Sunday, February 27, 2005
Edinburgh
Last week I took a trip to Edinburgh with Corinna. The other goons had too much work to do so it was just the two of us. On the train ride back we wrote an e-mail to Lauren- the study abroad advisor. So because I'm lazy and maybe there is someone out there who wants to read about this trip here is said e-mail. Its kinda long, but hey we did a lot fo stuff.
Dear Lauren,
DAVID: Corinna and I (David) are on the train back to Cambridge right now. We figured a joint e-mail from the both of us would be best so you don't have to read the same story twice. We sat next to some Irish guys on the train and they were quite enjoyable. One of them, named David (always a good sign) bought me a drink- a pint of Carlsberg. I had just finished the pint of Newcastle I bought before we left. Corinna convinced me that it would be a good idea to drink the Newcastle while in the Newcastle train station. (She--like most of the Cambridge girls-- doesn't drink beer, so she lives vicariously through us beer-drinkers. :)) Unfortunately, I opened it too early and finished it before we got there. I did get some pictures of the bottle next to the train station sign though. Oh, and the David guy opened my bottle with his teeth! Very impressive. Okay, I'm gonna let Corinna take over now...
CORINNA: Well, I'm not sure where to start! We had a fantastic time in Edinburgh. We left Cambridge at 7 am on Saturday, and took the train up to Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh around 12:45 pm. The view from the train was very nice, particularly once we got to the coastal areas south of Edinburgh! As soon as we arrived in Edinburgh, we visited the tourist center and then headed to tea at The Howard. Tea was very lovely--the traditional English breakfast tea with the three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones, and chocolates. My favorite was the cucumber sandwich, while David overdid it a bit on the clotted cream. :) Afterwards, we took our bags to our hotel--the Menzie's Guest House, a small place on Leamington Terrace. Then we headed back to the city center to take an open-bus tour of the city. Despite the extreme cold (there were even a few tiny snowflakes!), we survived the entire time on the upper level of the bus, and we enjoyed getting an overview of the sites (the Edinburgh castle, Palace, Old town, New Town, etc.) and history of the city. Back to David...
DAVID: Oh the clotted cream... let's just say at the end of the day that came back to get me. The top of the bus was soooo cold. I was taking pictures with my glove off and my hand nearly fell off. After the bus, we wandered around the royal mile and grassmarket areas. We walked by these people selling tickets for ghosts and ghouls tour... so we bought into it. The 7pm was full so we got 8pm tickets... but we still had to get dinner and I had forgotten to write down the address for the Dubh Prais where we had wanted to go for dinner since the Howard was such a good experience. Really, I'm just a fool, but I think a justifiable fool. When i was writing down the addresses for places to get tea/breakfast/lunch from your e-mail I wasn't thinking about dinner so I didn't write that stuff down. But later in the day I just assumed I had. So when we decided to look into making reservations for dinner (after booking the tour, which ended around 9:30) I didn't have the address. So we looked to Corinna's trusty guide book. We called the Doric Tavern/bar/bistro (a 'Scottish' restaurant on Market St..... and they were full. So we decided to call a place in Leith because I am a big seafood fan, and maybe Corinna is, but I'm not sure she's as big a seafood fan as me. And we got reservations for 9:45-- fifteen minutes after the ghost tour ended. We were cutting is close, but you know, what the "heck," if we missed our reservation it wouldn't be that big a deal. Time for Corinna to write...
