Friday Night

The weekend has started and Friday night as always is the night when you most likely stay out or stay awake the longest, which is exactly what we did too. We headed towards the Royal Mile and trekked from one end to the other with a friend in tow. Its always lovely to see the old buildings and the cobbled stones. Now that summer seems to be peeking in on us, there are flowers sprouting up on the hillside and it’s an awesome sight I must say; suddenly colour springing up in between vast expanses of lawns on the hills.

Quite a few people were pub hopping but by and large the people here seem to have a hang out where they park themselves at every weekend and they are well known there right from the regulars to the bartenders to the waiters. Women seemed to be tipsier than the men, especially girls of teenage age or slightly above. Groups of girls who were either drunk or acting to be so were out on the streets giggling, loud and not sure in their step, it seemed like they were having fun and actually I felt like smiling at them. I do wonder however, how these girls must be feeling today morning. :)

Speaking of drinking, a good friend had said that Taliskar was the best brand in single malt whiskey and it was simply amazing. So yesterday when we saw an alchohol shop (one among many), I checked out their window display and saw the brand there, it was 200 pounds for a bottle and there were lesser priced ones as well for the same brand. The distinction being that the 200 pound bottle was 30 years old and the rest were younger!!! Boy, what a lot of stuff! :)

At about 10 in the night when we had finished our loitering and our dinner, as we headed back home, we saw groups of two with one policeman and one policewoman, walking the streets to ensure that everything was as it should be. It felt good to be protected. I also realised that I had been seeing such police foot patrolling all through the evening at every street we had roamed. Well good work I guess!

Oh yeah, we saw the Scottish Parliament yesterday, I guess I was expecting an ancient stately looking building but instead It was a modern structure, a bit like the ones you would see in Malaysia. It was huge no doubt about that and it was a little weird to me, for in my minds eye I always expected the parliament to be something representative of the place and its history and the Scottish parliament didn’t give me that feel. One spectacular thing though, we were standing right in front of the Parliament and clicking snaps and there were no terrorist alarms going off. So much different than in India where we mostly see the Parliament either on TV or at 10 kms distance. This country has definitely been through lesser turmoil and violence than we have, touchwood, I wish we would come to this state too. Amen!