Today,
October 20, 2012, I have been to Dumfries - a city in the south-west Scotland Slovakia
This is a specialized Whisky shop. It offers wide variety of alcoholic beverages at reasonable price. The prime is whisky; of course you would hardly discover the most famous brands, because the shelves are topped with minor local manufacturers. Like with all spirits, quality is the matter personal preference, not the brand. As if in
Above is
the High Street with the typical building that is to be seen on many postcards
from Dumfries . But wait, the most picturesque
image comes later.
The Grey Friars
Kirk. Kirk is the Scottish word for church, one of the many things that
differentiate them from the English. They refused the reformation enforced by
Henry VIII and also did not accept the prayer's book of King James I.
The
painting above shows Robert Bruce killing one of his rivals, John Comyn, in the
church. Bruce wanted to be a king which was not surprising at that time,
because almost everyone born with a silver spoon in his mouth claimed the
rights to the throne. Historians say that Comyn was a traitor but anyone at
that time could be labelled as such, including Bruce. Nevertheless, with the
help of William Wallace he put together and army and in the Early 14th century
really became the king Robert I.
I do not
know how I managed to make this picture with my mobile phone camera. It is the
city panorama from the west bank of the Nith River
On the
other side of the bridge is a museum
of Robert Burns Scotland Scotland ",
who spent the last years of his life in the old mill in Dumfries .
His father was a farmer and therefore he knew how to run the business. Apart
from that he wrote poetry on almost every topic.
I
was hungry so I went to eat haggis. While waiting I asked the chef what is the
haggis made of. I knew that it is basically sheep's stomach stuffed with lungs,
heart and liver; and oats and onion. But recently the manufacturers started to
replace the stomach with artificial casings, apparently from hygienic reasons.
Such a forfeit of the tradition. It was my second time I ate it, but still it
resembles and tastes like the Slovak 'jaternica' - pig intestine stuffed with
minced meat, entrails, blood, rice and spices.
Except
from haggis, the "dinner" was selling burgers and chips, and also the
deep fried Mars bar. It is one of the Scottish modern day specials.
Accidentally, once a mars bar fell into a pan with chips and since then it is
served as a dessert with ice cream. I dare that no one has ever counted the
calories in the whole thing, because it would be no one from four digits.
Instead, I washed the haggis down with Irn-Bru. Scottish non-alcoholic drink,
reportedly their second national drink after whisky. It is of slightly orange
colour and tastes of tutti frutti.
I
could not leave out the Globe Inn, the favourite pub of Robert Burns. Probably
he used to sit there, drink beer, discuss the Gaelic games and get the latest
news from the other guys. He could not chase after the chicks, because women
were not allowed to public houses at that time. Without football and girls
it must have been like a gay bar. Anyway, I tried the "Caledonia best" ale and it was quite nice beer. I
looked into a local newspaper and learned that one of the BBC Scotland
reporters had met Slash. Nice to come across the former Guns & Roses
members in the favourite pub of another great artists.
Maybe
the beer was too strong, but here he came in . Rabbie Burns. He
was giving me some advice on how to write poetry and girls and stuff like that.
I told him that since then football has really caught up, women are allowed to
pubs and we have internet. He reckoned that he how could he spend so much time
in the pub without all these things.
Such was my
second visit to Scotland
