Haggis, neeps, and taters was the most interesting thing I ate in Scotland.. the tastiest was from the world’s best Indian ever… why can’t they open up over here? but really, the food… or, really… the obtaining of food very much boggled us. Scots tend to close after lunch, then open for dinner, so if you’re hungry between 2 and 5:30, the only choice is crappy sandwiches or pizza. Bleah. Then when you come back at 6 or 7, and don’t have a reservation? Too bad unless you wanna wait a couple hours. Some places were only open 5-7 on a Sunday, or were PACKED with people with reservations. These are normal Mexican restaurants here, nothing fancy! ????

Anyhow… haggis. The coolest (and priciest) ever dinner. It was for the conference dinner… quite an outing! We had coaches drive us all to Stirling, which is an old town about an hour north of Glasgow. Has an old castle with famous stories… possibly braveheart is around there? (sorry, I’m no history buff!) We get there and all take photos (yeah, many many Asians there with fancy cameras! ;) We go into a building (chapel?) and have wine and drinks. Two tapestries on the wall- from the Hunt of the Unicorn. Am completely confused by this, as I just read an article about their cleaning and photographing saying they are on display at the Cloisters in New York. So are these replicas? I guess so - we literally could have touched them, or spilled wine on them…

Then we are led into another building (hall?) by a bagpiper. I love bagpipes! Then the bagpiper, some crazy fella dressed as Robert Burns, and a chef come in with a haggis and the Robert Burns fella does this whole poem about haggis while waving a knife. Very entertaining! Then we’re served haggis, neeps, and tatties. surprisingly not bad. I’m not into sheep or lamb so much though, so didn’t eat all the meat… Next up we had a “gamey” broth, which was certainly gamey. Then the entrée was salmon… and we so don’t eat fish. So when we sorta looked at it funny and claimed allergies, the server said she’d see what else the chef had. Risotto with butternut squash and parmesan. YUM! So better than fish! J And so nice of them… I didn’t know they had a “vegetarian” option! Dessert was a very nice crème brulee and a bunch of fancy chocolate looking things that I was too full to eat. After dinner, the bagpiper lead us out of the building to the courtyard… and a full pipe band! Yay! They played a few songs then escorted us to our buses. The only odd thing was they played amazing grace, which I totally associate with funerals. But, it was great. I don’t know what it is about bagpipes and drums, but yay!

We were sitting at a table with mostly Japanese people- all adults, but one student-sort.. we sat by the younger two guys, and discussed all sorts of things, with the older lady occasionally chiming in… the cool part was when I mentioned I just bought the latest book by Haruki Murakami, who is a pretty big novelist in Japan.. I even impressed the older lady! Yay! I also managed to remember another writer, and could somewhat remember what their books were about… sorta.. She suggested a couple other Japanese novelists, so I’ll have to check them out..

the rest, plus pictures, once I get my camera back.  ¶ 20:32