March 31: Getting a bit emotional over Harry Potter & evaluating my contemporaries
In Edinburgh there's a cafe called The Elephant House, where JK Rowling has cited as the location she penned some of Harry Potter. When I was about 9 years old and read The Unofficial JK Rowling Biography, which told of her being destitute and rocking her daughter to sleep while writing stories in a cafe, it inspired me to do things like write as well. It was only natural that we go to visit.
Edinburgh Castle from the much-coveted window seat at the Elephant House. Look at that pristine weather!
If I thought Edinburgh liked to capitalise on their ghostly notoriety, it was nothing in comparison to the Elephant Cafe riding the Harry Potter success story. From tours, to tour buses stopping outside, to t-shirts worn by the very inattentive young girls who served us, it was all 'the birthplace of Harry Potter'. Nicholas had crappy reheated (but still cold) pancakes, and I bypassed the overpriced breakfast options for a lukewarm soy 'hot' chocolate. This put me down in the dumps really, and I was grumpy about spending money on crappy beverages and why wouldn't Nicholas go and ask for fresh pancakes and why are the chairs so uncomfortable and why would that couple sit by the window when I am so obviously waiting to sit at the window???
We left a scathing review on Urbanspoon.
I thought it'd put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day and was looking for a reason that coming all the way in the freezing cold. Then I used to the toilet in the cafe and found aforementioned reason.
I was innocently trying to do a wee and I just started crying actual, genuine tears. When I had composed myself and walked out of the toilet, Nicholas said, "Have you been crying?"
As I'm sure you know, the worst thing somebody can do if you're trying not to cry is to address the fact that you're crying and I was so embarrassed because of all the other people in the cafe and I didn't want to admit that I'd just come to a cafe and started uncontrollably weeping over my love of Harry Potter. That's embarrassing.
"I can't talk about it."
Nicholas thought something was, you know, genuinely upsetting and got really worried and I just kept shaking my head and saying that I couldn't talk about it in here.
"Is it just because you're in Scotland?" he asked.
"I love Harry Potter," I replied.
I started crying again. It was embarrassing.
This was after I had stopped crying.
Harry Potter is Life. Harry Potter is Love.
We had hoped to head up to Edinburgh Castle for the day, because the weather is looking pretty rubbish and we wanted to stay indoors. I think a bus of Chinese tourists had appeared 5 minutes before we did, so we decided to put that off for another day and head to the Fruitmarket Gallery, which is a contemporary art gallery nearby.
At this point, the weather was looking pretty nice. Quite sunny, it was starting to warm up. Don't trust it. Never trust it. (we probably would've trusted it if we hadn't got a weather warning on our phone)
I forgot to mention that when Nicholas and I went to the camping shop, I bought the same shoes as him because I'm a copycat.
The Fruitmarket Gallery had a really wonderful bookshop with lots of books about cats and art (two of my favourite things, as we all know). The art was also pretty good. It was a collection of Brazilian works using objects. One work was a collection of impractical squeegees. It was super cool.
From there we wandered down to the gallery that is usually the Portrait Gallery, but was currently showing a heap of work by Scotland's most recent art school graduates. Some of it was really cool, some of it was total crap. Nicholas and I tended to agree on the total crap part, but there were a couple of works that left us divided. One work I really liked was a double channel video piece that juxtaposed museum specimens and scientific objects with mundane soccer playing and what looked like the Hebrides and some horses/cows. The voice over was really nice and was spoken by a heap of (what sounded like professors). I considered buying the video copy, but it was 30 pounds and I'm saving money to spend at Loch Ness.
This is when the weather started to turn, so we sought shelter at the same cafe we've been frequenting with the good soup and good sandwiches and blueberry scones. I think they know us now. It started to snow.
Beautiful, sunny, slightly cloudy skies.
Snow.
more ridiculous.
For dinner we made traditional Scottish fare! (veggie) haggis with neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). We roasted them in the lavender salt we got from Hoxton St Monster supplies and it was delicious. We had it with some Irn Bru (Scottish creaming soda, complete with tartan packaging, that can be purchased in various clan colours) while watching vintage Dr Who (Peter Davidson). Feeling well British. ;)
I don't know about the original haggis, but the vegetarian version is pretty tasty.
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