Edinburgh, Part 2

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Back in Edinburgh after our highlands tour, we have already seen some of the highlights (see previous blogs), so now it's time for some quirkier activities. Also, we're just hitting the first day of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, so we attended two comedy shows - hard to choose from among the (literally) hundreds of plays, concerts, and other acts listed in the phone-book-sized Fringe guide. We chose well in Erich McElroy's "Imperfect Guide to Picking the Perfect President," an hour-long routine illustrated with short video clips of some of our illustrious candidates "finer" moments. With Donald Trump as the current Republican front-runner, there was plenty of material to work with, and it was quite hilarious. Also, we got a bit of education about the differences in our two countries' electoral practices.

Other activities highly recommended were an audio tour of the royal yacht Brittania (especially if you enjoy seeing how the royals live and travel) and the Edinburgh Zoo. Both of these are too far from the city center to walk to easily, so we got a bus day pass (4£, on the bus), and navigating was very easy. Those who know us will not be surprised that the Brittania story which delighted us most was that the crew, in moments of boredom, would play a game of "wombat tennis," batting a stuffed wombat around their recreation lounge and often sending him to the sick bay to get stitched up by the onboard surgeon. No wombats at the zoo, but some of the more unusual animals there were koalas, pandas, meerkats, and African wild dogs. V. nice.

As big fans of Alexander McCall Smith, we had to locate 44 Scotland Street, the name and setting for his series of homey stories about life in Edinburgh. Number 44 didn't actually exist, but we did find number 43 in a lovely old set of apartment buildings on a quiet street. It is easy to imagine his characters, Bertie, Angus, etc. going about their lives here.

Two other sights we took in were (1) Parliament Building and (2) Edinburgh Castle. We didn't expect too much excitement from the Parliament Building, and we were not disappointed there. It is beautiful inside, and you can go right into the meeting chamber, but it is definitely a weird-looking thing on the outside, an object of much love/hate debate to the locals.

Edinburgh Castle dominates the city, and it is probably the #1 tourist attraction in terms of attendance, so you'll probably feel you have to go there anyway, but it is expensive and very crowded, and we would give it a pass, in retrospect. Even with audio guides the historical depictions seemed disjointed and hard to follow. That may just be because Edinburgh has changed hands so many times and been the site of so many battles that it is hard to keep the players straight. Or, we may be burned out at this point. In any case, we'd recommend the Museum of Edinburgh and the People's Story at Canongate Tolbooth for a more manageable (and free) look at Edinburgh's story.

Food. It always comes back to food. We never got around to trying cullen skink, a sort of chowder made from smoked haddock, which I wanted to sample, but I did buy some crowdie, a soft Scottish cheese, sort of a cross between Greek yogurt and cottage cheese, which I enjoyed with breakfast, and we had already done our bit with afore-mentioned haggis and black pudding (surprisingly good). That was about it for the Scottish cuisine list. Two lighter-bite restaurants to recommend are Henderson's Salad Table, which earned a revisit for its unique selection of prepared salads, and Union of Genius soup restaurant, down near the university, with a rotating menu of about 8 homemade soups and breads. Try tastes before you order. Other random food finds: black sesame ice cream at Sushiya in Haymarket - yum; and I found that the cheapest drink in Edinburgh convenience/grocery stores is milk. There must be some sort of government pricing policy, because a pint of milk cost 50 pence, about 75 cents, which was half the price of bottled water!

All week we had been trying to follow the recommendation of our hotel receptionist to eat at Cosmo, a pan-Asian buffet. Every time we went we found a long wait to get in, and we hadn't gotten our act together to make a reservation at least 24 hours in advance, so we almost missed out. Big mistake! Fortunately, Wayne volunteered to sacrifice an hour or so on our last evening to hold a spot in line for opening time. Sacrifice an hour! Sacrifice your right arm! Wow, it is amazing, with chef's stations preparing Indian, Thai, Chinese, Italian, and British foods, all very good quality, all-you-can-eat, for less than you pay for dinner at most restaurants (£13.95). Bliss.

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Photos

Edinburgh Zoo
Up close and personal with a swamp wallaby