Have I ever told you the story of how I became Scottish one day at work? I find the Scottish accent one of the more difficult ones to understand, especially when we first moved over to Dublin. When I started at LinkedIn, I took a call with a prospect in Scotland. I wasn't able to get through to the person I was hoping for, so I left a message, and it went something like this:
Prospect: "Can I take your name, please?"
Me: "Sure, can you let him know Michelle called."
Prospect: "And what's your sur name?" (last name)
Me: "Oh, Lederman"
Prospect: as he is writing, "Michelle O'Lederman, sure I'll let him know you called"
And just like that, I was Scottish.
We always knew we wanted to check out Scotland, but it was hard to justify a summer weekend away to Scotland since it would be similar weather to what we had in Dublin. Finally, in late July, we found a perfect weekend before we both had work trips in London and booked flights to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh was beautiful. There were so many old, historic buildings, and the streets were a bit hilly, which made for beautiful views.
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| A street downtown |
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| Looks like the UK with the red phone booths, black cabs and old buildings. |
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| And here are the black cabs |
We started our first day at the farmers market, and spent the rest of the day walking around downtown, admiring the views from all over the city, lunching at the Brew Dog Brewery, and exploring Calton Hill.
At the Farmers Market, we tried some Haggis - a local cuisine that is better left not described (but if you're curious,
look here). Not surprisingly, Brian loved it, and I thought it was okay but couldn't get past what it actually was, and therefore, have no desire to eat it again.
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| Start of our day at the farmers market |
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| The pedestrian street full of shops, restaurants and bars, and of course lined with bunting |
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| I thought it was so cute |
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| The Scotsman |
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| Lot's of statues with beautiful backdrops of the city |
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It was pretty warm, but you can see the clouds turning dark grey
- this was taken about 5 minutes before it started dumping buckets of rain.
We had to seek cover in the closest shop |
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| We found Brew Dog for our lunch break |
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| Inside the brew pub |
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| sampling |
After a quick stop for lunch, we headed up Calton Hill. Beyond the beautiful views, there are many monuments on top of the hill, including the old Royal High School. At the base of the hill is the headquarters for the Scottish Government.
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| View of Edinburgh from Calton Hill |
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| Another view of the city |
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| From another angle |
From one side of the hill, you can see Arthur's seat, which is a huge rock that defines part of Edinburgh's "skyline" and is actually part of an extinct volcano.
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| And another side of the hill, looking at Arthur's Seat |
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| Arthur's seat and the city |
On our second and final day in Scotland, we started our morning walking up the Royal Mile to the castle and checking out the castle grounds. It poured rain all morning, then finally in the afternoon the weather cleared up a bit.
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| We went pretty early, so it wasn't too crowded |
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| In the castle grounds, looking back at the city below |
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| What's a trip to Scotland without a photo with a bagpiper? |
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| The rainy view from the castle |
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| Another shot of the view from the castle |
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| Watch out for the guards, and guard lion |
After the castle, we filled with the rest of the afternoon checking out some shops and stopping for another pint before heading to the airport.
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| Walking down the Royal Mile |
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