Paris: Food

Perhaps my favourite part of Paris was the food we enjoyed there. I already mentioned our gourmet food experience - at Laduree, just around the corner from Fauchon, we purchased this delicious praline:


I was continually impressed by the pastry selection. Edinburgh does not do pastries well. The British tend toward pies and other savoury items, which I suppose have their time and place, but when in France, there are a variety of delicious sweets on offer. Needless to say, we enjoyed a variety of croissants and pains au chocolat.

During one of our dinners, I indulged in the escargot, which I did not consider particularly interesting, other than their somewhat earthy taste. Kellie refused to sample this cuisine. I can't say I blame her.

On the advice of Kellie's friend Monica, we sought out falafels at L'as du Fallafel, which is apparently the best falafel place in Paris. It was not easy to find, and involved multiple subway transfers in order to get to the La Marais area of town. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that we had already checked out of our hotel and had to lug our luggage around the busy Metro system. Nevertheless, we found the place and were well rewarded.


Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the baguettes. Oh, the lovely baguettes! Everyone in France, it seems, must have on their person a baguette at any given time. This is not a stereotype, mind you, but a fact. Indeed, Kellie and I enjoyed many baguettes in France, as we decided to have a number of picnic lunches of baguettes and cheese. A good move on our part, to be sure. Truly, this is the perfect lunch; the French really are on to something.

Paris: An Overview

Our recent trip to Paris and Reims was our first major foray into continental Europe. A couple of months back, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to travel and when we wanted to go, when I suggested that we head down to Paris for our first anniversary. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and in fact, it was. The trip began with something of an inauspicious start. Our flight out of Edinburgh was delayed, so we did not arrive in Paris until about 10:30pm, after which we still had to take the commuter train into town, transfer to a subway, and find our hotel near the Saint Lazare area. The short version of this part of the story is that we got very, very lost. I generally have a good sense of direction, but apparently all my instincts are wrong in France, and so after wandering around the streets of Paris with our luggage for nearly an hour, we finally arrived at our little hotel room at close to 1:00am.

Day one in Paris was mostly occupied by the obligatory sightseeing. We walked from our hotel down to the far end of Champs Elysees at the Arc du Triomphe and decided to walk from there to the Louvre, stopping to see the sights along the way. For breakfast, I successfully ordered a muffin (in French) at a Starbucks. The funny thing, in most of my attempts at French interaction, was that I would always have planned in advance what I was going to say (e.g., Je voudrais une croissant), and would do my best to speak clearly and use proper French pronunciation, but almost invariably the shopkeeper or waiter would nevertheless respond to me in English. Oh well.

We had walked down most of Champs Elysees and made it to the Invalides area when we first caught sight of the most Parisian of all sights, the Eiffel Tower itself.

After all the obligatory Eiffel Tower photos, we proceeded on to the Tuileries, where we had a small picnic in the garden. After that, it was off to the Louvre for some culture and then back to the garden to enjoy some wine and relax.

Enjoying this particular wine was actually something of a challenge. In the UK, we have become accustomed to screw top wine bottles. Naturally, the wine in France was much more sophisticated, and thus we found ourselves with wine, but no cork screw. Although this problem was quickly remedied, upon opening the wine we discovered that our plastic cups, taken from our hotel room, had been somewhat crushed during our day of walking. Thus, we were able to enjoy a relaxing, if rather wet and messy, bottle of wine in the park.


The rest of our time in Paris was slightly less intense than our first day, which frankly left us exhausted from the miles of walking. We took one morning to go gourmet food shopping at Hediard and Fauchon, which was a truly delicious experience. In the afternoon, we walked up to the hill of Montmarte, which overlooks the city, and saw the Basilisque du Sacre Coeur,

and then walked just down the street to the Salvador Dali museum. Dali, it turns out, was a very, very odd fellow, and it was fascinating to learn more about him and his crazy mustache.

Cramond, in video form

And now, a video of Cramond...

Cramond

I meant to post this some time ago, but here are a few pictures from one of our trips to Cramond, a town just north of Edinburgh.  There's a lovely little seaside village and an island that you can walk out to when the tide is low.  A very relaxing place to spend the afternoon...

when the tide is low. A very relaxing place to spend the afternoon...

Oh no, the Haar!

Yesterday was perhaps the nicest day I've seen since living in Scotland.  The sun was out, it was warm enough for shorts, there was no wind, and few clouds.  Today, however, the haar rolled in.  Haar, in the Scots language, refers to a cold sea mist that rolls in off the North Sea.  It was a striking constrast to yesterday's sun, as this morning we could scarcely see down our own street.  Oh, the haar.  The horror of the haar!  Here's hoping that it will not be a haary weekend.

