Edinburgh

We were all up early so that Aunt Susan could drop us off at Perth in time for our train to Edinburgh. It was a beautiful day there, if windy. We both thought it a really lovely city.

Our driver dropped us off first at the Scott Monument, a Gothic tower in downtown Edinburgh built to celebrate Sir Walter Scott. It costs 3 pounds each to climb the thing, but I convinced them to let the two of us in for 5.92, since that's all we had in change. It was a really windy but fun climb, and Erik made it all the way to the top!

The Scott Monument

View of the city from partway up.

View of Arthur's Seat from the tower.

Edinburgh Castle

Next, the driver took us over to Holyrood Palace, the Royal Family's official residence in Scotland. The Palace happens to be right across the street from the new Scottish Parliament, which is definitely the ugliest, most out-of-place building in the entire city, if not the country. It's hard to get a picture of it's weirdness in a small frame, but here are a few shots, just for an idea.

What are these things? I see a Becky, but the rest is up in the air.

Yeah.

We had a good time walking through the Palace. We picked up free audio guides but soon discarded them. Well, we did have to lug them around through the whole tour, but we weren't using them. They were so annoying. Yay for technology!

Holyrood Palace

Me with the thing in the courtyard at Holyrood Palace.
At least it's not a picture of feet.

Our last stop in Edinburgh was the National Museum, a truly amazing place. It looks like a normal building from the outside, but it is actually insanely huge with wonderful, far-ranging collections. Erik says it's kind of like the Smithsonian, in that respect.

The lobby.

Got anything for me? Hammmburger.

One thing Erik really wanted to see, these ancient Chessmen.

Trip to Scotland

We arrived back in Maastricht at about 8:00 on Tuesday night, just in time to do some laundry, pack, and head out again early the next morning. When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that Erik had lost his hat. I guess we left it on our last train. He was pretty sad. I guess he'll be needing a new one soon. After we gave up looking for it, we took a few buses and trains as we made our way to Brussels Charleroi airport on our way to Scotland! All of our travel plans worked out perfectly, and we arrived at the Perth train station to meet Aunt Susan just a few minutes behind time.


It was so great to see Aunt Susan again. It had really been awhile. Erik thought it was really great that she introduced herself this way: "Hi, Erik, I'm your Aunt Susan." By the time we left, he was wanting to pack up both her and the dogs and bring them home with us.

Aunt Susan took us to the Bridge of Cally Hotel for dinner. Erik was especially keen to try haggis and really liked it. He ordered it again at some point during our trip.

Dinner at the Bridge of Cally Hotel.

Attack Hounds: Sam and Skye

Erik was really tired and not feeling too well after our long days of travel, so he headed for bed soon after we returned from the restaurant. Aunt Susan and I stayed up for a while to talk, but then we turned in since we'd have an early start the next day.

Taking our Leave

We spent our last morning in Glucksburg visiting everyone one last time and walking around the town. First we walked across the street to visit Dr. Rust's mom. It's really nice how she is able to live right across from Thomas and co. like that.

Oma Rust with one of her babies.
Can you believe she's 93?!

Next we walked over to take a look at the church where Thomas is pastor. Erik did some neat trick photography here. He was really confused when he was taking the photo, because Thomas had been complaining to us about how modern and ugly his church is. Erik was thinking, "This church isn't ugly at all!" But it wasn't the church; it was the old train station with the church steeple sticking up behind.

The ex-train station (or some such) and church steeple.

The actual church.

Then we walked around the Glucksburg peninsula and the lake/pond around the castle where we had eaten dinner the night before. We cut our walk a little short because rain was threatening, but it was fun.

Glucksburg Castle.

Happy Ducks

From late morning on, we spent some time with Dr. Rust's older brother, Thies, and his wife, Heinke. We went over to their house to have tea and cakes and then talked with them for a few hours before coming home to pack. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so you'll just have to imagine it.

After a candle-lit dinner (Think more pagan bonfire than romantic. Erik says it was cozy, not pagan. It was fun, either way.) with the Thomas Rust clan, we headed up to pack and get ready for an early train ride.

Jakob with his "Autoooooo"

Sunday with the Lutherans

Dr. Rust's younger brother Thomas, with whom we were staying, is a Lutheran minister. Not wanting his two week vacation to end any sooner than necessary, Thomas wanted to be as far from his parish as possible on Sunday. So, we decided to fire up the family bus and drive over to Denmark.

