Sunday, September 2, 2007

edinburgh

pronounced ed-in-bur-oh, it is considered one of the most beautiful cities in europe. (side note: many mainland europeans don't consider the uk europe, so i've been calling it pre-europe.) rhiannon's mum (you'll notice i'm picking up the lingo, trying to learn the accent) sent me a scotland lonely planet so when rhi & i decided to go to edinburgh spur of the moment on sunday afternoon we had a guide to tell us all the sweet places to check out.

turned out we didn't need it at all - actually did more detriment than good, but more on that later. we hopped off the bus and to our surprise the streets were all closed for a festival (we had been told all of the festivals had ended the night before, so you can imagine we were thrilled to hear they had not) and fireworks show at 9.

we found a sign for a free whisky (no e in scottish whisky) and champagne tasting, something perfect for each rhi and i, but when we went into the shop they said the tasting was actually on saturday. he hadn't been able to find the sign to bring it back in the night before. he obliged our request for a reward, and gave us each a taste anyways.

we happened upon the castle with no trouble at all, it was right in the middle of the city (although you can't tell from the picture, i'm standing on the main street with nothing in front of me but this massive, 11th century - there have been updates - castle), and decided upon a route of travel: first to the cheapest restaurant in the book, a chinese place, then the grave digger's pub, then back to the square for the fireworks and finally to a writer's & actor's pub before our midnight bus back to glasgow.
(ello? mum? whehre ahr yuh? mum, i cahnn heah yuh! mum!?)
the first stop was about 20 minutes away from the center of town. we found this telephone booth along the way (not much of a find, they are everywhere) but we didn't find the restaurant. since both of us were familiar with lonely planet we know the story: restaurant published and still not enough business to remain open for all those lonely travelers to visit. we tried out a few restaurants, even sat down and got rice crackers and water at one, before we landed in a thai place, the wild elephant. the pre-theatre meal sounded like a bargain but ended up being a little skimpy. no worries, we headed off to the grave digger's pub.

an hour later, 10 degrees cooler and a lot of wind blown around our cold little ears we found the graveyard. we didn't realize we would need a big hearty meal to account for all the exercise and suddenly winterish weather.


the pub was nothing special, and it had taken so long to get there we just had a drink with all of the old men who were there (just old men. old men who were really surprised to see us. lonely planet got us again) and headed out for a bus back to catch the fireworks.

we ran to the bus as it pulled up alongside us and asked the driver if he was going to princes st (one s) the main road where the castle and fireworks were. he said no. so we asked which bus goes there. he said none of em. hmm. after a pause he adds, princes st is closed for the fireworks. oh yeah yeah we mean which goes close? this was followed by a bunch of scottish garble which neither of us could decipher even after 2 huhs each. we finally decided he said i don't care which stop you get off at, you're going to miss the fireworks anyways. nice. anyways we got off where everyone else got off at and ended up with a great view (which seemed even better after we moved around a bit).

(i couldn't decide which one i liked better.)


i found a few conference friends in the crowd - i mean people i hung out with every day and i mean a crowd of 500,000 people. crazy luck! we were so cold and tired we skipped the writer & actor pub and walked back with all the people to our bus stop, at which point it began to rain. the first bus was filled so we went to the pub next to the stop and waited for the next one.

2 comments:

Mommm said...

I got chilled just reading, listening this! How ARE Scottish fireworks anyway? Did you ever find out why the graves were knocked over? Seems really strange.....
Hi Rhiannon. Did Liz tell you she is road tripping back to NY then flying "home" to SD?
We miss you! Wish we could talk.... Can't you Skype or something????? (sorry for the withdrawals) No good news from the US. It's all the usual. Ho hum.

Mommm said...

ok the is on now here and video of the fireworks and.... WOW!! Those were wild fireworks. My one question is, how come I didn't hear anyone saying "Ahhhh. Ohhhh..." etc??? Do they not do that in Scotland or was it just not picked up by the mic?

Cool blog!
XXOO