Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Edin-burra

I had such a fabulous time in Edinburgh (correct pronunciation: see title) and I'm not sure I can even explain why. I guess it was just the right mix of great people and interesting places, plus it doesn't hurt that nearly every building, it seems, looks like a castle.

After two weeks of darting around the Highlands and the islands, I spent most of a week simply hanging out in Edinburgh, working some of the time and exploring the rest. My friend Elena let me stay at her place the whole time and gave me a key so I could wander in and out as I pleased.

The first couple days were spent mostly working from my laptop at cafés around the city. Chief among these was the Spoon Café Bistro, which actually turned out to be a lovely place in its own right, but first crossed my radar because it is...the site of the former café where J. K. Rowling wrote some of the first Harry Potter book.

Yes, that's right, I specifically sought out the café where J. K. Rowling wrote. And made a point of going there, and writing there. It was a terribly fangirl moment. And I'm mostly not ashamed.

Spoon Café Bistro, my office for the week:


The great thing about the café is that there's no advertisement of the Harry Potter connection, aside from a small plaque outside, and no one really seems to bother about it. (Unlike another café in town which claims to be the "birthplace of Harry Potter," and has that title splashed all over the place.)

I also enjoyed another café, Artisan, which sported this sign:


Edinburgh turns out to be a literary city all around (not just in the realm of young adult fantasy novels) and completely by accident, one entire day of my explorations was literature themed.

There were the Burns monument, the Sir Walter Scott monument and the Writers' Museum (dedicated to native sons Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns). The new parliament building with a copy of a 13th century (!) parliamentary document in it, the National Library with an exhibit on censorship through the years and the Central Library with an entire floor dedicated just to Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Gaelic and Scots languages. The antique map shop (they thought California was an island for 120 years or so!) and the antique children's book shop.

And I learned that Sir Walter Scott thought playing chess was a "waste of time," because it was time that could be spent learning a new language. Love!

What can I say, any city that builds its greatest, most ornate monument to a novelist is okay my book. The Sir Walter Scott monument:


Then there was the Royal Oak, a little bar with a musicians sitting around drinking a pint and exchanging tunes. And the City Café, which essentially looked like a diner, but with very British food (beans on toast, mushrooms on toast...) And the bar at the super posh Balmoral Hotel, where I tried not to laugh as the obsequious doorman even pulled out my chair for me, even though I was there in the only outfit at my disposal: jeans and hiking boots.

And of course there was Indian food, because you have to go for Indian food when you're in the U.K. And the really good bra shop because, well, ditto.

And oh, did I mention that everything in the city is grand and historical and looks like a castle? I'm not even usually the type for going gaga over castles (you do get over castles, once you've lived in Europe for a while) but, wow.

But as always, most of all I enjoyed the people I met.

There were Elena and her friend Elias, both from Greece, who took me to the Royal Oak, and as we were listening to the Scottish musicians, a random Canadian and his Spanish friend started chatting with us, and then a very drunk Scottish guy wandered over and started speaking to Elena in GREEK, and as all our jaws dropped at this improbable development, Elias turned to me and said, "See? I told you the strangest things happen at this bar."

I met up again with Tim, world-traveler I crossed paths with on the Isle of Lewis, who joined me for an Indian buffet lunch, and with Alan, who I've determined is either a friend of a friend or a friend of a friend of a friend, depending how you define it, but in any case took me and another visiting American on what seemed like a tour of all the kinds of places you could possibly go drinking in Edinburgh, including in his kitchen with his strange but entertaining flatmates.

And on my last day, I came across a band busking on the street: three young guys on drums, electric bass and...bagpipes. And it was awesome.

Gratuitous picture of Edinburgh Castle (the actual castle, not all the things that just look like one) at night:

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