CORINNA: Next, we headed to a pub in Grassmarket area called "The Last Drop", where men were allowed their last shot of whiskey before they were tortured and executed. David had a beer, followed by the quintessential shot of whiskey, while I opted instead for the warm port with honey, cloves, and lemon. It was my first warm port, and it proved to be excellent. The Ghost and Gouls tour (run by the Mercat company) turned out to be quite an interesting experience. I certainly don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything of that kind, but it was interesting to walk around the closes, graveyards, and vaults. Our tour guide told us crazy stories about torture, mutilations, murders, and ghost sightings that had occurred in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Stories included one particularly interesting one about a man who went crazy after a judge ruled that he had to give a large alimony to his ex-wife and children after their divorce. Apparently, he killed the judge in one of the closes in the old town. He was captured, tried, and found guilty. Afterwards, he was tortured (with wooden booties) and then his hand was cut off. As he died, the last thing he saw was his executors waving his own hand at him! Speaking of torture, David was one of the "subjects" for our tour guide's presentation. She whipped him 13 times, rubbed salt in his back, whipped him again, pinned his ear to the side of a statue, and then tore both of his ears off. Despite the pain, David was a good sport about it. And he didn't get too mad at me for forcing him to volunteer. :) (Yeah Corinna and a group of girls that we met earlier pushed me up there- Corinna CLAIMS is was their idea, but I'm not sure I believer her) After the tour, we headed to Leith, where we had a delicious dinner at a candle-lit, shore-side restaurant with live music called The Shore. I had some tasty salmon, while David had scallops. For dessert, we shared an absolutely amazing sticky toffee pudding. It was heavenly! It's David's turn to write again.
DAVID: The sticky toffee pudding (you can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!!) was amazing. Utterly amazing. After dinner we were very, very tired, and very, very full. We asked the waitress to call a cab for us. It arrived a few minutes after we paid and we off to our home for a day. The guest house we stayed at was run by a very nice family. When we first got there, their the son, no older than 15, answered the door and he wasn't wearing any shoes. I could tell this was very laid back place. So we retired to our chambers for a deep deep sleep. We woke up at 7:20-ish and Corinna showered first so (a) she could blow-dry her hair, and (b) so I could sleep an extra ten minutes. We were ready to go by 8:15. Breakfast wasn't until 8:30 but we managed. We had the continental and arranged to store our luggage there for the day. Then we were off! To Arthur's seat. We walked through one of the first golf courses ever. Though now it is more of a grassy knoll. Then we made our way down some residential streets. We saw the "meadows," more grassy fields down a street so we decided to head that way. On the street down to the meadows there was a puddle of water. I stepped in it- and it didn't do that whole water/Moses-part-the-red-sea thing and move aside for my foot. Instead I slipped on a large piece of ice. It was quite a trip. Not too much damage. I really wished we had somehow caught the moment on film. Then we walked through the meadow, keeping Arthur's peak in our sights at all times. It was our guiding light- until it was eclipsed by some building- to the map! and now- to Corinna!
CORINNA: Our trip up to Arthur's Seat was fabulous. We were worried that we would have bad weather in Edinburgh (b/c the meteorologists predicted rain and snow showers), but the weather was perfect: clear skies and sunny! We decided to head to the top of the Seat, from which the view (as you well know) was absolutely beautiful. We could see 360 degrees: the sea, the city, and the hills. It was a bit windy, but we stayed on top for quite a while, taking tons of pictures. We then headed down, walking past the Salisbury Crags towards the Scottish Parliament and then the Hollyrood Palace. The Parliament is quite an intriguing building--I'm not quite sure whether I like it or not (it probably works much better as a modern art museum than a parliament building), but it is certainly unique. The ponds in front of the building were frozen over, so we played around with the ice-- making tiny pieces of ice skate across the surface of the frozen pond. We then headed to the Hollyrood Palace, where we took a very quick tour of the palace. Highlights included the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots and the very pretty abbey on the side of the palace. By this time, it was about 12:30, we walked down the Royal Mile, stopping to browse at a few of the shops. Finally, we found Plaisir du Chocolate-- and, of course, after your glowing recommendation, we had to stop for some hot chocolate! I ordered the Chocolate 'Plaisir', hot chocolate (53% cacao) with Armagnac and whipped cream on top. Absolutely delicious!! Without a doubt, some of the best and richest hot chocolate I've ever had. There was also quite a bit of liqueur in it, as I could definitely feel the effect! David had the Infinite Indulgence--quite tasty, but I'll let him tell you about that. :)
