Edinburgh has a downtown now?

The castle is a rip-off, don’t bother. The Museum of Scotland is good, though, and the Royal Museum of Scotland next-door (confusing names—the M of S is a modern building about Scottish history, and the R M is a Victorian building about everything else)

Climb Arthur’s Seat, assuming it’s not cloudy.

Heroin?

eat in maison bleu

Heroin?

I only brought works for me ’n’ th’wife, so that’d be unfair to mum-n-law.

Depends what you want to do I suppose... I like the modern art gallery and the associated Dean gallery up Belford road... Went to a very nice Chinese restaurant on Morrison street on Friday there, called Chop Chop, which was apparently quite traditional stuff; not like the usual Chinese restaurant. Dead cheap too.

The museum on Chambers Street is good, the old bit being an amazing building, though I think they’ve taken away the stuffed animals doing funny things in recent years. We had a work party in that bit a few years ago, which amazed me, given that drunk people were paddling in the pool whilst surrounded by the plunderings of the British Empire.

Yeah, I definitely recommend Arthur’s Seat or at least the Salsbury Crags, which are really not much of a hike from right downtown.

My favourite pub is The Waverley, with its scratchy gramopohonish music, low lamps and relative quiet.

I’ve had only so-so experiences at Chop Chop. My favourite places to eat are probably The City Cafe (which is secretly home to great ebts), and the pricier Urban Angel and David Bann’s (vegetarian). Mains are still only £8-£12ish, which is par for the course in the UK right?

The Waverley is good, and so is The Auld Hoose, about 10 minutes walk from there up the Pleasance.

I like the Waverley, yes, but the Auld Hoose! It’s a disgusting old man’s pub! No thanks!

I like Burlington Berties, and other than that I’m pretty much not too fussy about pubs. A good jukebox, these days is hard to find, though BBs is good and the Melville, or err Melville street has one of these hard drive ones that’s got lots of stuff on it.

I aim to hit up David Bann, as I’m a vegetarian and my wife’s a part-time vegan (the other part of the time, though, she’s a scrapple-and-haggis connoisseur). This afternoon, we ate at Henderson’s, which was surprisingly good.

I like all the pubs I’ve visited so far — about 10, I guess — but there’s not been much to distinguish one from another, except for signs in the window warning patrons not to don “football colors”, on pain of an ass-to-street application of boot. But, being that I’m working hard on my disgusting-old-man cred, I ought visit the Waverly for some technical tips and such.

The Auld Hoose was an old-man pub until it changed hands three or four years ago. It’s a lot better now.

Oh, right, and I’ve visited about 6 record stores so far. 2 Fopps, Avalanche, and a few the names of which I can’t recall. Nobody seems to give a shit about local music, which is a big downer for me. Even the most modest “local” music section at a hep disquerie can easily claim US$100 from my sidearm pocket without a sneeze. I mean, where’s the support yr local scene mafiolice, hyuh?

get drunk and listen to styx.

(Auld Hoose) Oh I see... I haven’t looked at it for 15 years, I suppose.

As for a local thing, you could try going to Fast, which is a club at Moray House on Holyrood road.. I think it’s on the 29th and they usually have bands on... See here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=42430390

I would agree with getting drunk and listening to Styx, though I wish “Babe” was about the pig. There used to be a soft rock night on at the Pond on Salamander street, but I’ve no idea if it still is on.

Bit surprised you didn’t find much interest in local music in Avalanche—maybe you asked the wrong person. One of the managers used to be in Jesse Garon and various other 80’s indie bands, and they do keep sections for local releases, old and new

Oh, and the Kalpna is really outstanding Indian vegetarian establishment.

I didn’t ask anyone. I did comb the rather small shop a few times looking for a local music section and found nothing, tho. I’ll go back and ask and not leave until I’m given a proper local section, next time.

There are two branches of Avalanche—the West Nicholson Street one being the bigger. Just a couple of blocks from the Kalpna, as it happens!

I’ll have to hit the West Nicholson store, then. Whoever said that the quickest way to get the Internet to answer a question is to provide a wrong one was surely a wise person.

och, but kalpna is pretty pish.

I have to say I didn’t like it. I went there with work once and it was like muesli with curry powder in it. Still lots of people say it’s great, and I tend to want something’s flesh.

Khushis on victoria street is probably the best indian restaurant in Edinburgh, not sure what the veggie selection is like though.

there’s a nice pub that i went to last time, it was under a bridge.

i forget the name. but it was nice. and has karaoke on

Bannermans?

berties?

We did the Edinburgh Castle and David Bann today; both were good, but not sublime. I can’t say that I care for how it gets dark at 4:30. This surprised even a barkeep one pub-hop from our apt.

I’d intended to try some on the way home, but since every bar reputed to serve absinthe was out of it — a real disappointment — I decided to try one of the two Scottish “specialties” everyone’s heard of: the deep-fried Mars bar. I don’t think anyone can finish these things, except on a dare.

Indian food is pretty much out of the question, since there are five million great Indian restaurants in San Francisco. Ergo, what’s the point?

Tomorrow: Another tour to god knows where. I hope I can make it to the lower Avalanche before we visit yet another castle.

I am very surprised that no-one has said “get on a bus to Glasgow” yet. The pub Ken refers to is indeed Bannermans, unless he has been secretly revisiting Edinburgh and going to other pubs. We found a nice Thai restaurant down some steps off Cockburn Street which does good veggie (and non-veggie) food.

xpost but DUDE did you not know that indian food began in GREAT BRITAIN?????! that’s like going to china and say pssst there are loads of great chinese takeaways in milton keynes!

that kalpna place sounds pish though

OK, I’ll ‘fess up: I’m burned-out on Indian. Vegetarian haggis is my new frontier.

I did take a bus to Glasgow, by the way, but it stopped there for like 15 min, and I totally didn’t have enough time to logon to ILX and find the supreme Glasgow vittle action hub.