Edinburgh, Scotland

One thing about Britain is that it does NOT know how to make food. Excepting the wonderful meal, fish and chips, pretty much all traditional British meals vary from weird to unsavory to plain disgusting—and the Scots do it the best.  First off, the Brits do not understand the concept of pudding.  Pudding is supposed to be light and fluffy and chocolaty, but the Brits just add the name “pudding” to any less-delicious dish to make it sound more than merely edible. They seem to think that adding a desert type to a meal makes it yummy! Yorkshire Pudding is a splendid example; since when has pudding involved meat anyway? Pie, too, goes the same way, like Shepherd’s Pie or Steak and Ale Pie.  But the grossest of all is Black Pudding (otherwise known as Blood Pudding). Ingredients: congealed sheep’s blood that ends up looking like dead worms.  Yuuuum.  Haggis to is disgusting.  Its pretty much the Scottish version of the hotdog: sheep liver, lungs, and heart all mixed together (with oatmeal and veggies) to make a dark-colored mush that they expect you to eat.  Good thing I’m on a tight budget and cant afford to eat out!

But anyway, Scotland itself!  It only took a 6.5 hour train ride (which was, in fact, 3 train rides.  Trains are usually awesome because you don't have to drive, you can just sit back and sleep or read and not worry about TSA agents, but here, it was pretty hectic.  They don't tell you which train is yours, they don't number them, and they only put the end station on the departures board. Basically you’re screwed unless you can get some help!) But then there I was, in Edinburgh!  I was only there 2 hours, but it was enough to see that it was a truly beautiful city—it was so blatantly old, but it was all meshed up with the new too, and it worked really well.  And it was so blatantly Scottish—they definitely played on stereotypes, bagpipes, kilts, tartan, and of course, the accents!  The streets were lined with cafes, shops, and people.  Lunch too was well worth the wait, a delicious mixed vegetable Panini (including avocados, something very difficult to find here!) and a gooey, yummy brownie.  And as pain-in-the-butt my little sister can be sometimes, it was sooo great to see her so unexpectedly!  It true that we get along better from a distance, but its also true that getting to spend time with your sister for a few days in Scotland when you weren’t expecting to see her until June at the earliest was awesome!