Scotland!

  Yes, yes, this blog entry is very late. The insanities of a drama school schedule will do that to you.
  About three weeks ago, a couple of LAMDA lovelies and myself took a weekend trip to Edinburg, Scotland and had a hoot of a time. Edinburg was a beautiful city; very picturesque and charming, and full of friendly folk with awesome accents that I wanted to just sit and listen to over and over. Bagpipers played on practically every other block, so the air was always full of that cultural sound. In one pub, we friended a couple of locals, one of whom bore a crazy resemblance to Sean Connery. He and I had a long talk about acting/performing over a couple of glasses of wine. Meanwhile, his buddy charmed my two companions over a flask of whisky. Devilish!
  We took a tour of the "Real Mary King's Close," which was a walk into the old underground sections of the city. Super creepy and claustrophobic. One of the facts about it that stands out in my mind was the fact that some of the walls were constructed of human cremation ash and horse hair. Outdo THAT, Bob Villa.
  We also took a brief tour called the "Whisky Scotch Experience," where we learned all about the makings of that beverage and then got to sample a few varieties. For the second time in my life, I was exposed to whisky, and for the second time, it didn't agree with my palette. Sorry, Whisky. The thousands-of-bottles collection on display was really impressive though, and we had a great time taking pictures on the rather kitschy Disney-esque ride through the "factory."
  We crammed a lot into our two days, including the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, The Grass Market, a late night half-mountain climb of Holyrood, and quite a bit of good food and drink. One of the highlights of the trip was our first night there when we were having trouble finding any food after arriving so late. We eventually stumbled across a Chinese takeaway place and ordered a metric ton of grub, but had nowhere to eat it. Back at the hotel, there was nowhere to go except our rooms. I tried my room key in the lock of the hotel's dining room door, and we gained access. Being the late-night-dinner rebels that we were, we broke into the dining area and used one of the tables (which were already set for tomorrow's breakfast service), in the dark, to eat our feast. The next morning, we came down to breakfast and ate at the same table. One of the hotel's owners, a grey mop-haired lady with a thick Scottish brogue asked us, "So, did you finally find something to eat last night?" I'm sure the guilt was all over our faces.
  We had an amazing time and laughed the entire weekend, even though we were continually stalked by Fluffy McFluffers, Scotland's leading cat private-eye. You can't prove anything, McFluffers.

Click HERE to be whisked away to my FLICKR page, where you can view a few photos of the trip. Enjoy!