Braemar) (5)
Gordon’s Tearoom (Braemar) (4)
Golf Inn (Prestwick) (2.5)
No. 22 Bar and Grill (Ayr) (3.5)

We saw 5 stone circles:
Croft Moraig Stone Circle (4.5)
Loanhead of Daviot Stone Circle (3.5)
Easter Aquharthies Stone Circle (5)***
Cullerlie Stone Circle (2.5)
Tyrebagger Stone Circle (4)

We saw 8 additional things:
The Lighthouse (climbing up it) (3)
Provand’s Lordship (3.5)
Necropolis (4)
Royal Mile (4)***
Scottish Parliament (3.5)
Ye Old Christmas Shoppe (4)
Famous Grouse Experience (3.5)
Bridge Street (Inverness) (3)

There are 5 things I wish we could’ve actually seen:
Glasgow City Chambers
Inverness (actually stay there and expire it more thoroughly)
Inverness Castle
Robert Burns Monument/Birthplace House
Balmoral

Alas, tomorrow we shall wake up in Scotland for one last time before we head back to Minnesota. But we couldn’t’ve asked for a more pleasant, final day here, as we spent the majority of our time at Culzean Castle and Country Park.

(That’s Culzean, by the way, pronounced kull-LEEN).

Culzean came highly recommended by one of our guidebooks. When we sat down to plan a route last month, we worried we wouldn’t be able to fit it in. But, we are all thankful that we managed to make our way here, as it’s a simply gorgeous area and a fantastic way to spend our final day. We also lucked out on some really fine weather of comfortable temps and no rain.

The whole park is a quite large area (260 hectares), and we managed to explore quite a bit of it. We started, naturally, with the castle itself. It was built for David Kennedy the 10th Earl of Cassilis between 1777 and 1792 and designed by architect Robert Adam. It eventually became the home of the chief of Clan Kennedy, Marquess of Ailsa.

The castle is a really quite grand, rectangular structure that overlooks the Firth of Clyde, it’s built of stones with a soft, yellow hue, it stands three tall stories high, it’s complete with several towers, and it has those classic battlements atop the roof. They’ve got a self-guided tour quite well organized as well, making your way from room to room with an elegant flow. Each room is decorated with the sheer opulence that you would expect from someone like the 10th Earl of Cassillis. You get to see the usual bedrooms, the usual drawing rooms, the usual kitchens, the usual dining rooms, the usual oil paintings, the usual ornate rugs, and the usual chandeliers (after you’ve seen this many historical places in the two weeks we’ve been here, these fancy things have now become usual and ordinary), but the real highlight was the central grand staircase. From the staircase you could see all three stories decked out with all three classical columns. The whole staircase reminded me very much of what the grand staircase of the Titanic once looked like.

After the castle we went to the visitor centre to purchase some final souvenirs, took a moment to enjoy a walk down to the shore to view the Firth of Clyde, and then we went to the deer park to enjoy the company of some, er, deer as well as some llamas.

Afterwards we were quite excited to head to the Aviary and the Swan Pond to, naturally, enjoy the company of various birds and, of course, swans. We were disappointed to find out that the Aviary isn’t an aviary at all, just a cafe called the Aviary. And, sadly, the so-called Swan Pond was severely lacking in, er, swans. There were plenty of ducks, but no swans. This was also the busiest part of the whole park with parents and their running children throwing frisbees and doing other annoying things childen do, and we didn’t quite like it.

So we quickly made our way to the Cat Gates. This was a really very nice walk through the forest located in the southern part of the park. We walked by a babbling brook, two shallow ponds called the Swinston Ponds, and a giant wood carving of two otters scurrying around a column. It only took ten minutes to walk from the aviary to the gates, and I highly recommend you visit this relatively remote part of the park. (We encountered no other people along this walk, you see.)

The Cat Gates are two stone arches that stand several meters high, and atop each of them are panther-like cats, one each for each arch. These arches, hidden away in a forest taken out of Narnia, were a quite majestic sight to behold. Now, the three of us really like animals (and cats in particular), so we’re biased, but these arches were a joy to see.

We spent a good couple hours at Culzean, and we worked up an appetite. So, we headed back towards Prestwick and stopped by a restaurant in Ayr called the No. 22 Bar and Grill. As it was our last night to enjoy a Scottish dinner, we all had fish and chips with mushy peas and for dessert a sticky toffee pudding (my mother opting instead for a coffee liqueur). It was quite good, but it didn’t quite beat our number one dining experience: MUMS in Edinburgh. But that’s a tall bar to beat!

