A couple neat things happened this week. One of them was that we had an estate tour given to us by Cameron, the head park ranger for Dalkeith Estate, and another ranger, Keith. It was really interesting. We walked for over an hour around the Estate, and from what everyone says, we didn't even crack the surface area of what is here. There is a wall around the estate, a tall stone one, that follows the road almost to the next town over, and everything on the other side is our Estate. Its pretty cool to realise how much property there is here.
Cameron is a very eccentric. He just went on tangents about everything, and walked really fast, and talked so that only the people in the front could hear him, but he was incredibly knowledgeable, and I learned a lot about the history of the estate. The first place we went was actually right by the palace. It is kind of hidden, but there is a little stone doorway. This leads into a giant ice chamber, which is circular and several tons of ice would be put in the middle, and meats and other food products would be hung on the walls and it would keep it all cold. Cameron told us that it was one servant girl's job to be constantly moving meats and food around so nothing spoiled. The space was really huge, and the entire group of us on the walk were able to all fit in the passageway easily. Pretty neat.
After that we walked up the road to the church that is on the corner of the property. We couldn't go in, but Cameron told us we could go in on Sundays while church was in session. I haven't done that yet. He also invited us to come clean coffins with him tomorrow, and I haven't decided weather or not I will do that because it seems right along the boarder of creepy and cool. I will let you know what I decide.
From there, it was just walking along some of the paths. They took us down to the old stables and servant houses, which are now converted into a cafe area. The buildings were original, I think though. Cameron also told us that most of the servants worked at night, especially the ones who worked on the estate grounds, because it was considered unreasonable for the Duke and Duchess to actually see their servants doing work.
On an unrelated note, I just checked my pictures and the walk was actually on the tenth. Forgive me.
For the rest of it, I'll just put up the pictures and say what they are of in the captions.
Also this week, we started going to one of the local pubs, Mayson's, to watch proper football matches. I have officially decided I am a Celtic supporter, they are one of the two teams in Glasgow, which we went to Friday of this week. I'll do that in the next post. They are really good, and in the Champion's League, which is basically additional matches that the best teams in the world compete in against each other. There are two football clubs in Edinburgh, the Hearts and Hibernian (or Hibs for short), but Gerry is a big Celtic fan (who threatens to fail us if we don't support them/know the scores of the games), and their kit is pretty sweet, so I chose them.
Anyway, the pub was really fun. Gavin, who owns the pub, is a really nice guy, and very tolerant of us, even when our American cheering techniques get a little out of hand (i.e. giving high fives and going "whoop whoop"). Those were things explained to me by one of the locals as how we cheer. After one match, the Rider Cup was on (the Scottish love their golf, they invented it. Dad would be proud that I actually watched it) after the Celtic match. Europe was playing against the US, and the lads we were next to got a kick out of John and I high-fiving after we made a putt (they would hug and pat each other's back when Europe did. He said if they were on the football pitch they would have given the bum a pat).
That is pretty much it for this week, and now I will go through the pictures we took. The next post I will try to put up the pictures of the palace I took, and we can do a little virtual tour.
So PS, thanks to Mom, because she gave me a hint on how to re size my photos, and now, even on my terrible palace Internet, pictures are flying up! So pictures will increase.
Cheers!
This is a nice view of Dalkeith from a cow (or coo) pasture. There are a lot of coos on the Estate.
More coos!
This is a cool old tree on the property.
This is from the bridge that crosses the stream. There is also a waterfall. Cameron yelled at these kids for fishing.
This is the tunnel in the ice house where they would put the ice.
This is an old observatory
This is an old kart that they would have pulled behind horses that has been refurbished.
This is the entrance to the ice house that was hidden in the trees.
The cows are very friendly and got really close. Unfortunately, we did not go see the hairy coos this time. They are really cute. We have two of them on the property.
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