It was my first time...

I know that's sad to say considering I've talked all my life about how much I wanted to travel the world, but yes, this was my first time overseas.

This past August.  And it changed my life.

It had rained all day and night before.  So our first REAL look at Edinburgh, Scotland was the next morning.  And oh how glorious it was!  The streets, stones, alleys they call closes all seemed washed and polished just for our little visit.  The town seemed to surge energy, happiness, revelry.  We were there at the height of tourist season, with the Fringe Festival just finished and only the tail end of the International Festival of Theater remaining.  Everywhere I looked there were people.  And not just Scottish or English, no, there were people all around me speaking dozens of different languages and wearing their finest and pushing their strollers and laughing together and having a pint or a coffee.  There was even this very impressive street performer, probably left over from the Fringe, with this unicycle act that honestly had my heart racing!  It was like something out of a movie.  The excitement, the newness of it all.  I stood agape just trying to take it all in.  And as I looked down the hill to the bottom of the Royal Mile I saw her.

Majestic.  Picturesque.  Massive sat the Crag.  Salisbury Crag, an ancient volcano long since silenced, is now a glorious park overlooking Holyrood Park and mirroring the castle's own mound on the other side of the city.  I wanted to go, I HAD to go, don't ask me what that means I just HAD to get on those hills.  I felt drawn to them in a way I have never felt before, it was...magical.

So my husband and I set out.  Now with him, you don't just walk up to something and go do it, no, he wants to meander and think and take it all in.  That was ok.  I could deal with that.  So we set out finding a "less beaten path" to the Crag through lovely residential areas, parks, churchyards.  But always I kept that Crag in the corner of my eye.  I was going to get to her that day.  Had to.

We found our way to a winding path that led around and up the side of the Crag.  Oh it was a glorious day, the sun and the clouds playing catch with the wind; it made you feel like you could just take wing and fly.  So up we went.  The hillside was not so steep on that side so the start of the climb was very pleasant and rather easy.  We would stop every 100 steps or so and admire the view from our perch, looking at the heather, the rock face or just the clouds and the city below.  Magnificent can't even begin to describe it and thankfully I didn't have my camera because the pictures I would take would pale in comparison to the glory I was taking in as we climbed.  And the further we went, the further I wanted to go.  Further up, further into the heart of the hills.

We reached the peak of our little path about an hour into the climb.  You could see the entire city from there.  Tall spires of sandstone buildings dating back centuries, Edinburgh Castle, the Firth of Forth and green and tan checked pastures in the far distance.

But there was another path.  Straight up the side of the next massive hill.  And that is the path we had to take.  Down to go up.  Then straight up toward Arthur's Seat (we were told was named for the God Thor, not for the fabled king), the highest point in the Crag.  That part of the trek seemed to take forever.  And it was steep.  So steep that many times we were balancing hand and footholds at the same time to make the climb.  I remember that we got to a plateau about half way up and we stopped again to look around, and I saw this girl running up the hill.  Like, jogging, like it was her daily jogging route.  And as she bound up that hill that had taken me so long to climb and as she gracefully danced on the tops of the sharp footholds of the ridge she looked to me like a sprite.  Fairy.  Whatever.  But it was then that I realized that by doing this trek I was becoming one with this land.  Like its people.  Like my people generations back.  Like this was my heart's home.  These hills, these stones, the heather.  I felt different from then on.  I was home.

We made our way up to Arthur's Seat and viewed the panorama and as we stood there on that narrow rock at what seemed the top of the world, clutching onto each other for fear of the wind knocking us off of our footing, I had one of the most powerful sensations of my life.  I belonged to that place.  My heart would always belong to that place.