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Part Two: Edinburgh
After
getting off the bus, we walk to Ariana’s flat from the bridge. Lots and lots of old buildings, narrow
streets, narrow sidewalks, much different from what we’re used to at home. She warns me not to walk too
close to the street – so many buses.
If they get too close to the curb, you can get hit by the side mirrors
extending out over the sidewalk.
Since they drive on the “wrong side” you can’t see them coming behind
you. I LOVE the buses here – so
cool! 
It’s
raining, but not hard, gray and cold.
I can see my breath. We
wind our way up the hill. It’s
hard to cross the streets with confidence in not being struck, the cars come
from a direction different than you expect. I joke that she may have to get me a leash. We get to her
flat and I unpack a bit. She has
one small room, modern, cute, with a sink. There are three individual toilets in the hallway. I unpack and give her presies from
home. By now, I can barely keep my
eyes open and I ask if she minds terribly if I take a nap for about an
hour. I konk out for two
hours. I feel pretty good when I
wake up so we head out to dinner.
We go to a nearby tavern called the Albanach. She’s already told me the house specialty here is
Balmoral Chicken – chicken breast stuffed with haggis with whisky sauce. I’m in. She orders venison sausage with black pudding (blood
sausage). The sausages arrive swimming in sauce, but are very tasty, as is the pudding. The chicken is delicious. We were going to share, but she’s happier
with the venison, I with the chicken.
We were too full to have dessert, so we head home. 
Friday
promises to be a busy day. We head
out first thing on a three mile trek to Leith, a colorful area of Edinburgh, to
tour the HMS Britannia, the Queen’s yacht. It was decommissioned in 1997 and has been docked there as a
tourist attraction since. We stop first for breakfast at The Edinburgh Larder – Ariana has a Groupon for brekkie there. She orders porridge (oatmeal) and I
have a freshly baked scone with homemade jam – just as delicious as it
sounds. Her oats were terrific, so
creamy - they load them up with goodies like nuts and sultana’s (raisins) here. The shop is displayed with every
type of pie, pastry and salad.
It all looks so good!
Back
on towards Leith. Ariana
points out many interesting buildings, shops, etc. The city is huge, she says about 400,000 people. Lots of hustle and bustle. Before
setting off, I went to get my sunglasses.
She says there’s “no way possible” I’ll need sunglasses, so of course,
now the skies clear and the sun and blue sky are blindingly bright. It becomes a joke – I didn’t
touch them until this morning – didn’t want to jinx the lovely weather. We get to Leith and tour the
yacht. It’s only three years older
than I am and looks pretty darn dated – a bit disconcerting! They fold their dinner napkins similar to the The Anaheim White House!
Ariana had made reservations for us at
Kitchin, a Michelin star restaurant in Leith owned by Chef Tom Kitchin. They have a £26 three-course lunch menu
that looks terrific, so we go there after the tour. The service is impeccable, the restaurant contemporary and
lovely – fresh peonies on every table. 
They bring us crudités to start then a petite cup of chicken
consume with grapes and apples sliced paper thin. We get a basket with 4 kinds of bread – sourdough, tomato,
seeded whole grain and a dense whole grain roll. Ariana orders carpaccio of octopus as a starter, lamb for main course and lemon soufflé with lemon poppy seed sorbet for dessert. I have rabbit kidneys, duck breast and duck egg custard tart with rhubarb sorbet. Everything was fresh and wonderful. There were two gnocchi with my
rabbit – so light and fluffy, I don’t understand how they did it. Ariana’s octopus was so fresh and
citrusy, amazing! The tart was served
atop a bed of paper-thin rhubarb.
Someone in that kitchen does one heck of a lot of slicing on a
mandolin. Fabulous meal. 
We
decide to bus it back to town.
We’ve been invited to Sally and Jeremy Jameson’s for dinner
tonight. They “adopted” a university
student, Ariana, for dinner back in January. They got on so well, they told her to bring me for dinner
one night during my visit. We stop
into Artisan Coffee on the way back to buy some coffee beans to take as a
hostess gift. I’m wishing I’d have
thought to bring an extra bag of California almonds with me. We’re due there at 7:30, so I catch a
quick 30 minute nap. I’m not
exhausted, just a bit dim-witted, not quite yet adjusted to living 8 hours into
the future. We walk to Abercromby
Street, a very nice area of Edinburgh, to the Jameson’s home and arrive right
on time. Jeremy greets us, he’s
just as I expected, a sweet elderly Scotsman. Sally on the other hand is a very in-charge, domineering
woman whose father was a dean of the Medical School in Edinburgh back in his
day. She offers us a drink and
nuts and cheese crisps in the sitting room. After a bit we move into the kitchen where she serves a
beautiful salmon with a chive cream sauce, fresh green beans and tiny new
potatoes for dinner.