DAVID: So on our way to the seat I couldn't get the song "Hollywood Hills," except I replaced Hollywood with Holyrood. I was singing it out loud- though I'm not sure Corinna had heard the original song before. Maybe she thought I was crazy... but I'm pretty sure she already thinks I'm crazy, so I guess I was par for the course. As for the Palace we were checking it out from the outside and then we kinda decided to see what was around the corner. We saw someone come out of this giant blue door. We went inside giant blue door. Took some pictures of the palace and then we went inside. What Corinna failed to mention is that we later found out that the palace has an admission cost of 8.50 pounds, which we did not pay. Not entirely sure why anyone pays because it was absolutely simple for us to sneak in without realizing we were sneaking in. As for my cocoa I must say it was quite intense. The indulgence is made with 100% cocoa "for the true enthusiast" they say. It came with ground chili as well for me to add to get the original hot cocoa flavor (Aztec style). It was delish. (Totally worth the $7 that I paid, and the $10 that Corinna paid, for the chocolate!) The setting was wonderful. I will say that the service was a bit slow- but they were busy and very nice so I can forgive them for that. Then we continued on down the Royal mile. Oh, I forgot. We had gone in jewelry store where Corinna bought a ring. A few yards up the street Corinna said we should go to the hot chocolate place you recommended. About five seconds later we were standing in front of the Plaisir du Chocolate. Worked well. Then we walked along. Went into a booze store and I bought some Scotch Whiskey for Matt, Jared, and I to enjoy. It is 58% alcohol by volume. The guy working there was very nice and pointed me to a good, unique, but not too expensive whiskey. We also found out Port is made in Portugal. Sometimes the obvious things are not so obvious. Then we went to a kilt shop. I asked about the McKinney plaid/clan/tartan. They looked it up. Apparently it is the same as MacKinney or MacKinnie which both have the MacKenzie (clan) or Galloway tartan. I bought the old (original, not modern) version of the Mackenzie plaid in scarf form.
CORINNA: After a bit of shopping along the Royal Mile, we wandered over to the National Gallery of Scotland for a very brief visit. I'm not a huge fan of the kind of art that was displayed in that museum (I prefer modern and contemporary art to the more traditional British artists like Turner and Constable), but there were some nice Raphael paintings on exhibit. We then passed over to the New Town, where we stopped at Harvey Nichols. I had read in a guide book that the London store of Harvey Nichols was apparently Princess Diana's preferred department store, so I wanted to see what all the hype was about. :) The clothing was nice, quite upscale, but the food department was a real treat! I bought some white chocolate, shortbread, and biscuits for presents. They even had samples of the desserts, so we got to try a few before I made my purchase. David also forgot to mention that he bought some fudge at the Fudge Shop of Edinburgh. One of our Cambridge friends told us that we *had* to buy fudge in Edinburgh, and I must admit that the fudge in this store looked absolutely scrumptious. We haven't tried any yet, but we'll update you after the actual tasting.
DAVID: right the fudge- I got small box with eight bars of fudge- 8.50 pounds. I am very excited about the whiskey fudge. After the dept. store where I saw my first pair of 240 pound jeans (which Corinna claimed were a very well known and sought after brand), we went to eat. We walked back to the royal mile to go to the Dubh Prais restaurant you recommended. So far you were batting 1.000 so we knew we were set for a great meal. Except it was closed. You see, we decided to eat a late luch so we could last through the train ride home. So it was 4pm and the Dubh Prais closed at 2pm (I think). So, being the quick thinkers that we are (actually I think it was Corinna who though of this, but I'm not sure, so I say "we"), called up the Doric pub/tavern/bistro we had wanted to go to last night in lieu of the Dubh Prais. We had also happened to pass it during the day so we had an idea of where it was. They were open and had tables available. We got there and had the place to ourselves. It was actually good for our Scottish experience to go their rather than the Dubh Prais because the Dubh Prais did not have haggis on their menu. The Doric did. Corinna said she was gonna order the haggis, so I, not liking to double up orders, was going to get the duck. But she convinced me that I had to go all Scottish. So we both got the haggis, neeps, and tatties for our lunch/dinner, It was awesome. I'm glad I tried it. i never thought haggis could be good. Our waitress, also an exchange student (but from Canada), told us they had some of the best haggis in town. I also had and beer that I really enjoyed. Can't think of the name of it right now, but I took a picture so I won't forget. Now for dessert...
