Optimist n. Someone who brings sunglasses to Edinburgh.

The Scots are incredibly nice people even though all the men including the university professors look like football hooligans and the women like to show their legs when it isn't raining.

Details to follow including a visit to the Falkirk Wheel, our best meal so far was a mistake, and Mrs Adu is trying all the different alochol available to her and I take advantage of her-I steal the remote.

Optimist n. Someone who brings sunglasses to Edinburgh.>>

my DH swears that every time i wear my sunglasses the sun goes in.

I think it's something to do with living in Cornwall, which is not dissimilar from Edinburgh when it comes to the amount of rain they get.

Treacle Part Whatever

The wind is howling as I write prepare these somnambulistic observations. The rain is pounding sideways. It is not an accident that your grandmother put Scotchguard on her sofa.

We are staying in Edinburgh very near the Castle, in a neighborhood that must have literate perverts. There are three strip joints nearby and as many bookstores. It is nice live among those with diverse interests.

The Castle itself is dedicated to the military history of Scotland and there was not one group of tourists with whom the Scots alone or in conjunction with the British have fought some sort of war.

The curators at the National Museum of Scotland have a fine sense of design and space. The original section finished in 1866 soars with light and white painted railings and arches, emitting a salubrious aura like in a very old hospital. This is contrasted with often dimly lit exhibitions just on the other side of the wall. A new section built in 1998 has passage ways and turns to break up long corridors of exhibits. The selection of relics and pieces is highly eclectic and but regard to industry Scotscentric. Among the more interesting things is Dolly the first cloned sheep. She looks well as she revolves on a pedestal with what I think is fake hay at her real fake cloven hooves. The millennium clock is on display but that only rings every thousand years.

The inexpensive food is better in Edinburgh than in London. We have had fresh and tasty soups at pubs and restaurants. Mrs. Adu ordered haggis which was pretty good as long as you do not think about what you are eating. We had our best meal by accident. We wanted to go to Howie’s as recommended in Frommer’s for its local food, but when the menu came it was much more expensive and French Mediterranean. Both were on Victoria Street and both boasted blue facades. In fact we were eating in Maison Blue. I had that traditional Lothian dish Lamb tagine. Mrs. Adu had a perfectly prepared and locally killed venison, which did not taste gamey in the least. For dessert we shared a Bailey Cream Brulee. Today we are off to the real Howie’s otherwise it will give Mrs. Adu fuel for years as to my knowledge of restaurants and sense of direction as if she needed some..

And yes anyone who remembers one of my previous parts of the trip report, it is the name of my useless cousin. The food was pretty good at Howie’s. I had pork that was little tough that was accompanied by a ceramic cup of substance that bounced back when touched with a fork. It was their gelatinous version of apple sauce. Mrs. Adu’s salmon was atop a pile of pasta. As is the wont in Edinburgh, service was pleasant and helpful.

As a bread cuckoo, I am always looking to taste what is available. We had the perfect scone at of all places the café at the Falkirk wheel. Otherwise the bread is just so-so.
The local Sainsbury, a grocery chain, sells what they call packaged Scottish pancakes, which are these little spongy discs that are surprisingly satisfying. Since we are in an apartment we bought some proper butter at ¼ of the cost in the US. A nice cholesterol laden diversion.

We stopped in a Waterstone’s and I asked the clerk if she could recommend a Scottish writer that is well-regarded and contemporary. I told her while British writers are easily accessible in the US, Scottish writers are not. She said that is also true in Scotland and that if you were in 30’s or older, that little of the Scottish writers, besides Bobby Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson, were taught in the schools and you had to wait until university to read the later and serious writers. She recommended and I bought So I Am Glad by A.L. Kennedy which is supposed to be witty and dark and How Late It Was James Kelman.

Princes Street is nothing more than the world’s longest strip mall. George Street has the better stores. This morning we went to Leith. There you go into a mall in order to gain entrance to the retired Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia. Go past the underwear sale, make a left at the food court, buy a ticket and enter the world of the Royals.

The Falkirk Wheel is probably the most wondrous, if not, the most purposeless invention I have seen. It is used on the smallest of canals in lieu of a lock system. But the boats it transforms must be recreational and not commercial. It moves a boat skyward in a gondola like a Ferris wheel until it slowly reaches it destination 80 feet in the air. There it meets another section of the canal where a watertight seal is somehow formed and the boat continues on its journey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel


Helpful Edinburgh Travel Hints

1. If this is summer, go in winter and save the money.
2. Bring anti-fungal cream for the outside of your shoes.
3. Be sure to use a laminated map.
4. Umbrellas are useless. Bring waterproof things including light gloves.
5. Bring you kilts, this is probably the only place you can wear them without your bagpipes.
6. Who the hell knows what the people are saying, and there is no Scottish-English translation book, but it is fookin freezin.
7. If you have arthritis or have trouble with hills and stairs, send someone you do not like in your stead.
8. If you are a young single woman and you go on a date with a young Scottish man, be hopeful he will wear his cleanest t-shirt.

