edinburgh report

Spent yesterday morning working, then went to Reid and Luisa's for a Star Wars movieathon. The original plan was to watch the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD (the enhanced versions), but we ran out of time (plus got distracted by other fun stuff). It was interesting, though, watching these movies with the revelations in the Phantom Menace. So what do you all think about the enhanced versions, by the way? Should Lucas have left those alone? Although I can understand his motivation, I wish he had. Sure, some of the effects were cheesy, but they were state-of-the-art at the time. IMHO, it's sort of like going back and colourizing Casablanca, or updating episodes of The Brady Bunch.

Next trip report installment...

EDINBURGH REPORT (Day 3, and part of Day 4)

Took a British Midlands flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh (found out that Heathrow shut down shortly after our flight due to a power outage!), rented a Hertz car, set off for our B&B. I found
Newington Cottage on the Web,
by the way. Absolutely wonderful place, with beautifully appointed rooms and a garden,
about a 20-minute walk from downtown Edinburgh. I would have liked to stay here longer.
Jeff and I were both very tired the first evening, so decided to eat a nearby restaurant (Fenwicks)
instead of going downtown. I had a tomato salad (cherry tomato, baby spinach & red onion salad with basil vinaigrette) and roast leg of lamb (filled with pine nut farce (I have no idea what farce is, so don't ask) on braised red cabbage with roasted potatoes). Dessert: chocolate cup with mango mousse and caramel sauce.

In the morning (8 am), we went to the dining room for breakfast and met some of the other B&B occupants. Almost everyone had found the place online, interestingly enough. For breakfast, we had a choice of several types of omelettes and a full Scottish breakfast. Both Jeff and I opted for the latter, which included: fresh oj, fruit, coffee/tea, broiled tomatoes, fried bread (cut out in the shape of a heart), sausages, bacon, mushrooms, toast, croissants, cereal & milk, and a poached egg. After waddling out of the dining room, we took off for St. Andrew's. Purpose of this visit:
Jeff did postgraduate studies at St. Andrew's University about
ten years ago...we had kept in touch via email, snailmail, and phonecalls...and I wanted to see what it looked like. (And no, Jeff doesn't play golf. :-))

Absolutely beautiful town. The beach at St. Andrews, by the way, was the one where that famous
running scene in Chariots of Fire was filmed. We also checked out Jeff's old dorm room, other old haunts. Had fish and chips at a place called PM's where he and Scott used to hang out all the time.
The weather was a real contrast to that in London. With Parki and Helen, we were wandering about in t-shirts and shorts. In Scotland, I wore a t-shirt, two sweaters (I bought a bulky sweater at a shop in St. Andrew's), a coat, and gloves!
Before leaving St. Andrew's, we had tea by the fireplace in the Russell Hotel pub. I got quite used to the tea thing during the trip, by the way. I usually don't drink a lot of tea and coffee back home. In London, Helen would make tea for us every morning, and I got used to it. I'm still making tea every morning as soon as I get up. :-)

When we got back it was too late to do the tour of Edinburgh Castle, but we decided to take a walk up to the castle anyway. Good timing, too...as we got closer, we could hear strains of bagpipe music as well as drums. Turns out there was a bagpipe marching band (one of the drums read "Edinburgh Post Office Marching Band") going through their moves in the clearing in front of the castle. It was quite the dramatic setting, with the castle as a backdrop and the darkening clouds above (it was cloudy and/or raining the entire time we were in Scotland).

Had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Bella Pasta. Our waitress turned out to be from London, Ontario (!). We gave her a big tip. :-) We spent the rest of the evening walking all over
Edinburgh. Wonderful place, definitely MUST come back here for a longer stay sometime.

In the morning, we had a quick breakfast and then headed off for Ireland.

Next installment: Portaferry, Ireland.