CORINNA: For dessert, we shared a plum and apple crumble with custard. Once again, a winning dessert. But the highlight of the meal was definitely the haggis. To be honest, I had not expected to actually *like* haggis, but I wanted to try it in order to complete my Scottish experience. I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was, and I finished all of it. After dinner, we headed back to our guest house to collect our bags and then return to the station to catch the last train of the day. Overall, Edinburgh was gorgeous. I feel like I could just walk around for days and days, discovering the quaint closes and wynds, and taking lots of pictures! I really liked the fact that it is a relatively small city center: I feel like I learned my way around the center in just the short time that we were there. Thanks again for your wonderful recommendations on sites to see and places to eat! As you can see, we followed as many of your recommendations as we could, and we had a fantastic time! Now, as we write to you, we are on the train for Petersborough, where we will switch to a train for Stevenage and finally Cambridge. Our ride has been pretty exciting--the drunk Irish football fans were quite a riot, buying a drink for David and trying extremely hard to buy a drink for me! In general, there have been quite a few drunk guys on this evening train. :)
DAVID: Overall a wonderful trip. The food was great, and the city wonderful. We were pretty compatible travelers too- no real conflict about what to do. The Scottish were extremely nice (I think moreso than the Engish). I think I could spend a few more weeks there. Too bad I have supervision on Wednesday. Oy! I guess its essay time when I get back home- I mean to Cambridge. I guess thats it. Thanks for all the great tips and info about the city, 'twas a big help. Hope this e-mail wasn't tooooo long. We're almost to Petersborough so we've got to put the computer away.
Cheers,
David and Corinna
Dear Lauren,
DAVID: Corinna and I (David) are on the train back to Cambridge right now. We figured a joint e-mail from the both of us would be best so you don't have to read the same story twice. We sat next to some Irish guys on the train and they were quite enjoyable. One of them, named David (always a good sign) bought me a drink- a pint of Carlsberg. I had just finished the pint of Newcastle I bought before we left. Corinna convinced me that it would be a good idea to drink the Newcastle while in the Newcastle train station. (She--like most of the Cambridge girls-- doesn't drink beer, so she lives vicariously through us beer-drinkers. :)) Unfortunately, I opened it too early and finished it before we got there. I did get some pictures of the bottle next to the train station sign though. Oh, and the David guy opened my bottle with his teeth! Very impressive. Okay, I'm gonna let Corinna take over now...
CORINNA: Well, I'm not sure where to start! We had a fantastic time in Edinburgh. We left Cambridge at 7 am on Saturday, and took the train up to Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh around 12:45 pm. The view from the train was very nice, particularly once we got to the coastal areas south of Edinburgh! As soon as we arrived in Edinburgh, we visited the tourist center and then headed to tea at The Howard. Tea was very lovely--the traditional English breakfast tea with the three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones, and chocolates. My favorite was the cucumber sandwich, while David overdid it a bit on the clotted cream. :) Afterwards, we took our bags to our hotel--the Menzie's Guest House, a small place on Leamington Terrace. Then we headed back to the city center to take an open-bus tour of the city. Despite the extreme cold (there were even a few tiny snowflakes!), we survived the entire time on the upper level of the bus, and we enjoyed getting an overview of the sites (the Edinburgh castle, Palace, Old town, New Town, etc.) and history of the city. Back to David...
