Monday 25 March 2002
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Had a ride on the top half of a double decker bus on the way to the university in the morning. Wonderful!
I got a long and detailed tour of the library in the morning. It was great. They run Voyager Endeavour, including running their own servers.
We had lunch at Cafe Lucano with Evelyn - a small Italian place near the university. Not particularly cheap, but very well done. I had Carbonara, very greasy (as it must be when done right).
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The Signet Library. More pictures here. |
From there the three of us went to the Signet Library, which is even more wonderful than the pictures I saw on the web. The guide book for Edinburgh we have said that the Signet was very pretty, but that "it can only be seen by prior written application." This is when it pays to read your guide book in advance - I had time to track them down on the web, get in touch with the librarian, and arrange a tour. It's a privately held law library, very old. Audrey Walker, the Librarian, gave us a great tour. I took lots of pictures, although we weren't allowed to in the lower library or the former Scottish Parliament room - which is spectacular.
From the Signet we went back a little towards the university to a bank to exchange money (we'd both pretty much finished up the £65 ($100 US) we each exchanged at the airport). Evelyn went back to the University, we went up to the Castle. The castle was marvelous, and the two hours we had before they booted us out at 1700 were completely inadequate. Catherine and I rarely stay at "monuments" longer than that, but this would have been an exception. There are a lot of buildings inside, including a 10th century chapel that they closed just before we got there. The views were incredible - after all, the castle was positioned to see for miles.
Most stuff had closed when we got out - a lot of the city shuts down at 1700. But the "Whisky Heritage Center" didn't, and we went to their bar to try Glenmorangie ten year old and Lagavulin. Glenmorangie is smooth and has no strong aftertaste. The Lagavulin is another Islay (pronounced "Eye-lah") like the Laphroaig - smoother start, very similar aftertaste.
We met Evelyn at 1735 and rode the upper deck of the bus back.
I went to the local grocery store with Evelyn. Catherine stayed at the flat. As I said to Evelyn on the way, I see a lot in the details. Florida orange juice is ungodly expensive (£3 for a liter, where I pay $3 for 2 quarts! of course I'm much closer to Florida ...). I brought back some curry-flavoured (!) Pringles chips, and some Italian Dolcelatte cheese, a mild creamy blue-type cheese that we really enjoyed and completely demolished for dinner.
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