When Friends Visit

.............a typical street in Old Town, Edinburgh.....................

My apologies to those who've written me privately, telling me that they are jonesin' for another post. It's been a long week. Blah blah blah, you get the point.

As I had said sometime ago, two friends of mine, Mohan and Briana, were coming for a visit. Remember how I said I love to entertain? Yeah, well, I meant, usually love to entertain. It's f-ing hard running around here and there every single day because your friends want to see as much as they can on their few days in Scotland. Travel was done by planes, trains, automobiles, and buses!

Somehow in the few days my friends were here, we saw Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth (of course) and country drives up to the Highlands. Very, very busy driving or riding all over the area.
I'm also beginning to think that I might have to figure out how to see some tourist sites with my friends without having to do the same thing over and over and over again.

So, as to not bore anyone to death, here's a post with highlights:

A day and eve was spent in Edinburgh. Most of our touristy time was spent on the Royal Mile of Old Town Edinburgh. It's a stretch of streets that's been the main thoroughfare since medieval Edinburgh.
And damn! It was hot! (My apologies to those suffering in the US sweltering heat; I know you're trying to keep from melting... but when it's always wet and cold around here, any day above 85 degrees is hot!)

Typical sights were seen, if not entered (i.e., Edinburgh Castle) due to keeping the spending down. But we did take time to check out a number of interesting shops that sold various types of whiskey that (of course) you can try before purchasing.
Basically, in Scotland, one must work HARD to avoid alcohol and not get drunk. It's there...everywhere, whether you have to pay for it or not.
Next to that shop was an amazing place called "Demijohns" where all the homemade vinegars, wines, whiskeys, and flavored liqueurs are made in these beautiful glass demijohns! Oh, and guess what? Yup, more liqueurs and whiskeys to try.
Seriously, if you're a cheap-ass alcoholic bastard, you can just keep visiting all the different shops that sell whiskey and keep having a "taste".



Later, while my touristy friends were taking the "Literary Pub Tour" throughout Old Town Edinburgh, Andy and I took me around to see the Edinburgh that he knew in his college days.
It's always amazing to get a different perspective of a town when you spent time with locals. It's almost like I was in two different cities at the same time.
We got hungry and decided to hop in a taxi to the historic port of Leith for dinner; which is also the same place "Trainspotting" took place. Apparently, gentrification has hit Leith too. Not one sign of Ewan McGregor, a dime bag or even a used heroin needle to be found!

We met up with my friends a couple of hours later at....yup, a pub--the Cafe Royal, one of the most famous bars in Edinburgh. It looks like it's suppose to be posh (maybe it was 100 years ago), with its ornate ceilings and burgundy couches. But one look at the regulars kinda takes the prissiness out. It's very intimate and lush without the pretense.

After that, we got on the City Link bus to head back to Perth like a bunch of gambling old biddies rolling out of Atlantic City for the old folks home.

Later in week, we rented a car and drove up to the Highlands to visit a distillery (yup, more whiskey drinking!) and to see some of the country towns and landscape of Perthshire.

The Famous Grouse Experience at Glenturret is the oldest distillery in Scotland. For the most part, the distillery makes traditional single malt (aged between 10 to 30 years) which gets sold as is but also is sent to other distilleries for blending malts.
And yeah, surprise surprise: we did do some "tasting" there too.

We drove in and about various towns and villages in Perthshire. (By the way: It was so freaking hard driving on the left side of those tiny country roads). One of the cutest towns to see is Kenmore on Loch Tay. It's like a picturesque postcard village of whitewashed cottages. The 16th century village has a "Main Street" that's barely a block long!And yeah, there's even a little castle. Only dating to the 1800s, though! Tres new, you know...

After, Andy and I had a week or so to recover and now, I have another friend coming in two days.
I gotta figure some other things to do with visiting friends so I don't get sick of seeing the same sights over and over again.

Suggestions are always welcomed.