DAVID: Oh the clotted cream... let's just say at the end of the day that came back to get me. The top of the bus was soooo cold. I was taking pictures with my glove off and my hand nearly fell off. After the bus, we wandered around the royal mile and grassmarket areas. We walked by these people selling tickets for ghosts and ghouls tour... so we bought into it. The 7pm was full so we got 8pm tickets... but we still had to get dinner and I had forgotten to write down the address for the Dubh Prais where we had wanted to go for dinner since the Howard was such a good experience. Really, I'm just a fool, but I think a justifiable fool. When i was writing down the addresses for places to get tea/breakfast/lunch from your e-mail I wasn't thinking about dinner so I didn't write that stuff down. But later in the day I just assumed I had. So when we decided to look into making reservations for dinner (after booking the tour, which ended around 9:30) I didn't have the address. So we looked to Corinna's trusty guide book. We called the Doric Tavern/bar/bistro (a 'Scottish' restaurant on Market St..... and they were full. So we decided to call a place in Leith because I am a big seafood fan, and maybe Corinna is, but I'm not sure she's as big a seafood fan as me. And we got reservations for 9:45-- fifteen minutes after the ghost tour ended. We were cutting is close, but you know, what the "heck," if we missed our reservation it wouldn't be that big a deal. Time for Corinna to write...
CORINNA: Next, we headed to a pub in Grassmarket area called "The Last Drop", where men were allowed their last shot of whiskey before they were tortured and executed. David had a beer, followed by the quintessential shot of whiskey, while I opted instead for the warm port with honey, cloves, and lemon. It was my first warm port, and it proved to be excellent. The Ghost and Gouls tour (run by the Mercat company) turned out to be quite an interesting experience. I certainly don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything of that kind, but it was interesting to walk around the closes, graveyards, and vaults. Our tour guide told us crazy stories about torture, mutilations, murders, and ghost sightings that had occurred in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Stories included one particularly interesting one about a man who went crazy after a judge ruled that he had to give a large alimony to his ex-wife and children after their divorce. Apparently, he killed the judge in one of the closes in the old town. He was captured, tried, and found guilty. Afterwards, he was tortured (with wooden booties) and then his hand was cut off. As he died, the last thing he saw was his executors waving his own hand at him! Speaking of torture, David was one of the "subjects" for our tour guide's presentation. She whipped him 13 times, rubbed salt in his back, whipped him again, pinned his ear to the side of a statue, and then tore both of his ears off. Despite the pain, David was a good sport about it. And he didn't get too mad at me for forcing him to volunteer. :) (Yeah Corinna and a group of girls that we met earlier pushed me up there- Corinna CLAIMS is was their idea, but I'm not sure I believer her) After the tour, we headed to Leith, where we had a delicious dinner at a candle-lit, shore-side restaurant with live music called The Shore. I had some tasty salmon, while David had scallops. For dessert, we shared an absolutely amazing sticky toffee pudding. It was heavenly! It's David's turn to write again.
DAVID: The sticky toffee pudding (you can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!!) was amazing. Utterly amazing. After dinner we were very, very tired, and very, very full. We asked the waitress to call a cab for us. It arrived a few minutes after we paid and we off to our home for a day. The guest house we stayed at was run by a very nice family. When we first got there, their the son, no older than 15, answered the door and he wasn't wearing any shoes. I could tell this was very laid back place. So we retired to our chambers for a deep deep sleep. We woke up at 7:20-ish and Corinna showered first so (a) she could blow-dry her hair, and (b) so I could sleep an extra ten minutes. We were ready to go by 8:15. Breakfast wasn't until 8:30 but we managed. We had the continental and arranged to store our luggage there for the day. Then we were off! To Arthur's seat. We walked through one of the first golf courses ever. Though now it is more of a grassy knoll. Then we made our way down some residential streets. We saw the "meadows," more grassy fields down a street so we decided to head that way. On the street down to the meadows there was a puddle of water. I stepped in it- and it didn't do that whole water/Moses-part-the-red-sea thing and move aside for my foot. Instead I slipped on a large piece of ice. It was quite a trip. Not too much damage. I really wished we had somehow caught the moment on film. Then we walked through the meadow, keeping Arthur's peak in our sights at all times. It was our guiding light- until it was eclipsed by some building- to the map! and now- to Corinna!
