Duff House

I know, I know. It's been too long.  I've been struggling to get back into the writing with the end of this adventure looming ahead of me on Sunday. Don't get me wrong, I am excited to head back to the states where I can have Mexican food, ranch dressing, refills on drinks, and countless other magical things.  This gray, calm city has become my home, though, and you always get a little twinge in your stomach when you are about to close another chapter in your book of life.

Tolquhon Castle

Anyway, let's get back to business.  After Edinburgh we set out for what was supposed to be a quick drive up to Macduff town to visit the Duff House.  Dad was not as excited, but he made up for it by making us take every detour imaginable.  Our first stop was a real feed store operating out of Insch, Scotland.  The Norvite Animal Nutrition Company reminded us of Jake's Feed Store in Longview, only this one had a lot more sheep based products.  In order to drag Dad out of there, (he was basically like a little kid, always wanting to stop and look at tractors, boats, water) I promised him a castle that we had seen a sign for just past the feed store.  Tolquhon Castle was built by William Forbes in 1584.  It is most known for it's impressive Gate house, which is good because that's all we got to see of it.  November is not the big month for tourism here as the thermometers all say 4-5 degrees so the castle was closed.  We had a good five minutes looking around before our fingers and toes started complaining about the freezing weather in their southern accents.

We stopped for lunch in a promising little town that had more than five houses, which is all it takes to have a town here.  Mom and Dad had their hearts set on finding some of the good Scottish Angus beef.  We found a cute cafe and were excited to see burgers and milkshakes on their menu.  The waitress came up to take our order and informed us that they were out of burgers.  The look on my parents' faces were like little kids had just been told that recess was cancelled...for the year. It was priceless.  Dad still ordered his chocolate milkshake and was disappointed to find out that Scotland's milkshakes are just chocolate milk that you have to stir yourself.

Duff House with Mom and Dad

Moving on. Finally arriving in the town of Macduff, we pulled in to the expansive Duff House estate.  The fall colors on the trees were absolutely astounding.  There was a public playground and field that all the locals came out to use.  Architect William Adam, who fathered the Adam brothers most known for creating "Adam style" decorating, built the Duff House for William Duff the Earl of Fife in 1735.  The story goes that William and William got in a huge debate about costs for stone cutting masons.  The main house was already built, but the wings that were supposed to go on either side of the giant house were put on  hold as the two men took the issue to court.  It took five years to resolve the issue, after which William Adam won the case but passed away due to the stress of the whole ordeal, and William Duff abandoned the house and would draw the shades on his horse carriage whenever passing it.  The house passed through time as an early twentieth century hotel, a private hospital, and a home for countless troops during World War II, not all at the same time, of course. It turns out that the Northeast of Scotland was a great place to plan attacks on Germany.  The House has a painted Norwegian flag over the fireplace left over from a Norwegian troop as a painful reminder of the war.  The nice little tour guide was explaining all of this when he asked where we were from, which we all answered Texas.  He studied me and said, "You don't have the complexion of being from Texas."  
"Oh, well, I've been living in Aberdeen for the past three months, we don't get much sun there," I said.
"Yes, I see you are kind of a gray color like the city."

I didn't know what to say.  My parents openly laughed. We thanked him for the information and then were unceremoniously kicked out of the House because it was closing.  A quick play on the playground and we headed back to Aberdeen to tell Allen all about our adventure we had.  

Edinburgh

*Ding* went the door as I stepped in.  "Hiya Kara, how was the car for you?"
"Hi Scott, it was great. Sorry about all the dirt on the carpets..."
"That's alright, gives our cleaners a challenge."
This is the conversation I have every time I set foot into my local Enterprise Car Hire.  We are all on a first name basis by now, which might be a sign that I travel too much.  They always want to know where I am going or where I have been and I realized that all of you might want to know as well (or at least I am going to pretend that all of my devoted readers do).  Mom and Dad left yesterday morning giving me a chance to rest from the adventures and share some with you.  Shall we start with Edinburgh?

After St. Andrews we headed down to our hotel in Edinburgh.  A quaint little hotel that had seen better days back in the 1800s.  But it worked as a home base, and the restaurant was lovely.  We utilized the bus system since Edinburgh (pronounced Eh-den-bur-ah) was currently experiencing construction on every single street they had ever created.  First stop was the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art overlooking the Queen's Garden.  The paintings were beautiful, some unusual, but our personal favorite was by Peter Graham in 1878 entitled "Wandering Shadows."

Click on the link to see what it looks like:
"Wandering Shadows"

Edinburgh Castle 

The Edinburgh Castle has a huge long history that I will attempt to summarize into a couple of sentences.  In 638 AD the Angles people (originally from Germany and also the people who settled in Britain, hence the term Anglo-Saxon) captured Din Eidyn and renamed it Edinburgh.  In 1130 David I built Edinburgh castle on the giant rock that stands overlooking all of Edinburgh town.  Throughout history is was alternately captured and recaptured by the English and the Scotts trading off in horrible sieges that usually resulted in having to rebuild most of the castle.  St. Maragaret's Cathedral is the only original part of the castle still standing from 1130, the rest is rebuilt throughout time with the last edition being in 1578.  The castle was amazing and giant!  Unfortunately, when you are with Allen, no stone may be unturned and you must experience every nook and crannie before leaving.   It was only made worse by the fact that he had an audio guide.

Scotch Whisky Tour

The next day was filled with a Scotch Whiskey (spelled Whisky in Scotland)Tour.  Originally called "usquebaugh" (meaning water of life in Gaelic) it was shortened to "usky"/whiskey in English.  The only people who are allowed to call it Scotch are, of course, the Scottish.  Whiskeys made elsewhere in the world are typically referred to as bourbon or just plain whiskey, but never Scotch.  There are only three ingredients in Scotch, but Scotland argues that the fourth is Scotland itself.  The four different types of whiskey areas create all different tasting whiskeys: bad, worse, tastes like a campfire, and Nyquil in a glass.  As you can tell I was not very partial to the flavours.  When they offer you water to add to the drink in order to soften it, you know it must be strong.  I love it when people say the phrase, "it's an acquired taste." As if after putting yourself through torture a hundred times you'll wake up and realize that your taste buds have been killed off and you can now stand the taste.  Whatever your taste, if you like Scotch this really is the best place to try it.  There are countless numbers of distilleries in a small amount of space with infinite numbers of flavors.

Anyway, it was a lovely trip and we got to experience Edinburgh in all its beauty.
More later!