Dundee, Stirling, History and Scottish Heroes

Today here in Alexandria, the temperature is dropping, and the wind is inversely proportional to it, and directly proportional to the intensity of the rain. In short, we are saying, "What? Are we back in Scotland?"

I am certain that there are lovely, sunny days in Dundee, but except for the personal sunshine of our little granddaughters, we did not see much of it. In fact, I think we had 15 minutes of cloud-parting, bright sun in the week we were there. It was there when we woke up and lasted about as long as my morning shower, only to disappear for the rest of the day. Our mantra became "At least it's not raining." But even that was not something we could chant every day.

Weather aside, however, Scotland was wonderful. The people were universally friendly and cheery, whether at the hotel (where they are paid to be) or driving taxis, or answering stupid tourist questions.  We had conversations with everyone on everything from the upcoming separatist vote to the Crimea to the relative merits of toyshops (Dundee Disney store, no; Hamley's in London, yes)--the rebuilding of the Dundee waterfront, local restaurants, American cities, and, of course, the weather.

But that was not why we came. We came for the non-stop entertainment provided by the grandgirls, and we were not disappointed. We came to hear "Let It Go" sung approximately 454 times in as many locations, to see spontaneous dance recitals, the occasional meltdown, and countless numbers of physical exploits that would leave us in the dust. God bless the energy of small children, and the parents who can keep pace with them.

We also kept moving. First came exploration of Dundee proper--the High Street, Kay's workplace, the DCA for lunch, the library (endowed by our own Andrew Carnegie), the butcher shop, the bakery for tea, the McManus (museum), the bronze penguins waddling along a wall downtown, Desperate Dan and his cohort (also bronze) striding along the square, and, of course, the dragon (for which I missed the explanation) and the monkey on the 'information' board. Cool. Dundee is not an overwhelming city, but it has a lot going for it. What it lacks in physical warmth, it makes up for in personal charm--in spades.

From Dundee, we traveled to Stirling Castle (where I bought woolen gloves) and took the tour. Somehow, a castle looks more of a castle in the rain: brooding and forbidding, rather than the Camelot-merry-month-of-May variety. There's something to be said for standing on old stone, hearing about the goings-on of 5 centuries ago, looking at your feet and wondering who else stood here and what they thought and did.  There are dark passages and tiny rooms and steps scooped out by hundreds of years' worth of footsteps. There are magnificent tapestries and brilliant paint and guides who point out where and when history happened. This castle is not IN a history book; it IS a history book, fueled by the imagination of those who visit.

From the castle, one can see in the distance the monument to William Wallace, which has a certain significance for me. I was named after a William Wallace: my step-uncle who died in WWII. I have not a drop of Scottish blood, to my knowledge, and never heard of William Wallace till I was in college and worked for a Brit in a lab at Johns Hopkins. However, I figure that anyone who went through years of being called 'Mary Wallace' (largely by my grandmother) deserves a good story, and William Wallace delivers. So, I got to see (albeit at a distance) his monument;  and there I stood, at Stirling Castle, wearing the diamond that MY William Wallace bought for his mother, my grandmother, years ago. Full circle. Sort of.