May 15-16
After about two hours of beautiful Scottish countryside and coast lines, our train pulled into Edinburgh. Immediately, this city and I got off on the right foot as the train station asked me to keep to the left. Boom! Consistency!
Plus some beautiful flowers:
We had a great little Airbnb in Leith which is the neighborhood near the docks. We had dinner at a small restaurant called Gardener’s Cottage which sat on the edge of the Royal Terrace Gardens.
Afterwards, we stopped by a pub to grab a pint and found… trivia!
Michael was pumped. In general, I have mixed feelings on trivia, but I was at least excited to see what types of questions they were going to throw out. We were too late to join officially, but played along unofficially and did pretty well. There was a question or two where we just couldn’t understand what the Scotsman was saying, and as such couldn’t answer. And then there was a question or two that were gimmes for the locals, like name the top 6 newspapers in circulation in Scotland or something like that, which we also couldn’t answer. Otherwise we had all of them. Fastest answer of the night from Michael? A question about a 1990’s movie that has been turned into musical. The answer was Sister Act, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Michael answer anything so fast. He claimed it was obvious…
The next morning Michael grabbed a run along the water and then we were off to see the city. It’s a beautiful city with rolling hills and castles right off of the main roads.
Our first stop was an incredible meal at Ting Thai Caravan which serves Thai street food. Michael ordered the Khao Mun Gai Tod – shallow fried chicken with ginger, chili, grated coconut, cucumber & shallot ajard, two brothers sauce and jasmine rice. That’s right… I took a picture of the description on the menu. I had to look up the word ajard – it’s a relish. I ordered something also, but really there is no need to mention it or any other food ever again. That’s how good this dish was. Don’t get me wrong – my curry was really good. But it was just destroyed by Michael’s. This is the only picture we have from that meal. My dish is still quite full. Michael’s has been demolished.
(Note: there is no chance that I’m never going to mention food again. However, I’ll try to be silent on the matter for a bit so I can show ample respect to this food.)
Afterwards we walked around the city for the next couple of hours. Edinburgh is a great city for Harry Potter fans, which we are. J.K. Rowling moved to Scotland in the 1990’s when she was writing Harry Potter. The city has a ton of cobble stone streets and medieval architecture that she apparently used as inspiration.
Victoria Street is not only an incredibly colorful and cute street, but it was also the main inspiration for Diagon Alley:
Apparently, there is also a grave of Thomas Riddell, inspiration for he who shall not be named, along with Elizabeth Moody and William McGonagall who likely inspired Mad-eye Moody and my personal favorite, Professor McGonagall.
The Elephant House is unofficially titled the birthplace of Harry Potter as Rowling did much of her writing here. We stopped by for a drink, but the place has been turned into a super touristy spot that was mobbed by people, so we just nabbed a photo and moved on.
There are also two schools in town that claim to resemble Hogwarts, although while walking around, it didn’t seem obvious to me. Also apparently these schools sort students into houses, just like Hogwarts.
And a dude playing bagpipes, because of course he is:
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/img_9881.mov
Before flying out the next day we headed back to Ting Thai Caravan for some more Khao Mun Gai Tod. Still ate it too fast to take any pictures. Still really delicious.