Dumfries - another day in Scotland

Today, October 20, 2012, I have been to Dumfries - a city in the south-west Scotland. On Monday I am taking farewell from the Lake District so I had the last chance to benefit from the proximity of my favourite country (after Slovakia). I got out from the ScotRail train at the station. The ticket was even cheaper than the price I found on the internet the day before. We had a 50 minute delay, but I did not hurry.

 The station won the best station price in two consecutive years, 1986 & 1987.

      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 Slovakia someone bottled the home distilled slivovica from the very vast village valley where bača still does not have the internet connection and put it on sale.

    Here is the Shakespeare street with the Odeon cinema - little bit of culture for the people. Locals are called Doonhamers. It originates in 19th century when many men from Dumfries worked at the constructions if Glasgow. Actually, they built the Glasgow. When asked whereabouts they are from they would say: 'down home' - 'doonhame'. Scottish English is quite rough, with 'R' pronounced everywhere, even in words which originally do not contain the consonant.

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. Purposely I used "a", because there must be more of them in Scotland. Burns is their national poet, the "son of 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. Nice country. I should visit it more often.