Greetings from Edinburgh, Scotland. Lesson number one: how to properly pronounce Edinburgh from the wisdom of Ross Henderson.
Let's start by saying, "bread and butter." Good! Now go ahead and take out the 'br' from "bread." Excellent! Now we're going to remove the 'er' from "butter" to make it, "buttah." Now say it all together quickly, "'ead and buttah." Perfect! Great job!
As soon as I got here, Ross started treating me like his own brother. His wife, Becca was in Paris so we had some time to hang as just the guys. We got back to his place, snarfed a pizza and drank a brew or two but unfortunately it was quite late and time to hit the hay.
However, I woke up to some coffee, toast, eggs and bacon from Ross which was awesome! What a swell pal, right? We started planning out the day and it quickly became apparent that we wanted to play some music, and we wanted to do it for a crowd. We grabbed some instruments and headed for the Royal Mile which is a long stretch of road with shops and restaurants and a lot of foot traffic. Looking up or down the Royal Mile is a stunning view each way.
We looked around for a good spot and we found a high cathedral wall with pillars sticking out about nine feet apart (or just under 3 meters for you metric peeps). We nestled in and Ross took out what is called a Cajòn which is a box that you sit on that is a drum with different sounds depending on where you hit it. It is amazing! As soon as I started a song on guitar and Ross jumped in, we both had the chills and our synergy was unstoppable. We took turns switching between guitar, cajòn and singing lead and harmonies. We played for three hours without even realizing it. We had so much fun and we even made about 35£ which is around $54 or so. We did the same thing on the second day and made over 40£! It was so much fun, I can see Ross and I doing it on 16th mall in Denver when we both get back. Funny side note, Ross started singing impromptu things about people as they walked by and I would harmonize. We had a lot of good laughs singing about people walking and texting or weeding the flowers in front of their shop.
Monday night after busking, we went to an open mic that Ross used to frequent in the years past at a place called Binkies. We met up with his good friend Cam who is an amazing musician and who runs the sound. We chatted a bit and Ross signed us up for time slots. He went first and did some great songs accompanied by Cam on the cajòn and then it was my turn. I played three originals and had Ross accompany me on two of them. It was definitely a memorable time.
On Tuesday we laid low and got an amazing shawarma with tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, onions, garlic sauce, chili and chicken. It was absolutely delicious. We also had haggis which consists of sheep lung, pork fat and cow liver. It's amazingly good, especially with some mashed potatoes. Becca got in that night and I made some stir fry for dinner. Then we watched the Game of Thrones season finale and called it a night.
The next day, Ross and I went to Leith which is really close to Edinburgh and we had some good pints of beer and drams of whisky along the way. In Scotland, the birthplace of Scotch, they just call it, "whisky" with no 'e' at the end. We had Aberlour cask single malt which was insanely delicious. This certain bottle isn't sold in the states which is disappointing but I'm glad I had some out here. Later on, we stopped in a bar that used to be a bank and the half pints were exactly half the cost of a full pint, so we ordered two half pints of different beers at a time so we could try a big variety. We had some good ones and some not-so-good ones but it was well worth it.
That evening we did two awesome things. First, we went to the oldest pub in Edinburgh which was fun and then we hit up a well-known monument at night for some pictures and a view. At the pub, we played an older version of bowling which was entertaining and we had some great pints. The place was called Sheep Heid Inn. Pretty sure it's named after a sheep's head because there were a few hanging on the walls. They had a good beer selection and Becca was quite happy with the wine as well.
In fact, huge shout out to Ross who took all of these pictures and he did a brilliant job. He has such a creative mind.
After the walk, we hit the hay and he and Becca left the next morning for a wedding in Spain leaving me with a day by myself in Edinburgh before heading off to Paris. I got some errands out of the way in the morning then showered up and hit the Royal Mile again to do some more busking. It definitely wasn't even close to as fun without Ross, but a nice lady from Tokyo came up and asked if I could play an original so she record it which I obliged by playing a One Way Ride tune called, Heart of Stone. A large group of Chinese people walked by during a break and I heard them speaking Mandarin so asked them where they were from which stopped a couple of them in their tracks and people started asking the Chinese tour guide why I could speak Chinese, but none of them stayed to chat.
I used the money I made to get a traditional Scottish Haggis dish called Haggis, Neeps and Tatties with Whisky Sauce. Basically it was haggis with mashed turnips (reminds me of the taste of spaghetti squash), mashed potatoes and a nice whisky sauce and it was all delicious but so rich! I headed back to Ross and Becca's to finish getting ready for my early early flight on Friday.
I'll definitely miss Scotland, but not so much when Ross and I jam out in the 16th Street mall. My next stop is Paris with my buds Adrien and Sean so until then, bon voyage!
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