And that is why Fodor’s will never ask me to write for them.

Tomorrow we have an early flight to Dublin on Ryanair. There is little chance of a terrorist because not even a suicide killer would risk his life on Ryan.

For my first job I worked in Scotland on the West coast. The HR director showed me round and talked about the business. Being a young man I grinned and nodded at everything he said but I admit that one thing he did say was "you may not be able to understand what the people were saying", this would have been useful if I had understood it.

Fortunatly the people on the shop floor did not have broad accents and this town and my English town had been trading (in Newfoundland) for centuries so I understood them but the HR director (from the East coast) was beyond me.

adu - try Ian Rankin - contemporary writer of crime stories set in Edinburgh - if you want to understand what people have been saying [but not if you want to sleep at nights].

my abiding memory of a family holiday in Edinburgh when i was 12 is pain, as it turned out that whilst toiling up and down all those hills, i had a verruca.

enjoy Dublin.

Adieu! Why do I bother sending you email after email of suggestions for your trips...you never follow even one. Now lets see what happens in Oyerland. Say hello to Molly Malone...merely a statue...and kvell at the Book of Kvells.

When you see a sign that says "Bienvenido..Tijuana"..boy, have you taken the wrong turn. Listen to Andrea.

That's <u>Tiajuana</u>, of course..can't win 'em all.

...still arguing over the correct spelling here in California..so take yer pick.

We ate twice on Victoria Street which is used for filming for the Kate Atkinson Case Histories Jackson Brodie mysteries.

Tower-The last time you were in Ireland was during the potato famine. And in Turkey we looked for a restaurant you recommended that closed during the Ottoman Empire.

We will kvell at the Book of Kells and kvetch at the ketches in the Irish Sea.

adieu...ain't nothing quite like the good old days.
Met Mel Brooks in a toga at one of the ruins in Turkey. Even funny speaking that weird Latin lingo. Love, MCLXII

I also was going to suggest Ian Rankin as a Scottish author, and you can easily access his books here in the states. Best if read in order of publication.

Your Edinburgh Travel Tips were awesome!

Thank you all.

Tower

We were watching the Beeb the other night and Jackie Mason is doing his show in London. They did a 10 minute piece on him. We don't understand him, how will the Brits?

funny, whenever I've seen Jackie mason on the telly [and he's very popular here] I've had no difficulty understanding him at all!

ann...still giggle at Benny Hill's shenaningans on reruns...Mason is much more cerebral as is Mel Brooks...when you feel like going low brow, Benny is the slap-stick answer.

Hey Adu...you in Dublin now?

Yes, we just returned from seeing Trinity College. And they did not have the bobble-head doll of Beckett, I was looking for.

There are certain things that make you feel like a child:

First, when you pay for something with money that you just exchanged, you hold it out like like a child and hope the merchant takes the right amount, so you can bring the rest back to Mommy. You really feel like an idiot reading the coins, flipping it over and ove to see how much it is worth.

Two, crossing the street in the UK. In Dublin there is a ditinct sound that goes off when the light turns green. This is to alert blind people and tourists. In NYC jaywalking is an Olympic sport and I am pernenial favorite. But here, I am like a little child looking every which way including up for traffic.

tower - i never got benny hill when i was a child and I still don't. sorry!

<i>and I still don't</i>

Ann, then you must be watching the old reruns. Aha!

At 62, I am the last to any party. We stopped for a bite and there were two men as old as Dublin itself playing Irish tunes. They were wonderful and played songs that everyone knew but us. One was the Irish Ship The Rover and the other was Tommy Sands's Your Daughters and Sons.

Today we went to buy the sheet music. One music store had The Irish Ship but sent us to the Sinn Fein Shop for the other. Since there are CCTV all over the place, I am sure I will labeled a terrorist and will be frisked in perpetuity by the TSA now and they did not carry any sheet music.

I stll do not like Irish dancing. The dancers seem to stricken by a rare disease, they are paralyzed from the waist up.

Ann, then you must be watching the old reruns. Aha!>>

got me there, Tower!