Thomas insisted on our first stop; we simply had to try the best hotdogs in the world. Final vote was that Erik and I liked them, but Dr. Rust didn't. I contend that he was just upset with his hotdog because it was dripping everywhere.

At the hotdog place.

Thomas and Dr. Rust. See the family resemblance? Neither did we.

The summer home of Denmark's Queen Mother.

Düppel, where Denmark lost to the German Confederation in 1864. They got part of the land back in the aftermath of WWI, so this place is now called Dybbøl. But, you know, "Danzig ist Deutsch," after all.

Pretty scenery on our way to visit Sønderborg castle.

Sønderborg castle has interesting displays about the history of the area. Even though most of the displays were in Danish, we could easily figure out how the Danes feel about the whole thing. On the way home, we ate great "black bread tart." Yum.

We returned to Glucksburg just in time to meet up with Beate and Dr. Rust's younger brother Hans Jürgen with his girlfriend. We all walked over to the nearby castle for dinner in the recently refurbished cellar restaurant. Erik and I both got fish platters of mostly locally (grown?) fish. It was a really nice night. Thanks, Oma!

Saturday in Germany

After eating breakfast with the family and visiting Dr. Rust's mom on Saturday morning, we met up with Heinz and Petra, friends Dr. Rust hadn't seen in quite a while. We went out in their car and drove all over the north-easternmost part of Germany, really. The scenery was really pretty, especially when we were along the bay or the Baltic.

A sign in Low German. Just how do you pronounce this? Tyooooooonlyoooood?

The bay with the Baltic way out there, I think.

Erik dubbed this natural feature "Sand Spaghetti." I hypothesize that it's a mollusk of some kind down there blowing out air and pushing up the sand. Dr. Rust had seen it a billion times but never really cared, apparently. I guess familiarity breeds contempt, even against sand spaghetti.

Bivalve carnage.

After lunch and some more touring around, we stopped off at Kappeln (I think), where we saw a church where Dr. Rust's dad was once pastor. We also saw the house where Dr. Rust lived with his parents and brothers for a year or so.

The steeple and part of the church. Dr. Rust wanted to hang a ham radio antenna from this baby, but his Dad wouldn't let him.

We also saw the building where Dr. Rust attended gymnasium (German high school for smarties) and visited the gravesite of his father before meeting with a few more of Dr. Rust's friends for tea and cake.

Trip to Germany

Early in the morning on the 2nd, Erik, Dr. Rust, and I headed out for the train station and thus began our trip to Germany. It was a long trip, but we had no problems along the way. We are really lucky that our train trips both there and back were problem free; the German train system was between strikes at the time. If we had tried to go this weekend, for instance, we wouldn't be going. The trains are pretty much all canceled.

One of our train changes was at Cologne, and Erik and I took the opportunity to go out of the station to see the Cathedral. The Cathedral was badly damaged during the war due to its proximity to the train station (the next picture was taken from the station entrance), but it is in good shape now.

The Cologne cathedral. Huge both inside and out. See me at the bottom of the photo?
Where's Waldo now?

One of the windows.

Just for a sense of scale, me with a piece that came off the roof.

Erik really likes this picture.

After a few minutes in the cathedral, we met back up with Dr. Rust, who had been watching the bags. After a really interesting exchange between Erik and Dr. Rust about the gender of "wurst", I had a hotdog while we waited for the train.

Erik snapped this pic from the train as we passed the station in Solingen. This company made his beloved straight razor, right there in Solingen. A touching scene.

We eventually made our way up to Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, the area of northern Germany where most of Dr. Rust's relatives live. Beate, Dr. Rust's sister-in-law, picked us up from the train station and brought us to the house, where she and her husband, Thomas (Dr. Rust's brother) live with their five kids, dog, birds, Martin from Poland, and a hamster (in no particular order). It's a wild and wonderful place, with all sorts of people, animals, and especially babies walking, scurrying, or crawling through at all hours of the day and night.

Gretel, the fierce attack dog. Erik liked her especially, since she looked like his grandparents' old dog, Buck.

Zurich

The weekend of October 19th, we traveled to Zurich, Switzerland to meet up with Dr. Ellis and Mark Wyatt. We weren't there for too long, but it was nice. We ate lots of good desserts and things took a little cruise on the lake. It was really pretty, if chilly.

Waiting for the boat.

Cold but enjoying myself.