Stray Observations:

1. If you’re coming from the north to visit Culzean, I highly recommend you drive on the A719, as this route provides gorgeous views of the Firth of Clyde.

2. One thing we noticed is how friendly it is driving over here. If you want to let someone in who’s been waiting to turn right, just allow a gap in the queue of cars, flash your lights, and let them in. If you need to leave room for oncoming traffic, flash your lights to indicate that you’ll be the one getting out of the way, pull over, and then let them pass. Friendly hand waves usually accompany the exchange as well.

3. Even the road signs are friendly. When you exit a work zone, the sign says something like, “Leaving work zone. Sorry for any delays.” (No, seriously. The sign really did apologize for delays.) Also, if the sign is indicating you’re traveling faster than the posted speed limit, it will flash your speed with a frowning face. When you drive at or below the speed limit, the face turns to a smile. (No, really. It really did.)

I just can’t stop gushing about the Cairngorms. They’re really quite incredible. So picturesque, so beautiful, so lovely. Driving through them is such a treat. The roads wind in and out, up and down, left and right. It can be very dizzying indeed. Frequently the road ahead of you looks more like a long ribbon of tar winding its way through this green, brown, and purple landscape of tall, tall summits and deep, deep valleys. It’s a sight to behold.

And alas, today was the last day we saw the gorgeous, gorgeous Cairngorms as we made our way back south towards the vicinity of Glasgow. We’re heading back to Minnesota this Friday, you see, departing from Glasgow, but we’re staying at a bed and breakfast in a small, coastal town called Prestwick. It’s only a 40 minute drive to the airport from here, so it’ll be a nice place to spend our last two nights in this incredible country.

We decided to stop by Dundonald Castle on the way to Prestwick. It was a three hour drive from Braemar to the castle. The castle is located right outside a small town called, er, Dundonald, and you can view the town from the top of the hill that the castle stands.

We opted for a more “ruins style” castle a la Linlithgow Palace rather than a “museum style” castle a la Edinburgh Castle. I sometimes quite prefer seeing castle ruins over the more preserved sites, as there’s something intriguingly haunting about seeing once dignified architecture in such a state of decay. Parts of Dundonald don’t exist anymore, but the main section of the castle that housed the laigh hall and the great hall is mostly still around for us to enjoy. It was built in 1371 by Robert Stewart to mark his accession to the throne as Robert II.

We happened to arrive when a lady was in the great hall training her 12-week-old owl, Starlight. He was a classic barn owl, white and brown feathers, and he was so, so cute! We all got a turn to let him perch on our outstretched arm. His owner was training him to deliver wedding rings in the space, as lots of people get married in the castle ruins.

After we adored young Starlight, we were the only guests to the castle at the time, so we also happened to get, essentially, our own private tour of the space. This is another perk to touring the less popular sites: fewer tourists and greater likelihoods of inadvertently receiving private tours.

Our tour guide really was quite wonderful. He took us through the great hall, then downstairs to a tiny prison (the dark, tiny prison, incidentally, was housing a number of giant spiders perched on the stone walls and ceiling and all protecting their own white sacks containing the eggs of their young), then upstairs to what would have been the king’s main living space where his office would have been as well as his bed.

Following Dundonald, we made one final trek for the day, this trek a mere 20 minutes long to Prestwick. We’re staying at a bed and breakfast called the Dormie House by Mr. Peter Brown. Peter has been very warm and gracious, and the accommodations are absolutely splendid. I’m looking forward to breakfast tomorrow!

Prestwick itself isn’t nearly as idyllic and beautiful as Braemar, nor was the food at the Golf Inn (a nearby pub where we had dinner) as delicious and delectable as the food at Old Blackfriars in Aberdeen, nor is the landscape as scenic and sightly as the Cairngorms, but Prestwick is merely a place to stay in the meantime.

Tomorrow we make our way to Culzean Castle, our final tourist destination on this incredible journey. It’s going to be wonderful, even in spite of the twinges of sadness I’m feeling as the end of our time in Scotland rounds the corner…

Stray Observation:

1. All over Scotland there are these food cooperatives, sometimes even in the tiniest of villages. There motto is, “supermarket with an ethical focus.” They’ve been a nice resource to have as we made our way around the country.

After our whirlwind tour yesterday of Culloden, Inverness, and Loch Ness, today we needed a breather, so we slowed down a bit. This was very easy to do in the tiny, tiny town of Braemar, nestled quietly in the mountains of Cairngorms National Park. It’s our second night at the Braemar Lodge Hotel, where yesterday we stayed in the hotel proper while today we’re staying in one of their cabins. And it is just lovely!

