TRUE STORY: Scotland’s official spirit animal is the unicorn.
Edinburgh was awesome. In addition to having unicorns, it was a nice mix of history (beautiful stone buildings) and modernity (good cocktail bars). Six months on, I can’t tell you about a single meal we ate while there, but as we had an evening flight to Dublin, I do remember enjoying tea and scones in our hotel lobby. It was my first clotted cream experience and definitely won’t be my last!
Unfortunately, we weren’t really in Edinburgh enough time to do it justice– we rolled into our hotel in the afternoon, and then left the next evening. The streets were utterly destroyed with people celebrating the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We saw some people busking on the street but nothing particularly notable. We visited the Scottish National Gallery (our only “traditional” museum this whole vacation, I think) which was an enjoyable way to wait out a passing storm. We had cocktails at a bar Severin found and struck up a conversation with some middle-aged Scottish people– frankly, their friendliness and forthrightness with strangers caught me a bit off-guard after a year in Cyprus, as Cypriots tend to be friendly enough but don’t generally initiate conversations that way. We bought some rhubarb-infused gin and a gift for Sally. I decided I could probably live in Edinburgh depending on how bad the winters are.
Also: the vast majority of Scottish buildings have these chimneys, which I am totally obsessed with.
