11 July 2013

Edinburgh Day 2 Part 2

Hello lovelies

Here's Part 2 of my summary (yes, summary!) of our first full day in Edinburgh. You can catch the first half of our excursion here

I'm going to skip the middle bit where we struggled to find somewhere nice for lunch because, in our classic holiday style, we left it until the very last stomach-rumbling minute. This meant I turned into She Hulk, causing us to leg it into the nearest place that sold anything edible so I wouldn't start ripping bollards out of the pavement whilst yelling "KATIE SMASH". Thankfully, it was reasonably cheap; as the pub we chose totally Derren-Brown-d my lunch by sucking out all of the flavour yet making it look like a regular potato with cheese and beans. 

The other reason for the rushed lunch was because we wanted to go to the zoo.

We love the zoo. It's our favourite. Anywhere with monkeys is a winner in my book, and Edinburgh Zoo turned out to be a pretty good one. We saw teeny baby gibbons, huuuuge rhinoserousserisess, and a whole pile of penguins.

Aren't emu ears weird?

My favourite critters were the monkeys, who were all wearing personalised necklaces complete with the plastic beads I remember using to make bracelets in the 90s. I like to think they made them for each other as friendship necklaces. 

One thing I don't like about the zoo is kids banging on the enclosure windows and trying to wake up the animals. And if Mum/Dad starts doing it too, Tom and I have no problem with tutting incredibly loudly at them. Because we're disapproving and British. Whilst I love the opportunity to view so many wonderful animals, it must be truly horrific for them to spend their lives in captivity instead of in the wild, and the last thing they need is little Johnny making a racket when they're trying to have a kip. 





Thankfully, there wasn't much need for tutting on that particular trip, but we did witness a smallish boy having what appeared to be a mega tantrum and sobbing his eyes out. I was all ready to put on my Cape of Judgement, until I overheard him sob "I, I, I, I wish I was a caterpillar". That made me want to buy him a balloon. 


Luckily, this child still has all his fingers.
Our final, and favourite, attraction of the day was the Camera Obscura. The camera sits on the fifth floor of an amazing museum of magic and illusions. The girl who showed us the camera in motion was very entertaining and told us some wonderful anecdotes about all the sights we could see from the top of the tower. We found out the Parthenon-style columned structure on a nearby hill only had 12 pillars instead of the intended 48, because every time a pillar was completed there was a city-wide celebration - and they ran out of money a quarter of the way through! 

The park near to the train station apparently used to be a lake, and emptying it took the people of Edinburgh over SIXTY YEARS because they did it by filling up large barrels with lake water and rolling them down to the sea. Apparently, when the lake was drained, they found 300 cadavers lying at the bottom- due to that charming olden days tradition of witch ducking....

I honestly cannot recommend the Camera Obscura enough- we spent almost two hours in the museum playing with all the weird mirror tricks, checking out the incredible holograms, and trying to see the magic eye pictures. N.B. I could not do this; magic eye pictures are my nemesis. 






Us, caught on heat-sensitive camera. My nose is always cold, which is
probably the reason it runs ALL THE TIME, like it's in the depths of winter.
Except, for my nose, it's always winter and never Christmas. *sob*

Tom's been insisting for years that he's taller than me....
We'll just see about that.
This mirror-lined corridor was the most fun to take photos in, because it contained hundreds of tiny, colour-changing bulbs behind the glass. The reflections between the two sets of mirrors made it look like the lights were stretching on forever; and by slowing down the exposure on our cameras we managed to get some really unusual shots.







 
Tired out from all the walking/staring at magic eye pictures, we stomped back to the flat and collapsed on the sofas (another plus about Airbnb!) before heading out for dinner. We opted for Rivage, an Indian restaurant that was literally a thirty-second stagger from the front door, and were 
both so glad that we tried it. The food was absolutely, utterly delicious. Tom even declared it one of the best curries he'd ever eaten; and that boy has eaten A LOT of curry. 


Photo nicked from Tom, as I was too greedy busy to photograph it

Stuffed to the brim with vegetable pakoras, mushrooms and peas in a cashew nut sauce, a butterbean and potato side, buttery garlic naan, saffron rice and a mango lassi (and that was just for me!) we stumbled back to the flat to fall into bed and dream about bombing dinosaurs with apples and morphing into caterpillars.

Katie xxx

4 comments:

  1. OOh I wish we'd gone to the Camera Obscura when we were there last year - it sounds so interesting! I do love Edinburgh! Sounds like you had a fabby time :)

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  2. Ooooooooh, what a Fun place!!!! I'd love to go there! Wishing I hadn't refused the free ticket to Edinburgh festival a coupleof years ago!x

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  3. I love the pictures!! I love zoos as well and I adore the boy who wants to be a caterpillar <3 And the Camera Obscura looks and sounds amazing! I wish we had something like that nearby!

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  4. Haha! You crack me up. :D Also: pretty sure that has to be the cutest little-boy-in-a-zoo comment I've ever heard. You've made me really really want to go to Edinburgh now! (really)
    xox
    giedre

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