We allowed ourselves a late start, which was quite nice, but eventually we made our way to Braemar Castle, which is just up the road from the cabin. The castle was built in 1628 by John Erskine the 18th Earl of Mar. By the 1700s, the castle came under the ownership of John Farquharson the 9th Laird of Invercauld. The laird leased the castle to the government to be used as a military garrison, and it remained a garrison until 1831. At the point, the Farquharson clan began to restore the castle as a family home.

Since 2008, the castle has been open to the public, and it is decorated much like how it might’ve looked in the 1950s. This is because in 1948, Alwyne Compton Farquharson the 16th Laird married American Frances Lovell Oldham, and she decorated the castle to her tastes.

The castle itself stands quite tall right next to a busy field of sheep bleating loudly away. On the inside and the outside, it’s rather a kind of “Cinderella castle,” if you know what I mean. It’s an L-shaped castle, five stories high, complete with parapets atop bartizans. When you walk inside, you’re immediately greeted by a single, stone spiral staircase that allows access to all the rooms in the castle.

What’s most interesting about Braemar Castle is that you essentially get to view the inside of a castle that used to be (until very recently) someone’s home. Rather than the usual “museum style” castle or “ruins style” castle that we’ve seen up to this point (as cool as those are, too!), it was fascinating to see what a castle looked like that used to be the residence of a laird and his wife. It felt a little like seeing Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, MN except in a castle, I suppose. Very neat, indeed!

Following Braemar Castle we made our way to Balmoral, which is the queen’s favorite place to spend most of her time. She was in residence today (indeed, it’s only open to the public from April to July), so we couldn’t go inside nor much less actually see the palace, as the gates remained firmly closed and guarded by a police officer. Still, we got to enjoy views of the River Dee and visit the gift shop where the shop lady told us that it’s not uncommon to see the queen inspecting the gardens.

With post cards from the gift shop in hand, we made our way back to town and had a quite good late lunch at Gordon’s Tearoom (do go if you find yourself in Braemar!), and then checked out some shops along Old Military Road, had an ice cream, then returned to the cabin where I wrote some post cards.

Tomorrow we begin our final descent south before departing from Glasgow on this Friday. We found an adorable bed and breakfast in Prestwick, a seaside town that is close to Culzean Castle.

I don’t have any stray observations this time, as I’ve covered everything regarding our day above. That said, I can feel the end of our holiday approaching, and I dislike it. I get annoyed when certain things end. And it always gets more difficult to remain mindful of the moment when the ending of something so glorious is right around the corner, especially when you’re writing a blog in a cabin in the middle of such gorgeous, gorgeous mountains in such a beautiful, beautiful country filled with such friendly, friendly people.

Oh, Scotland! You are fantastic! And it will be difficult to leave you!

This morning we had to make an early start, because we had a lot of driving ahead of us. Since it’s peak travel season, we didn’t plan very well that the Scottish Highlands would have few vacancies for lodging. So, we had to settle for a day trip to Inverness from Aberdeen rather than spend a couple days in Inverness proper.

We decided to take a scenic route from Aberdeen to Inverness via the Cairngorms rather than take the more direct A96. We had already driven through the Cairngorms when we made our way to Aberdeen from Crieff, but the Cairngorms are just so fucking gorgeous that we had to go out of our way to see them again. And they certainly didn’t disappoint on a second drive through them.

Before we entered Inverness proper, we visited the Culloden Battlefield. This was a very sobering experience, as the battlefield is a giant memorial and burial site for thousands of soldiers.

The Battle of Culloden happened on 16 April 1746. It was the last Jacobite uprising, but they were solidly defeated by the government soldiers, so any hopes that the Jacobites could overthrow the House of Hanover in order to restore the House of Stuart to the British throne were quashed. The battle was very brief, lasting just a few minutes, but 1500 to 2000 Jacobite soldiers were killed while only 300 government soldiers (“red coats”) were killed.

The visitor centre has a very informative exhibit that details the events leading up to the battle. It was really very well done, wonderfully organized, expertly researched, and engagingly presented. The battlefield itself is a very somber walk. I spent about 45 minutes walking down the center of the moor and then back again down the southern path.

This walk allows you to view the memorial cairn that was erected in 1881, a tall pillar of stones stacked in a diameter of perhaps four meters in a column that stands six meters high. (Take these measurements with a grain of salt. I’m terrible at estimating these sorts of things.) You can also see headstones that were also erected in 1881, and they mark the locations of the mass graves of the clans. They also use tall flags to mark where the two opposing lines started, four blue flags for the Jacobites and four red flags for the government soldiers.