CORINNA: Our trip up to Arthur's Seat was fabulous. We were worried that we would have bad weather in Edinburgh (b/c the meteorologists predicted rain and snow showers), but the weather was perfect: clear skies and sunny! We decided to head to the top of the Seat, from which the view (as you well know) was absolutely beautiful. We could see 360 degrees: the sea, the city, and the hills. It was a bit windy, but we stayed on top for quite a while, taking tons of pictures. We then headed down, walking past the Salisbury Crags towards the Scottish Parliament and then the Hollyrood Palace. The Parliament is quite an intriguing building--I'm not quite sure whether I like it or not (it probably works much better as a modern art museum than a parliament building), but it is certainly unique. The ponds in front of the building were frozen over, so we played around with the ice-- making tiny pieces of ice skate across the surface of the frozen pond. We then headed to the Hollyrood Palace, where we took a very quick tour of the palace. Highlights included the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots and the very pretty abbey on the side of the palace. By this time, it was about 12:30, we walked down the Royal Mile, stopping to browse at a few of the shops. Finally, we found Plaisir du Chocolate-- and, of course, after your glowing recommendation, we had to stop for some hot chocolate! I ordered the Chocolate 'Plaisir', hot chocolate (53% cacao) with Armagnac and whipped cream on top. Absolutely delicious!! Without a doubt, some of the best and richest hot chocolate I've ever had. There was also quite a bit of liqueur in it, as I could definitely feel the effect! David had the Infinite Indulgence--quite tasty, but I'll let him tell you about that. :)
DAVID: So on our way to the seat I couldn't get the song "Hollywood Hills," except I replaced Hollywood with Holyrood. I was singing it out loud- though I'm not sure Corinna had heard the original song before. Maybe she thought I was crazy... but I'm pretty sure she already thinks I'm crazy, so I guess I was par for the course. As for the Palace we were checking it out from the outside and then we kinda decided to see what was around the corner. We saw someone come out of this giant blue door. We went inside giant blue door. Took some pictures of the palace and then we went inside. What Corinna failed to mention is that we later found out that the palace has an admission cost of 8.50 pounds, which we did not pay. Not entirely sure why anyone pays because it was absolutely simple for us to sneak in without realizing we were sneaking in. As for my cocoa I must say it was quite intense. The indulgence is made with 100% cocoa "for the true enthusiast" they say. It came with ground chili as well for me to add to get the original hot cocoa flavor (Aztec style). It was delish. (Totally worth the $7 that I paid, and the $10 that Corinna paid, for the chocolate!) The setting was wonderful. I will say that the service was a bit slow- but they were busy and very nice so I can forgive them for that. Then we continued on down the Royal mile. Oh, I forgot. We had gone in jewelry store where Corinna bought a ring. A few yards up the street Corinna said we should go to the hot chocolate place you recommended. About five seconds later we were standing in front of the Plaisir du Chocolate. Worked well. Then we walked along. Went into a booze store and I bought some Scotch Whiskey for Matt, Jared, and I to enjoy. It is 58% alcohol by volume. The guy working there was very nice and pointed me to a good, unique, but not too expensive whiskey. We also found out Port is made in Portugal. Sometimes the obvious things are not so obvious. Then we went to a kilt shop. I asked about the McKinney plaid/clan/tartan. They looked it up. Apparently it is the same as MacKinney or MacKinnie which both have the MacKenzie (clan) or Galloway tartan. I bought the old (original, not modern) version of the Mackenzie plaid in scarf form.
