Digital Distraction - Mike's Blog. For Serious.: Edinburgh, Day Two

Waking from a rather marvelous sleep at 9am, I got up and began to pack up at the MacHostel. The checkout time was at 10am, so I needed to move relatively quickly in order to have everything ready to go. By 10am I had checked out, picked up my ID (they require a deposit for the room) and gone onto the street. First things first, I required breakfast.

The Scottish Breakfast

Walking around and window shopping at various places, I was able to find a breakfast place at South Bridge that looked to fit the bill nicely. I was hoping to find a shop that would offer a regular scottish breakfast like something as stereotypical as pancakes and maple syrup in Canada. The place I chose had pictures of the dishes in the window, and cheap prices on the food. I ordered the Scottish Breakfast, which was a smoragasborg of greasey items. It turns out that a Scottish breakfast is a lot like an English breakfast. My breakfast included two eggs over hard, sausage, bacon, baked beans, potatoes, dry white toast, tea and water. Nothing terribly specail but it was put together nicely. Looking across the room however I saw the largest family I have ever seen. They were also appearently regulars at this place because the owner seemed to know them. I looked back at my plate and after considering the nutritive value, things were understandable.

Model of Mary Kings Close Vaults

The next place that I decided to visit was the Edinburgh Vaults. I had been told the previous day that they were one of the must see things in the city, so I made my way to the Mary Kings Close just off of the Royal Mile. The Vaults are a pretty unique place; they were created when the municipal building was built in the city. There was no extra space in the location that the had wanted to build, so instead of demolishing the buildings that were already there, they just lopped the top few floors off of the buildings and put the new one on top. So, underneath the current city were the original buildings from the 17th century. Although the tour of the area cost 9.50 pounds (at student rate) the tour was preally well done and I'm happy that I did spend the money to enjoy the story telling that the guide offered. Life in Edinburgh in the 17th century was pretty natsy, with death a constant presence and rampant poverty everywhere. I would have liked to take some pictures from inside the vaults, but unfortunately no photography was allowed.

Professional at Work on Parliamentary Portrait

Traditional Scottish Parliament Dress

Next stop was down at the end of the Royal Mile, where the Scottish parliament sat. After going through airport style security I was able to freely walk around the parliament. Well, when I say freely I mean that unless I had a secuirty guide (tour guide) follow me around I was only really able to go to the top floor of the debating room, which I would imagine is much like the house of commons. I snapped a few picutes of the place, and then headed back out and chatted with an information officer in the lobby who had a great sense of humour.

Leaving parliment I went back up the Mile (everyhing touristy exists there) and found a small museum allong the way that had information about the way that people lived in recent history, say from the 1800's onwards. It was located in a converted house and had very few markings on the outside of the building showing that it was in fact a museum. However, inside it was quite lovely. It was a very simple museum, but they had plenty of displays and artifacts to show. One of the more interesting exihibts described the way that the community groups in the area took the place of social care before the government took charge for them. In particular it described how the Oddfellows group started and included a poster describing thier secret club handshake. Very cool.

(not so) Secret Grip of the Oddfellows

After the museum I went searching for a gift to give the family that had been putting me up in london and as I was in Scotland there was realy one good choice :). I found a shop that bottled thier own blends of scotch, and after finding one that I enjoyed I knew it would be a great choice. The rest of the day thereafter was just wandering about, stopping in here, stopping in there. During the afternoon I had two remaining goals, eat a deep fried Mars Bar and find a Scottish Baked Potatoe. It took quite a long time to find the Mars Bar, I could only find one place that actually offered them. It was about what you would expect.... gooey and greasey. The breading around the outside made the whole thing a bit like chewing through paper which wasn't the most enjoable but still it was good. The Potatoe that I found was really tastey. You order it with a topping or two (cheese, sour creme, lamb, kethcup) and then enjoy it with a side of salad. Very good. I also met a guy from Edingburgh named Justin and we discussed some of the finer points of being from Scotland.

Well, thats about all I did in Edinburgh, the Bus ride out of the city started at 10 and then got into London around 6am. Edinburgh was a pretty small town that I would say is worth seeing once. I really enjoyed getting a taste of the city, it makes me want to come back and see some other towns like Glasgow or go to the Isles.

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