Visiting Culloden Battlefield was very informative and very somber. You learn a lot while you’re there (especially if you don’t know much about this history to begin with), and the scale of how many lives were lost in such a short amount of time is deeply upsetting which might make your visit slightly or somewhat trying.

Following Culloden, we made our way to Inverness. As I said, this had to be a day trip out of necessity, but I must say that were we to do this over again, we would definitely make sure to spend a good three days in Inverness to soak it all in. It’s an older city in the vein of Edinburgh, and it, too, has a castle towering over the cityscape. (Not as impressively as Edinburgh or Stirling, mind you, but how many cities can you name that have a castle towering over its cityscape?)

We only had time to view Inverness Cathedral (it was pretty cool; very ornate floor tiles), enjoy a small lunch at the cathedral’s cafe, walk along the River Ness, and do some shop window gazing along Bridge Street. As I said, we didn’t have much time, and I wish we did, because I think we would quite love Inverness had we had the time to really get to know it.

Our last stop for the day before we started to make our trek back south was Loch Ness. And oh my! What a treat it was to see Loch Ness! It’s long been a bucket list item for me to see Loch Ness, and we all found ourselves becoming quite excited to see it as we approached ever and ever nearer. When we finally did see it, how surreal it was!

I suggest you do what we did which was to take the A82 out of Inverness. It’s only a 15 mile drive or so, but you’ll eventually happen across the northern tip of the loch. The first roadside parking you see, grab a parking spot, make your way down a set of stairs, and enjoy the views of the loch from this northernmost edge right on its shores. It allows you to take in the sheer length of the loch while also seeing it from a classic vantage. Really, truly, remarkably a wonderful way to experience such an iconic landmark.

We then went to the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition in Drumnadrochit. It was, er, fine. I think it’s more for children. The exhibit was, er, fine, I guess. A little dated, a little worn around the edges. The whole thing could do with an update. I can’t exactly recommend you visit the centre. I think it’s much more exciting to view the loch itself from the location I described and skip the exhibit all together, especially if you basically know the history of the monster: people supposedly seeing Nessie (in all likelihood, they didn’t actually see anything), how they faked all those photos, and how they use sonar and so forth to search the loch.

Alas, the day was running short, and we had to make our two hour trek to Braemar to our hotel. We got to drive through the Cairngorms a third time, and it was fantastic! As ever, the sheep! The mountains! The heather! The cows! The crazy roller-coaster roads! I just can’t stop thinking about the Cairngorms! They are just fantastic, and I highly recommend you spend the extra penny and drive through them yourself! Absolutely fantastic!

Our hotel for the next two nights is the Braemar Lodge Hotel, located right in the middle of the Cairngorms, and it is just lovely! The staff are super friendly, our evening meal was divine (I had a filo pastry filled with goat cheese and pineapple salsa, then a decadent sticky pudding, complete with two pints of crisp and golden beers by Cairngorm Brewery Conpany), the rooms cozy and comfy, and it’s all nestled in the middle of the gorgeous, gorgeous landscape of the Cairngorms.

Stray Observations:

1. Although I say it myself, I’m getting pretty good at driving on these ridiculous roads over here. A couple times in the Cairngorms, we went over some summits where you couldn’t immediately see the other side before you plunged down, just like a roller coaster, and it was quite exciting!

2. We’ve been on a mission to pet some sheep while we’re here, but so far, no luck. They’re very skittish animals, and they run away from humans in a dash.

3. I can’t believe it’s already been ten days of sheer bliss in Scotland. I’m starting to feel twinges of sadness that our time here is starting to come to a close, but we’ve still got three, full, glorious days before we head back home on Friday.

Today we had a wonderful adventure hunting down a total of four stone circles. It was really quite wonderful, and we probably wouldn’t have done this had we been forced to stay in Aberdeen and had we discovered how drab Aberdeen is. Getting out and about into the countryside to seek out these sites was exactly what we needed.

The first circle we visited was Loanhead of Daviot Stone Circle, about a 35 minute drive outside Aberdeen and nearby a small village called, er, Daviot. This circle is a so-called recumbent stone circle because one of the giant stones stands horizontally rather than vertically and is flanked by two, tall, vertical standing stones. When on the inside of the circle, this arrangement of stones frames the rising or setting moon in the south. The circle itself is perhaps 20 meters in diameter with 8 standing stones in addition to the three that make up the recumbent section. There is also another smaller circle on this site called the Cremation Cemetery, which contained the partially cremated remains of a man in addition to the remains of 32 other people.

