Visiting
Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland/Carlos Pueblo
After one
day and night at sea, the ship was disembarked at Lerwick of
Shetland
Islands on the north east offshore of Scotland. We took a tender
service to a
pier connected directly to the commercial streets of the city.
The islands
were a dowry from a Danish King to a Scottish Prince in lieu of
cash in
order to marry his daughter away. Later, Danish Royalty regretted
and still
couldn’t afford paying back the dowry in cash plus interest
accumulated.
It didn’t take very much time for the European naval powers
to keep
their eyes away from the islands which were before the discovery of
the North
Sea oil. The Dutch Naval guns destroyed the harbor of the city
and thereafter,
the Fort Charlotte was built with 21 guns facing the harbor.
We went to
Shetland Library to use its internet. The city is small yet with all
the necessary
organs in a body as we say in Chinese language. We hiked again
toward north
to Shetland Museum and Archives where I learned my dowry
legend while
the city hall was on the way. Basically, the city is a lovely place to
live and I
don’t know the North Sea Oil has anything to do with it. The city seems
to be
affluent, neat, and beautiful. We could see the highland green there and
across the
bay, called Lerwick in Norwegian or Muddy Bay in English. The Museum
was with
plenty of visitors and local retirees leisurely engaging their chores of that
day.
Majority of its collection are in wool industry, wood fishing vessels of all
kinds,
large or
small. I found a sword and its scabbard inside the shelf cabinet. I began to
wonder if
Japanese was original from Scotland. A staff lady smiled and indicated
that
Japanese could copy to the perfect; however, the sword was a donation from
a resident
served in the Royal Air Force in Singapore during the War.
We kept on
hiking back through a shopping center on the North Road, across the
road, there
was a Gurkhas Restaurant and I wondered again. Are there any such
demand in
this island? We kept hiking among the residential area with nice front
yard gardens
and lots of green lawn between two green fields with plenty of white
swans and seagulls.
I followed the street sign to find a youth hostel in vain and
reached to
the bottom of the old town harbor front. Amy found some more
interesting
places to go, we visited several stores with plenty of wool products.
We followed
several groups of school children on their lunch break around the
Street to
the down and back to school with soft drink. Anderson High School was
at the end
of the street and there was a large
daycare center building with an
old hostel
name on it.
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