(Mostly it's just a funny word to say.  It's not actually that dramatic.)

Spiders

We were watching the news last night when Kellie suddenly gave a little yelp and jumped back.  An enormous spider, probably the biggest non-daddy long legs, non-tarantula spider I have ever seen, was crawling across our kitchen.  This was not the first spider we had encountered, but it was by far the largest, and like a good and dutiful husband, I dispatched the creature with haste.  Naturally, this incident led to a hasty and parnoid search of the flat for more spiders, which fortunately proved fruitless.  Nevertheless, neither Kellie nor I wanted another spider encounter, especially not one of this magnitude, so I emailed the flat manager to request pest control.  Under the circumstances, this seemed to me a reasonable request: spiders are indeed a pest, and there is no reason why I should expect to have them crawling about.  Plus, we don't know which species are poisonous and which ones aren't.

The response I received, denying my request, is perhaps the most unintentionally funny email to ever grace my inbox:

From: XXXXXX
Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 9:54 AM
Subject: RE: Pests
To: Brian Dees

Dear Brian

Unfortunately we do not consider spiders to be a pest nor something that
Pest Control would deal with. Spiders are common throughout all properties
and as they do not present any risk or danger to everyday life they are
something that we all deal with in our own individual way.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Regards

I am going to spend the rest of the day in quiet meditation, trying to discern my own individual way of dealing with spiders.  Peace.

Dunsapie Loch

Dunsapie Loch, originally uploaded by bcdees47.

We took a walk this afternoon around Holyrood Park, on the high road the winds up around Arthur's Seat. At the top, as you round a corner, you come to Dunsapie Loch, just a small pond with some ducks and swans. But what it cool is that, because you are so high up, when you stand at the far end of the pond and look out, it looks as if the pond drops off into the sea. It is a gorgeous view. Enjoy.

Escalation

You will recall awhile back our post about the TV Licensing debacle. Well, needless to say, it has continued, and we have now received a number of mailers from our friends at TV Licensing. After looking into this further, it seems that there's really no way to keep them from harassing you, even if you do call them, short of buying a license. Nevertheless, it is amusing/horrifying to receive these threatening notices in the post. Here's the latest one:

A Wee Trip to Glasgow

A final entry in this catch-up series. Edinburgh is only 45 minutes away from Glasgow, but we had not yet taken the time to head over there until last weekend. It was determined that it was high time for us to venture to Glasgow to see the sights. We didn’t have too ambitious of an agenda. Basically, I wanted to see the science centre (which I had heard was cool), at least one museum, and go to a brewpup they have there.

A note about Glasgow, which is not meant to be derogatory in any way: their accent is thicker than the one in Edinburgh, and as a result, the folks there can be harder to understand. Just for the record.

There seemed to be some kind of sporting event going on in town the day we were there. It was somewhat surreal, actually. Kellie and I were moderately lost in a moderately sketchy part of town looking for the aforementioned science centre, and everywhere we saw droves of people migrating toward some unseen Mecca, sporting scarves and shirts with their team colours and logos on them. By the time we finished with the science centre, the streets were utterly abandoned. It was peaceful, yet creepy.

Overall, it was a cool city. A stark contrast to Edinburgh, though. Glasgow is much more, shall we say, industrial, but perhaps at the same time more hip. Although, on the whole, I prefer Edinburgh and have really started to feel at home there, I do wish we had the brewpub that we visited in our city – the WEST Brewing Company. They don’t really do brewpubs over here, so it was quite a lovely experience.

Snow in Edinburgh

As January came to a close and February rolled around, I was excited. The winter here has been cold, dark, and long, and I was looking toward the beginnings of Spring. No such luck. Apparently, February is actually the worst month in Edinburgh weather-wise. And so, early in the month, we experienced our first Scottish snow. It’s not terribly cold here, so it doesn’t stick to the ground for very long, if at all, and it all turns to slush and mud far too quickly. But, on one particular snowy morning, I ventured out while the snow was still crisp to snap some wintry shots of our fair Scottish town:

Playing Catch Up - North Berwick

Good and faithful readers, let me apologize for the lacking of posting as of late. It’s not that we haven’t been doing anything interesting. Oh, I assure you, we have. Rather, the research business has been rather time consuming of late and Kellie recently started her new job with the City of Edinburgh Council, so there hasn’t been too much time for the ceremonial updating of blogs. But that ends here and now… well, for the moment, anyway, and until I get tied up with work again. In what follows, I shall present a brief summary of some of our small adventures in the last month or so. I’m sure you will find them fascinating.

