Day 15, Wednesday, Septemeber 30 "Surgical Musuem and paths"

Happy Birthday Nana! Yesterday was the first day that it really rained since I've been in Scotland so I have brought settled weather with me, as they say. I got to test out my L.L. Bean rain coat and it works great. It comes down to my knees and has a easy hood so I stayed mostly dry though it rained on us the whole day. David spotted an interesting museum just a bit off the regular tourist path during his first 5 weeks here so we decided to visit yesterday.

The Surgeons Hall Musuem has several exhibits. The first chronicals the developement of medicine in Scotland. They had very intersting displays of surgical instruments from the 17 century forward and displays of anatomy specimens used in medical training. One very fasinating series was a group of bones with musket balls still in them so that we could see the damage done.

By the way, David kept dry by wearing his jacket, spiffy hat and an umbrella. They call them brawlys here but I just can't bring myself to adopt that one. Oh yes, yesterday was the first day I caught the bus by myself. David went up to New College to work in the morning and I caught the bus and meet him around 1:30 to go to the museum. We walked from New College to the museum (in the rain-no big deal here). But caught a #8 bus home rather than walking home (which is what we usually do)

Apparently there were so many students of anatomy that an underground industry of digging up corpes for dissection became rampant and the authorities finally put a stop to it by hanging the perpetrator and letting the doctors do a public disection of his body as punishment. They actually had a wallet that someone made out of his skin after the disection! Any way, photos weren't allowed so I can't show you anything. We ended the tour with a section of dentistry. Lets just say that I won't complain anymore about going to the dentist after seeing the instruments they used to pull teeth (without anesthesia) in the early days!

There is another intersting feature here in Scotland and that is walking/cycling paths. They are paved pathways, really nice and wide, and very well kept up, that people walk or bike on. These connect neighborhoods to each other and to shops, churches and schools. People walk on the regular streets of course, but these are very handy to use with no cars or buses to worry about.

Go up and out of our flat, turn left, and at the end of the street, you will pick up this walking path. This is the path that we take about 3 times a week to go and buy our groceries from a store called TESCO. It's probably about a 10 minute walk.

Here is David on the return trip. We put our groceries into a rolling back pack and my messanger bag which sits on top of the back pack. You can see why you go to the store several times a week because you can't carry more than that at one time. Another interesting thing they are staring to do here is charge you for bags. Not all stores do but we have been in two stores last week that charge 5 L for one shopping bag! (that's about $7.50). They are really pushing the "green thing".

For you antique fans...this is what is sitting outside our flat, discarded, up against a wall. It's a fire place surround and an iron window box. Many of the flats along this street have these flower boxes at their windows planted with geraniums etc. The fireplace surround obviously came out in a remodel. I wish there was some way to stick them in my suitcase and bring them back with me. I hate to see them rusting away. Can you imagine what they would cost in an antique store in the States?

AT 7:30 am tomorrow morning, we have a cab coming to take us to Waverly Starion. We have a 4 hour train ride into London. I am really excited since this is my first train ride since I was around 7 years old and we took a train to Atlanta. We will be in London tomorrow and Friday, Then on Saturday we take a train to the Cotswolds where we will stay in a flat that belongs to our colleague at HBU. It is in a manor house called Sherborne Manor. On Sunday we will go to Statford on Avon to see the home of Shakespear (just a 40 K drive). On Monday we will drive to Bath and spend the night. Tuesday we will spend more time in Bath and then drive to Stonehenge on our way back to Sherborne. Then on Wednesday we will visit Oxford (another 40 K drive). We plan to visit the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien hung out. (thanks for the suggestion Daniel). Then the following day we take a train back to Scotland. Depending on our access to internet, we hopefully will post some our our adventures from there. Until then, take care everyone.