Blogging from Edinburgh

It was a mad, mad day which started at 4.45am when I had to wake up to be at the airport for my 6.45am flight from Bournemouth to Edinburgh. Steve had to wake up at the same time and drove me to the airport, bless his cotton.

So I got down from the plane at Edinburgh airport and started snapping pictures of EVERYTHING just to show my friends on Facebook and ended up queueing at the wrong queue for the wrong bus *DUH*.

I was finally directed to the right stop, waiting for the right number bus after much palavar...

The bus came, I got on without any further incident and then comes the part of WHICH STOP SHOULD I GET DOWN AT?

My best mate and I had carefully 'engineered' this plan, where I would ring her upon leaving the airport, and then ring her again when the bus passes by ASDA (I know, ingenius)... and then she would start walking to the bus stop and then I would see her standing at the bus stop and I would somehow see her from a mile ahead, press the bell and get off. Simple? No.

So I thought to be safe (in case she somehow doesn't get to the stop before the bus gets there), I told the nice driver to let me know when my stop would be.

The whole way, I was craning my neck, spotting my 'landmarks' and making my calls to alert my mate and then as I had anticipated, when the nice driver told me to get off at the stop, my friend was no where to be seen !!! Cheeky monkey !!!

Anyway she came two seconds after that and we started walking back to her flat, which was conveniently situated right in the city centre of Edinburgh.

It's truly amazing that although we haven't seen each other for 4 years, as soon as we started catching up and talking about old times, it was as if we've seen each other only last week. The only annoying bit of it is that I have ballooned up to the size of a baboon and she is still the same as ever, a stick insect.

Ding, my best mate, was a secondary school friend and we went through a lot in high school together, even after high school for a brief period of time we were in college together before I got accepted into MPIK. So, we go way back and it was really wonderful to be seeing each other again and do nothing but chat.

Obviously it would seem silly not to venture out and do a bit of sight seeing of the city centre now that I've come all the way here so we went out to Rose Street and had lovely mussels in Mussels Inn (where else?). It was absolutely yummilicious and delicious. We both love seafood so we were appreciating each other's mussels cooked in different flavours. I had the mussels cooked in Thai broth and she had hers Moroccan. Very, very spicy but she thoroughly enjoyed hers.



In the evening, it was one of her work colleague's birthday so we went to a posh restaurant called 'Tigerlily' for a meal to help celebrate her birthday, joint by my best mate's flatmate. The decor inside was very nice and the people drinking cocktail at the bar were all dressed to the nines. I was in my scruffy jeans as usual and did feel just a teeny bit conscious about not dressing up.

Dinner was a bit disappointing as I had to send my food back (first time was undercooked, and when it came back it was overcooked).... So I had a word with them and managed to get my main course taken off the bill (but poor me I only ate half of it coz I couldn't stomach overcooked rice noodles that taste like a lump of mash) so I went home almost empty stomached and had to munch on bread when I got back to her flat. Anyone who's had the experience of dining with me more than once is familiar with my 'amazing' luck of always getting badly prepared food and having to send food back into the kitchen. Seriously I am not being picky but it's just extremely bad luck that everytime I dine out, there is almost always something wrong with my food. Bizarre. Absolutely mind boggling.

By the way, am blogging from a netbook that my friend's just bought herself yesterday and it is absolutely amazing !! Fely I am so envious of you!! I might have to get myself one of these babies. Have got the netbook on a cushion on me lap and it's brillllll-iant !!

Hmmmmmmm..... (yearning....)