First, North Berwick. Let me set the scene for the pictures below. It was a cold, but boring weekend, so Kellie and I decided to hop on the train and head to North Berwick, a coastal town about 30 minutes away, to see what we could see. The plan was to visit one of the two castles, maybe both, and to see the beach. Well, Mother Nature intervened, and suffice it to say, it seemed to us far too cold to enjoy the castles, which were a good mile and a half walk from the city centre. After lunch in town, we headed to the beach, only to get snowed on. Hence the shivering in the photos. We did, however, find some lovely seashells, which made it all worthwhile. Perhaps. Needless to say, this will be a good locale to return to when the weather becomes somewhat more cooperative.

Burns Supper

Last Monday, in celebration of the 250th birthday of Robert "Rabbie" Burns, Kellie and I attended a Burns Supper held at New College. What is a Burns Supper, you may ask? Well, it is hard to capture in words, but it is in essence an evening of song, poetry, speeches, and (of course) haggis, celebrating the life and work of Scotland's famous poet, Robert Burns. It is, perhaps, the quintessential Scottish experience, and certainly one of the most fun (and informative) evenings we have had here in Edinburgh.

I took a video of the proceedings, but allow me to explain some of what is going on. The whole experience begins with the procession of the haggis (you'll hear bagpipe music). After the haggis is brought out, an ode is recited in honor of the haggis (written, of course, by Robert Burns). The guests drink a whiskey toast to the haggis, and then eat it (along with neeps (i.e. mashed turnips) and tatties (i.e. mashed potatoes). After supper, there are is music, usually songs written by Burns, and speeches honoring his memory, culminating in a toast to the lassies (i.e. the ladies). If, by some chance, there is a Scottish society where you live and you have an opportunity to attend a Burns supper, I would highly recommend it. So, without further ado, enjoy:

Snow (Sort of)

It sort of snowed in Edinburgh earlier this week... though not heavy or wet enough to stick to the ground, of course. Still, it was rather pretty to watch the flurries float in the the breeze. I guess we are easily impressed by snow.

Hogmanay

If you do not live in Scotland, you may be asking yourself, "What is Hogmanay?" The short answer is that it is the Scottish version of New Year's Eve and involves music, dancing, and drinking. It also entails a huge street party on Princes Street. We attended said street party, along with approximately 100,000 other revelers, and took the following video. Enjoy!

London

Kellie and I decided to take a little post-Christmas excursion down to London earlier this week. It's something we've been meaning to do for awhile, given that London is only 4.5 hours away by train, but we just hadn't gotten around to actually doing it. Christmas break was the perfect opportunity. It was a short trip, but it was a welcome break from Edinburgh.

We booked a room in a little hotel just across from King's Cross Station (we got a pretty good deal AND they serve a complimentary English breakfast each morning) and spent our first day wandering around the British Museum. The number of things to see in the museum is mind boggling, so of course we were unable to do it justice, but I think we took in some of the highlights. Afterward, we discovered something truly wonderful. Although this may sound strange, we located a burrito restaurant that makes burritos quite similar to those of Freebird's or Chipotle. I was, of course, skeptical at first, but they turned out to meet and exceed our expectations. Pity they don't have such a thing here in Edinburgh. While pub-hopping later on, we also discovered the London Crown & Anchor (no relation to the Austin pub, I'm sure, but very cool nonetheless). Sadly, Shiner Bock was not on tap.

We spent the whole next day wandering the West End and taking in the sights - Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the River Thames, and the like. There's just so much to see in a city as historic and indeed massive as London, but my favorite thing to do is just to explore and wander. And we did... about 10 miles worth of exploring, actually, which made for a rewarding, but exhausting day. I found that I really like London. Big surprise, and somewhat trite, I know. Although it is a huge city, and filled with countless tourists, it doesn't feel confining or all that crowded. It has a very different feel than Edinburgh... for some reason, despite all its old buildings and bridges, London feels to me younger than Edinburgh. Strange.

We also took the opportunity to eat at the Texas Embassy, a Tex-Mex restaurant in central London honoring the embassy the nation of Texas had in London during its brief independence. It was more of a novelty than anything, as the food was rather mediocre, but it was still pretty cool. And yes, I realize that at least half of the food we ate in London was some form of Mexican, which is kind of a strange thing, but the fact remains that London simply does Mexican food better than Edinburgh. And I never thought that I would be comparing the two.

On the way home, we learned that it is actually very important to book your seats on the train ahead of time, as the first train we tried to board for Edinburgh was completely full, forcing us to wait an additional two hours. These things happen. Fortunately, this let us explore a bit more, and while killing time we found King's Cross Platform 9 3/4, where the Hogwarts Express supposedly picks up its passengers. Sadly, I don't believe Muggles are able to pass through.

In any case, the highlights of our trip are perhaps best highlighted in pictures, so without further ado, enjoy: