nothing evokes nostalgia quite like a trip to edinburgh; i was transported back four years, back to my undergraduate student days. days with my crazy european flatmates and american friends and the assorted cast of characters. our pub quiz nights out and 24-hour computer lab sessions and dimly lit stairways into alleys and pubs with names carved into corners of walls swearing undying and eternal love.
it's hard not to see that place, YOUR place, change. i felt the ghosts of my friends and my memories walking beside me, whispering into my ear, remember this jennifer, remember that jennifer. and the scary thing is that the memories grow distant and you almost forget, but the place brings you back. challenges your advancing years.
but i think the beautiful thing about edinburgh is that besides the memories, the place itself is just stunning. old and gothic and kind of creepy wherever you look. a cobblestone or a monument for an undeserving author (shaking my fist at you, Walter Scott) or the Heart of Midlothian, and you know there's stories and secrets behind them. more ghosts. old ones. really, really old ones. the ghosts mingle to make the place what it is; they're welcomed and they know it.
I had the privilege of showing my american friend around for her very first time, and i'd like to think i did the city justice. We did the typical tourist things. well, snuck a free peek at the Castle and Palace before heading to some of my top favs in the city (most of which happen to be food).
so my edinburgh top ten then (in no particular order, just the order they come to in my head):
1. Falaffel at Palmyra Pizza (my first experience with the beauty that is this wonderful food--thanks Sara--i can find no better falaffel anywhere else in the world)
2. Calton Hill (the monuments, the view of Arthur's Seat)
3. Arthur's Seat and the Crags
4. £3.50 lunch at the Mosque Kitchen by the University
5. Brass Monkey (and the giant moroccan bed, £6 happy hour bottles of wine, and film screenings daily at 3pm)
6. an abundance of hip, indie coffee shops dotted across the city, and in that measure, the abundance of used book shops
7. Spitting on the Heart of Midlothian (and scaring the tourists)
8. Wandering up and down the wynds and closes off the Royal Mile (Cockburn Street--pronounced Coburn--is one of my favs)
9. aimless wandering full stop. everywhere, nowhere, there's something. always something.
10. the cliche that is buskers playing the bagpipes (i will be the first to tell you about false constructions of national pride, but it still gets me every time)
there's so much more i could say about this place. really, so much more. the trip was very...different. refreshing perhaps? not really sure. it's been a crazy few months in london so the three-day escape was welcome. the train ride there and back was beautiful, we met up with an old university friend and one of my crazy european ex flatmates and natalie and claire so imbibing was in order. emotions ran high, and for just the weekend we relived the crazy university days...stumbling out of three sisters to head to siglo to meet a group of very eccentric french boys...
life repeats itself sometimes.
and i couldn't think of a place where i'd more welcome it.