Everything is lovely – my new favorite word for all things
Scottish! The potatoes are so
light and fluffy, I guess that’s the secret to the gnocchi I’d had earlier –
Scottish potatoes! We
have apple crumble and crème fraiche and pouring crème for dessert, then a
cheese board with blue, white cheddar and camembert with oat cakes and rye
crisps. So very, very good! We move back to the sitting room for
coffee and conversation. They’re
fascinated by the upcoming US presidential election and were dying to know what
I thought, as well as my opinion on the US economy. We left well after 11:00 and headed back home.
It was drizzly, so we popped into a pub to cap off my forst day in the
‘burgh. The Tass was pleasant ands
not so packed as many of them on a Friday night. I had a very good whisky called Skyeburn, Ariana has a
locally brewed beer. I
noticed ‘Penn State Pretzels’ on the menu, so googled them when I got
home. They’re named for the
birthplace of pretzels, not the University. Or so it says….
 |
| Royal Botanical Gardens |
then to Calton Hill, and finally after to
Arthur’s Seat high above the city. That trek was 3.85 miles alone. It was a killer hike up, especially near the top, and the way back down was tedious. We were passed by a guy running full speed back down – if he’d have been going a bit slower, I would’ve told him he was a great candidate for the crazy sport of stair climbing!
 |
| View from Calton Hill |
Anyway,
we managed to eat some great food that day, with very little guilt since we
walked so far. For breakfast, we
shared a pear, almond and Sultana porridge from the Porridge truck at market,
then an Angus beef sausage sandwich (so good) also at market. On the way back from the Gardens, we
ate at Moo Cafeteria – had “bubble & squeak” and a pumpkin, beet and feta
salad – wonderful. We stopped and picked up two cupcakes to take home from
Cuckoo’s, a chocolate dipped one, “The Big Dipper” and a gluten-free lemon
raspberry. The chocolate one did not survive the trip home, we saved the other for later in
the day. For dinner, after the
hike, we headed to The Assembly near the University and had fish & chips
and Ariana had fajitas. Afterwards,
we went to Holyrood 9a for my first sticky toffee pudding. A very light
textured molasses cake with dark, dark toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream. Soooooooo yummy! I tried another Scotch, Monkey
Shoulder, which was okay, but not as good as the one I’d had on Friday. We went back to Roxburgh Place and
crashed after our busy day exploring the city. |
| Glasgow |
Sunday
we took the 9 am train to Glasgow. We went to our
sister church, C7, in Glasgow.
Small with very friendly people, a young church, mostly
students. Afterwards, Lucy and
Ericka and Ariana and I went to the Grosvenor (pronounced without the ‘s’),
which was formerly a theatre, a neat place with fun food – the two of us shared 3
‘small plates’ – lamb meatballs, eggplant and hummus dip with flatbread and a
frittata. We walked around Glasgow after, it was lovely and sunny and warm. We explored a high-end supermarket where we got some
chocolate bars and bacon flavored potato chips (yummy,
but don’t think I could eat them on a regular basis – thankfully!) for the return trip. We
got back at 5:00 and headed to church at 6:00. C7 meets Sunday evenings in Edinburgh at a bar called The
Three Sisters. It was an intimate
but energetic service with Lucy leading worship and Ericka running the show, so
I felt very much at home. Jodi, the head pastor’s wife, spoke on “Awakening” –
a terrific message. I nearly
nodded off during the prayer at the end, still fighting the time change! I met her afterwards to pass on
greetings from Jonathan and Di at Newport Church. She was lovely.
I invited her to come to Newport soon. I got to meet Zoey, who had hosted Ariana for
Christmas, and so many of her other friends. Really nice.
After, we headed to Prezzo, a restaurant downtown that Ariana had a
discount coupon for. One of the
coolest restaurants I’ve ever seen – gorgeous and sleek, very contemporary, but
very warm and welcoming. If
only the service had been. I think the server just arrived from Italy – she was
clueless. We shared an Alderwood
smoked salmon salad and a prawn/salmon risotto. Both fine, nothing exceptional. We decided to bale to a
different Italian place for dessert. Ariana had been there before and said the
gelato was homemade and fantastic, but the woman behind the counter with no
hair was very mean. She was right
on both counts! We got
terse, one-word responses to our questions about the food, but decided on a
slice of chocolate cake with strawberry mascarpone gelato. To die for good – we almost licked the
pate clean. Great place for
dessert, I could’ve eaten about three times what I did. Good thing I have no Scottish money of
my own!
I wrote this on the way to Paris. I'm beyond excited to be here.....
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