An authentic Scottish Burns Night
I was lucky enough to be in Edinburgh for Burns Night a couple of days. Actually, I say lucky when what I mean is that I spent days shifting all my plans around and making last minute arrangements with friends to make sure I was north of the border for this cultural and gastronomical celebration!
I decided to Couchsurf in Edinburgh, as my only Scottish friends live much, much further north; the Shetland Isles to be exact. Couchsurfing is a great way to travel on a budget, because you stay with people who live in the cities, sleeping on their couch (as the name suggests). It doesn’t cost you anything, though I usually offer to cook or take them out for a cheap dinner to try and pay my way.
The girl I stayed with in Edinburgh wasn’t actually Scottish, she was an Italian who sold contemporary designer jewellery, but she and all her European friends in the city had organised their own Burns Night celebration, complete with whisky, haggis and crazy poetry. Whisky I’ve tried far too many times to recall and I’ve even eaten haggis once before in Australia, believe it or not. But this was the first time I’d heard any of Robert Burns'poetry, and I’m not sure I really understood a word!
It seemed like all the Italians and Spanish at the party had been practising, and part of the celebration is an address to the haggis, where you quote poetry at this meat dish as it sits waiting to be served. Curious. It did strike me the next day that maybe I hadn’t understood the poems right because it was old Scottish being spoken by new Europeans. Maybe if it had been my Shetlander friends, it would have made a bit more of an impact…
Similar Posts:
Working at Home is Awesome : Working from home is absolutely…
Worcester – a quintessentially English riverside cathedral city : Worcester…
Skiing Holidays are Great, But They’ll Cost You : Ever since we…
Take a Walking Holiday in Scotland : When you go on a holiday…
Comments are closed!