Sunday, March 17, 2013

I probably won't be writing a travel guide any time soon

When I was in Scotland last summer, I kept a journal.  I've never done that on previous trips, but it occurred to me the first evening I was there (at Sandy Bell's) that there were things I really wanted to post on Facebook, but I didn't want to pay outrageous data roaming fees for accessing Facebook from my cell phone, so writing stuff down seemed a reasonable alternative.  I was re-reading the journal this weekend, and a lot of it really does sound more like a series of Facebook status updates than serious travel diary entries.  Here are some excerpts.

There was a guy at the end of the bar who looked like death personified.  He asked me if I had a kitchen sink in my gigantic purse.

So there's a Legionnaire's outbreak in Edinburgh.  Lovely.

Went to Scottish National Gallery (big art museum.)  Pretty much stayed in their Scottish section, because I didn't come to Edinburgh to see paintings by 15th century Italian artists.

At the cafe in the National Gallery.  Hot chocolate is literally that--like liquid hershey bar!  Could only tolerate a few sips.

I don't know exactly what clotted cream is but I am a fan.  It's like butter that you can eat with a spoon.

People wear tights here more than at home.  Maybe because it's cold, so if you're going to wear some sort of leg covering, instead of wearing hose you might as well wear tights.

Went to Surgeons Hall museum.  Mostly looked at the history stuff; only had a few minutes at the end to look at things like musket balls in people's skulls--those things are huge!

At Surgeons Hall, they have a display about Alexander Wood, who was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh.  One of the things it says is that he was "often accompanied on his professional rounds by a tame raven and a sheep, and was the first person in Edinburgh to carry an umbrella."

On the way back to the hotel, there was a sign on a lamppost looking for a lost 20 year old panda.

Note to self: more mushrooms (and nutella) at breakfast!

Random thought: the Brits (not just Scots, because it was on BBC News too) use the term "funnily enough" a lot.

Had an extremely strange dream involving various members of the royal family and Ted Kennedy.  They and I were at someone's house, and they were helping around the house, like clearing the table and fixing a leak.

Poached eggs at breakfast--significantly underdone.  I think I should quit playing poached egg roulette and just get scrambled.

"Robert Burns: born in Alloway, died in Dumfries, but LIVED in Mauchline!"

Friday night I had a terrible, but luckily relatively short-lived, bout of vertigo.  Margaret Bennett ended the evening with a funny (but politically incorrect) joke that ended with "when you get home, I hope Snow White skelps your arse!" and I threw my head back and laughed, and then the world started spinning.  I think the head-throwing did it.

Petted a black lab outside of Heathergems.  Have waited 6 years to go back to Heathergems--it went much smoother this time.  (The first trip to Heathergems is an entire other blog post in and of itself.  Stay tuned.)

I'll never understand why, in all the hotels we've been in, the servers only count the number of things ordered, but don't record who ordered what.  Because then it's this ridiculous thing of them standing there saying, "Salmon?  Anyone at this table have the salmon?"  Oh well.  As our guide Charles said when I made that comment, that would be too logical.

Well, now it's Thursday 6/21/12--got home last night.  Not sure how, or if, to end this journal.  Maybe I won't.  Maybe it will be for my thoughts about Scotland and music and whatever.  NOPE--THAT'S WHAT THIS BLOG IS FOR!





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