Edinburgh, Scotland

I was really excited about this trip for several reasons: 1) it was my first trip in 2007, 2) it marks country #25 and, 3) got to see and travel with my friend Steph, who moved to London last year, and her beau Kevin.

After taking a red-eye on Friday after work I got off the plane there was a beautiful greeness all around, as far as the eye could see. It reminds me of how much I miss vegetation.

WARNING: if you're taking a weekend trip and pack light like me, get ready to justify your existence and passion for travel! ...... I had a rude awakening when I got to the customs fellow. I recapped most of my convo with the customs official at the bottom of this entry, it was too amusing looking back, but I assure you I was as red as a tomato with anger at the time.

After I got out of the airport, I made my way to city centre. I met up with Steph and Kevin at a rented apartment right down the street from Edinburgh Castle. It was super cute and centrally located. We made our way down to a cafe to get breakfast. Had some delicious bacon - real bacon - it was so good! Kevin got some haggis for us and we tried it out. Not too bad! It tasted like a garden burger.

We started our journey by walking down to Prince Street on the new side of town. The city was one big facade - you can walk down a mile and it looks like an eternity away. We made our way up to the Nelson Monument. At the very top there's a ball that raises and drops at 1pm so that the boats in the harbor can sync their clocks. The ball drops with the firing of the cannon at the castle - I guess this is where the tradition began. We waited until 1:03 and saw nothing. The second we all looked away, guess what dropped?

We did some more walking and went to a gallery. Afterwards we went to the Whiskey Museum where we did a scotch tasting - well, more like steph and kevin did a tasting and I had a couple of spoonfuls of each just to get the taste down. BTW, famous words by Kevin who's a bit of a scotch connoisseur "Good scotch is really good" - this was before the drinking even began.

At that point sleepyness was catching up with me so I went to the apt to take a power nap. After I was refreshed and ready to go, we went and had dinner at Freshers? The place is known for their seafood and man was it good. That was one of the most delicious meals I had had in a long while. The dessert was AMAZING....Steph got sticky toffee pudding - it was heavenly. I had a lemon tart that I was feeling. We're kind of full and happy from a couple of bottles of wine and headed to the City of the Dead tour.

Apparently there is a poltergeist that lives in Edinburgh, along with other characters. We toured a graveyard that people have had random scratches/cuts and have been "knocked out", which our guide referenced again and again. It was fun but not uber scary...well not till I was sleeping that night and I woke up with weird scratch marks. j/k :) Rounded out the night by listening to some fiddle players.

The next day we started early and spent the first half of the day at the castle. The royale jewels were pretty cool and it was amazing to see how small things were back in the 1600's. Apparently I am on the tall side since my head was near the top of the door way for some entrances. Imagine that. There was also a demonstration on how to make a kilt (but it's actually called something else for the highlanders but I don't remember at the moment). It was amazing since this one piece of flannel fabric that served as a sleeping bag, day wear, evening wear, rain gear and man purse. The view of the city was also phenomenal.

After the castle we had lunch and then walked down the royal mile to the queen's residence. Unfortunately it was locked so we ended up spending time at the park walking around. We walked some more (notice a theme?) and went to another cool museum. The venue was incredibly large and housed all types of art from many periods - reminded me a lot of the MoMa in NY. We spent the rest of the evening eating, dining and chatting the night away.

I flew back the day after and that was my short, long weekend!


This is the conversation with the customs guy - imagine this:

me: [in my pj's with a shoulder bag and nothing more]
him: [an old Scottish man with a white mustache]

me: hi
him: hi, may i see your passport

me: sure [pass passport]
him: how long are you visiting for?

me: oh, just for the long weekend (giggles)
him: it's an awfully long flight to take just for the weekend [start the stare down]

me: yes, that's true, but i like to travel so it's ok
him: where will you be staying?

me: not sure, I'm meeting friends here
him: you don't know where your friends are? you must not be good friends

me: well, I am meeting them here and they flew in from London last night
him: why didn't you just go to London to visit them? why here?

me: well, I've been to London plenty of times and if you looked at my passport, you'd see that
him: you don't have any stamps for London [me now remembering my passport was renewed last year, oops]

me: i have a new passport, check the date
him: do you know that less than 10% of Americans have passports (I think the number is a little higher but I didn't question it)

me: well, I travel alot
him: let me see your return ticket

me: i don't have it - i was going to check into closer to my departure date
him: (checking every single entry in my passport)

me: [feeling uncomfortable because all the other Americans are waiting for customs to let me through]
him: [no 'thank you', no 'welcome to scotland'. i get stamped and pass through as though i hadn't been a victim of 20 customs questions]

the end... :)