Fitting in With Foul Weather

As much as I try to fight it, it seams like my favorite cities have the worst weather. Chicago speaks for itself, Amsterdam is known for its grey skies, London's pastey landscape of people couldn't be because they ever see sun, and Edinburgh has a beautiful, green landscape that is fueled by its daily rain. Yes, DAILY rain. Who knew that Chciago's weather isn't as bad as it could be. Seriously though, Scotland was relatively warm when I got there. The next day, it was rainy and cold. The next morning, there was snow. And the following day, it hailed. Twice. But despite all of this horribly disgusting weather, I am considering Edinburgh as a city to move to next year, probably not, but maybe.

Although the weather is comparable, the landscape of Chicago is nothing next to Edinburgh. It is hilly, picturesque and filled with castels and old buildings--also GREAT cemetaries. That just sounded incredibly creepy, but they do. The most well known is Greyfriars and is the home of one of the most haunted mausoleums in Europe. The guys from Ghost Adventures should really check this out, although this ghost may take them down. I'm pretty sure I got a bruise from being there--jus' sayin'. This is also the cemetary from which J.K. Rowling took some names for her characters; perhaps Tom Riddle and McGonagall sound familiar? Greyfriars was a common place for J.K. to walk around while she had writers block while working at the cafe she frequented. It's called the Elephant House and is very condusive to writing (got 3 pages of the THESIS done there. Woohoooo!).

The Holyrood Abbey ruins

My visit to Edinburgh was probably one of my more relaxed visits to a city, and it was the best place to do it. Edinburgh has a low key feel to it anyway. In fact, everything I really did I just sort of happened upon. For example, who knew there was a vegetarian haggis (really it's just oats and spices), or a vegetarian restaurant in Scotland or a shop dedicated to baked potatos with any topping you could think of putting on them (I had vegetable curry on mine). While in Edinburgh, I followed the free tour around the city, then saw the Scottish Parliament, the Holyrood Palace, Queen's Gallery, and most importantly, went to the Scottish Storytelling Centre!

Scottish Parliament

One night, as I was walking to a pub to dinner and comedy, that really just turned into soup and a Scottish beer, I came across this center andnoticed they were having an event the next night. These open mic events are only once a month. so it was incredibly lucky that it happened to be the right time of month, and that I happened to have noticed the poster the night before. It was FANTASTIC. The storytellers were incredible performers, and the original poetry and songs were out of this world. This event, not only won my heart for Edinburgh, but was also a great reminder for how great an opportunity this trip has been to see what's out there, and to just remember and appreciate the little things. One thing is for sure: I'm going to check out if there are any type of groups doing this sort of thing in Chicago. If anyone wants to come with me, let me know!

The Haunted Section!!

Other side of Greyfriars