As I mentioned before when I wrote about viewing the Croft Moraig Stone Circle, I just absolutely love viewing these stone circles. For whatever reason, I hold a strong affinity towards these ancient, pagan, Druidic, sacred, spiritual spaces. And I’m an atheist. But there’s just something so inexplicably powerful about being in spaces that hold the earth and the moon in such adoration.

Next we made our way to the Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle, about a 20 minute drive south of the Daviot circle via the B9001. It’s situated just north of a small village called Burnhervie, and it’s another example of a recumbent stone circle. This one also had the characteristic horizontal stone flanked by two, tall, vertical standing stones, and there were nine additional standing stones that competed the circle.

If I had to choose, this was probably my favorite circle of the four we saw today. It was the most calm and peaceful of the four, the most far removed from modern civilization, and we were the only ones visiting this particular circle. (There were two passersby, but otherwise that was it.) There was also a pasture full of cows very near the circle, and it was nice to view the animals as well.

As we made our way to the third circle, we started to feel hungry. We happened to pass by a wonderful little restaurant called the Garlogie Inn, right on the B9125 and right outside a village called, er, Garlogie. It was a delightful little establishment. I had the most delectable macaroni and cheese ever with some “loaded” potato skins stuffed with a vegetarian chili.

Following lunch, we made our way to Cullerlie Stone Circle (just right south of Garlogie), and it was fine, I guess. It was a smaller stone circle, and it wasn’t a recumbent circle because all eight stones were standing vertically. This site was used mainly for cremated burials.

It wasn’t as impressive a circle because it was so manicured, all the stones surrounded by small pebbles that might be used for a path through some royal garden. In fact, at first we thought it looked so manicured that we though they might’ve laid down concrete beneath the small pebbles. They didn’t, but the small pebbles and the fact that it was right next to a farm with a whole bunch of modern day machinery rather ruined the experience.

Lastly we made our way to Tyrebagger Stone Circle, another recumbent stone circle. This one was somewhat fun to seek out, because it’s accessible by only some tiny, single-lane, gravel country roads. Unexpectedly, it’s located practically right next to Aberdeen airport, however, and you have to walk about 500 feet through a field used for bailing hay to get there. It was really quite incredible, though, that someone bails hay next to this thousands-of-years-old, pagan, stone circle.

All in all, it was quite a wonderful day seeking out these circles. They’re really quite amazing sites, and I feel such an inexplicable connection to these spiritual places. It’s really quite remarkable.

We eventually made our way back to Aberdeen for one final night. My mother and I went to a nearby pub called the Kittybrewster Bar. We asked a local for a suggestion for what kind and how to drink a proper Scotch whiskey. They suggested a Dalmore single malt whiskey with no ice, so that’s what we had! I’m not much of a whiskey drinker, but this was a quite smooth whiskey, very easy to drink, and it warmed the body and soul through and through.

(We may have had more than one whiskey, and I may have had a Tennant’s lager or two.)

Stray Observations:

1. I kept forgetting to write about this one. When we were in Crieff, Mrs. Marion Lewis’s husband (who is from northern England, judging by his accent), admitted to having a hard time understanding Glaswegians. So far, I must admit, that their accent has been the most difficult to understand as well.

2. It’s been happening a lot where the locals will apologize for the weather, and I keep telling them to stop, because I think the grey, rainy, 17-degree days are fantastic. A man at the Kittybrewster Bar, however, told us that it’s actually been rainier than normal. Even still, I think the weather’s been glorious!

3. There is a beer over here that I’ve had repeatedly since the first or second night: Tennant’s lager, and it’s brewed right in Glasgow. It’s a fantastic and simple lager with no frills, and I’m going to miss it dearly!

4. While at Garlogie Inn, we got to witness a table of perhaps 10 people, a multigenerational family enjoying a Sunday meal. And, boy, were they a jolly bunch! Afterward an older lady from the table came over and apologized for the noise, but we told them not to apologize and that it was so wonderful to see such a happy family celebrating life together. We then talked about a certain idiot U.S. president and commiserated together over how such an unlikely and scary and ridiculous and horrible man actually happened. We also explained that we find this idiot to be a real embarrassment.

5. The Scottish continue to be so, so friendly. The men at Kittybrewster that we talked to were so, so lovely. We talked about various places in the states that they’ve been to, they were so accommodating when we asked them for suggestions about what whiskey to have, and two separate people actually purchased our drinks for us! Such charming people!