We left the hostel around 11:30 and walked to the Red Fort Indian Restaurant. It was not only a buffet but you got a free “welcome drink” and ice cream or coffee. The food was so fresh and delicious. They had a vegetarian side of the buffet with rice, naan, stewed lentils, some other veggie dish, potatoes and spinach, channa massala, and pakoras. The pakoras didn’t have that weird after taste like the ones in the states. The stewed lentils were my favorite though. I hadn’t had it before. I ate way too much, but what the hell, it’s a buffet. Not only did they have the free drink and delicious vanilla bean ice cream but they only charge students 6 pounds. I think this Indian food is going to be hard to beat.
random pics of Edinburgh and Red Fort. "Shagtag" made my hour.
Then we walked around for a little under 6 hours. My feet feel like they are going to fall off. And Edinburgh isn’t like Cambridge. Everything is on a hill, every road changes names, and nothing seems to be parallel. This leads to a lot of confusion. We walked around basically until we saw something interesting, a shop here a shop there. Now Pari is on a never ending quest for a damn scarf. It is one of our top priorities for tomorrow. We went into St. Giles Cathedral which is soo big. There was a lot of stained glass. Sorry, no pictures allowed…
We headed towards Princes street (not Princess street like Pari the Princess was saying all day long) which is down this huge hill. Which isn’t unusual, everything is a damn hill. Besides passing by all of the pretty buildings we climbed the Scott Monument, “Edinburgh in 287 steps.” And let me tell you, it was a scary 287 steps. There are 4 different platforms you can stand on and see Edinburgh. When you are on the last staircase, the last 10 steps are sooooo tight. You have to walk sideways. I was pretty frightened too, my hands were sweating, there was no railing and I was asking myself why the hell did I pay 3 pounds to walk up all of these damn steps. It was well worth the little scare though.
We decided to head for the castle. We walked all the way back up and then up to the castle. In the end we decided not to pay the 13 pounds pp. That is a lot of money. There is always tomorrow if we want to go back. We still got some pretty good photos..
Going into hour six we needed a break so we went back to the hostel. After about an hour we headed towards Monster Mash, a restaurant that serves traditional British Food. I ordered fish and chips and Pari got vegetarian Haggis. The fish wasn’t fishy at all. I really like HP sauce. It is a brown sauce that is almost like a thick vinegary ketchup. The vegetarian haggis had a mystery array of grains on top of a carrot mixture and mashed potatoes were on the bottom. It also came with gravy. Everything was tasty. (18 pounds)
After leaving Monster Mash we walked to Elephant House. I got a mocha and Pari just got a coffee. The waitress asked if she wanted it black or white. I never heard the term white coffee but it does make sense. We also split a millionaire shortbread (6 pounds). Everything was so tasty. So far we have really been spoiled in Edinburgh.
We regrouped before going out to a pub. At first we went to Three Sister’s but it was full of older men and it was so loud. We ended up going to the Dragonfly Cocktail Bar. The drink menu was about 6 pages long. I ordered a Monkey Gland £6.50: Tanqueray Gin, La Fee Absinthe, orange juice, Grenadine, served straight up. It was pretty nasty, it was so bitter. At least I can say my first mixed drink I ever ordered was a Monkey Gland, and now I’ve had the illegal Absinthe. Pari ordered The Eternal Snows Of Mount Fuji £5,95: Xanté Pear Cognac, Luxardo Limoncello, Bols Crème De Cacao, lime, sugar, orange juice, grapefruit juice, served over ice in a Tiki Bowl. She seemed to like it. We sat upstairs and had our drinks and got on there free Wi-fly. How cute is that? Pari liked how there were so many kitties on the wall…Pari and kitties, if you know Pari, you knew her obsession with kitties (oh kitties!)
After we left the bar we were walking down the street and this guy starts talking to Pari, he was from Holland. Pari’s “do you know any gay bars?” didn’t persuade him to leave us alone. His response: I will kiss a boy. We finally got rid of him up the street. We went to Hanam’s and ordered Shisha for two. We got double apple. It was really good and it was nice to just sit outside.
Once again, falling asleep is not hard after walking 10+ miles in one day.
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