The Ancestral Homeland

I tried writing this one a few times and just ended up deleting large sections of jokes about barf on the sidewalks (for those of you who don't know, the Scottish often like to drink until they vomit on the streets). Since I did not want to revert to bodily fluid jokes, it has taken me a little while longer to come up with something to write about Scotland and Edinburgh.

Lambs? They are much nicer than barf, but we drove past them so fast on the train that we could not stop to hug them.
Kilts? We saw a few, but we were turned off by the "Braveheart" street performer who insisted on showing off his junk to the tourists.
Trainspotting? We did not see Renton, Spud or Sick Boy, but I did see some guy who looked like Begbie and I crossed the street.

I was actually more than impressed by Edinburgh, or should I say, Eddy. It was much older than I though it was going to be. Really old. It's given me a better appreciation of the history of the UK in general. I kind of picture Manny as nothing more than a farm back when Eddy was one of the great capitals of Europe. You can feel that it was quite an important city at one time. Now....maybe a little touristy in parts (especially the shops) but really nice to stroll and just stare at the buildings and easily imagine the past.

We were supposed to head to Glasgow and visit my old friend Bryan from high school, but it fell through so it was only a one-stop trip north. Again, such an easy train ride to Edinburgh. I am really, really going to get used to travelling like this. We live about five minutes from the main train station too. Get on it Harper. What ever happened to the idea of Cascadia Obama?

On a very off topic note---one of the most enjoyable and funniest movies I have seen in years deals with travelling north. It's a French movie called Bienvienue chez les Ch'tis, or Welcome to the Sticks. If you can find it at the video store or borrow it from one of your ten-thousand Swedish friends, do so. Also, Waltz with Bashir--which we also watched recently--blew our minds.

Back to the Scotland. We stayed in Eddy with Martin and Heidi, who we met at the beer hall in Salzburg (see previous Canadian Mancunian issues). They are studying at the university and graciously invited us to join them for the weekend. They had a fantastic place just off South Bridge, almost right in the middle of town. It was great. We arrived and they took us on a tour of the city.

This is Greyfriars Bobby. Bobby's owner died and the dog came to his grave everyday for 14 years. That's commitment. I was quite sad there was no stories of Scottish cats with the same type of dedication and heroism. Maybe there will be in Ireland?

We went down the hill to Grassmarket and had a bite to eat at a pub. I have no pictures, but it was a really cool, old-school pub. Heather, Heidi, and Martin had the Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties. I did not. I should have. Haggis is really good!! Really! I think it would have been better with some gravy all over it. I just didn't think about what I was eating and concentrated on the taste. It was really, really good. I can't imagine I would ever eat it canned and not fresh, but it's really nothing to be scared of. Trust me too, I was scared. I didn't like the neeps though. I got a yummy meat pie. It had a mile high puff pastry top on it. Sooooo buttery and good.

With bellies full we walked up to Edinburgh Castle, down the Royal Mile, and over to New Town. I'm kind of bummed that I found out too late and didn't get to see it, but my Mom told me that my great uncle's name is on the WW1 memorial at the castle.

New town was built in the early 1800s, I think. I just really enjoyed calling a section of a city that is older than my country's government 'new town'. It was built because of the population and filth that had encompassed the old town (within the city/castle walls). The old town is maybe a square mile and in the 1800s it had 57,000 people living there. And Vancouver thinks it has an inflated market.

We stopped for a few pints at cool new town pub (I had a really nice Scotch--MmMMM) and just continued walking around the rest of the day looking at the royal residence, new Scottish Parliament and Arthur's Seat.

We had a really nice dinner of Indian tapas....what a great idea--Indian Tapas!

The next day, we went out for a fine Scottish breakfast of Porridge!! Gross, right? Nope--foiled again. It wasn't my favorite thing, but I think that is because Heather ate all of the Cinnamon, bananas, and honey off the top and I just had straight porridge. My Scottish smoked salmon and cream cheese was good too!

We ended up walking around the Greyfriars graveyard (where the dog is buried). It was really creepy and fun. The graves ranged from 1550 to 1830'ish.

Later on in the day we met up with Heidi and went on an underground history tour of the vaults of Edinburgh. It was mostly worth it. The vaults were really creepy and stinky with a good tour guide, but it wasn't that long or extensive. The tour guide did have a really thick accent and I very much enjoyed everytime she said, "The people had no money and were very puuuuuuurrrrrr".

These are the vaults that were built inside the South Bridge. They were originally used for storage, then as apartments. No thanks--I'll choose new town.

I really liked all of the chimneys around too. There are soooo many of them popping out of everything!

We had dinner at the pub in the university and played the quiz night with Heidi's friend and fellow canuck. We got fourth, but didn't cheat. Youth today, with all those smart phones---Right, I'm sure you knew the Tim Burton movie that stars Helena Bonham Carter as the title character. Sure you did. Stupid iphones. Anyway, it was quite fun and we won a package of candy.

On the way to the train station the next morning we just happened upon the wickedest store in all of the UK...Walker Slater. Seriously--my new favorite store in the entire world. I could have dropped so much money there and ended up with a full tweed and wool wardrobe. I ended up only getting a pair of tweed pants, angora scarf, and wool socks. Getting prepped for next winter!! Oh yeah, my pants were 65 pounds off--that's like 106 bucks off! Ha!

Anyway, it was another great time in a really cool city with nice people. When are we going to have a bad time? If we keep it up though, we are going to end up puuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrr.

Blast-er from the Past-er

One of the worst jobs I could imagine--tanning leather in Morocco. Either that, or handing out Lyca Phone Cards in Manny.

Mallorqui Cats!

Oh no--last ones! I better get it together.....

Paul up top, Marion on the bottom.

Off to nowhere next weekend! Yayyy! I might try and go golfing if the weather holds.

Later peeps,

CC