CORINNA: After a bit of shopping along the Royal Mile, we wandered over to the National Gallery of Scotland for a very brief visit. I'm not a huge fan of the kind of art that was displayed in that museum (I prefer modern and contemporary art to the more traditional British artists like Turner and Constable), but there were some nice Raphael paintings on exhibit. We then passed over to the New Town, where we stopped at Harvey Nichols. I had read in a guide book that the London store of Harvey Nichols was apparently Princess Diana's preferred department store, so I wanted to see what all the hype was about. :) The clothing was nice, quite upscale, but the food department was a real treat! I bought some white chocolate, shortbread, and biscuits for presents. They even had samples of the desserts, so we got to try a few before I made my purchase. David also forgot to mention that he bought some fudge at the Fudge Shop of Edinburgh. One of our Cambridge friends told us that we *had* to buy fudge in Edinburgh, and I must admit that the fudge in this store looked absolutely scrumptious. We haven't tried any yet, but we'll update you after the actual tasting.
DAVID: right the fudge- I got small box with eight bars of fudge- 8.50 pounds. I am very excited about the whiskey fudge. After the dept. store where I saw my first pair of 240 pound jeans (which Corinna claimed were a very well known and sought after brand), we went to eat. We walked back to the royal mile to go to the Dubh Prais restaurant you recommended. So far you were batting 1.000 so we knew we were set for a great meal. Except it was closed. You see, we decided to eat a late luch so we could last through the train ride home. So it was 4pm and the Dubh Prais closed at 2pm (I think). So, being the quick thinkers that we are (actually I think it was Corinna who though of this, but I'm not sure, so I say "we"), called up the Doric pub/tavern/bistro we had wanted to go to last night in lieu of the Dubh Prais. We had also happened to pass it during the day so we had an idea of where it was. They were open and had tables available. We got there and had the place to ourselves. It was actually good for our Scottish experience to go their rather than the Dubh Prais because the Dubh Prais did not have haggis on their menu. The Doric did. Corinna said she was gonna order the haggis, so I, not liking to double up orders, was going to get the duck. But she convinced me that I had to go all Scottish. So we both got the haggis, neeps, and tatties for our lunch/dinner, It was awesome. I'm glad I tried it. i never thought haggis could be good. Our waitress, also an exchange student (but from Canada), told us they had some of the best haggis in town. I also had and beer that I really enjoyed. Can't think of the name of it right now, but I took a picture so I won't forget. Now for dessert...
CORINNA: For dessert, we shared a plum and apple crumble with custard. Once again, a winning dessert. But the highlight of the meal was definitely the haggis. To be honest, I had not expected to actually *like* haggis, but I wanted to try it in order to complete my Scottish experience. I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was, and I finished all of it. After dinner, we headed back to our guest house to collect our bags and then return to the station to catch the last train of the day. Overall, Edinburgh was gorgeous. I feel like I could just walk around for days and days, discovering the quaint closes and wynds, and taking lots of pictures! I really liked the fact that it is a relatively small city center: I feel like I learned my way around the center in just the short time that we were there. Thanks again for your wonderful recommendations on sites to see and places to eat! As you can see, we followed as many of your recommendations as we could, and we had a fantastic time! Now, as we write to you, we are on the train for Petersborough, where we will switch to a train for Stevenage and finally Cambridge. Our ride has been pretty exciting--the drunk Irish football fans were quite a riot, buying a drink for David and trying extremely hard to buy a drink for me! In general, there have been quite a few drunk guys on this evening train. :)
DAVID: Overall a wonderful trip. The food was great, and the city wonderful. We were pretty compatible travelers too- no real conflict about what to do. The Scottish were extremely nice (I think moreso than the Engish). I think I could spend a few more weeks there. Too bad I have supervision on Wednesday. Oy! I guess its essay time when I get back home- I mean to Cambridge. I guess thats it. Thanks for all the great tips and info about the city, 'twas a big help. Hope this e-mail wasn't tooooo long. We're almost to Petersborough so we've got to put the computer away.
Cheers,
David and Corinna
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