Burns' Night and HitchFest (Jan 25-27)

This entry is from January 25-27, 2008.

Our weekend started out with a Scottish Holiday that we were somewhat excited to celebrate. We had been invited to about a dozen different events for Burn’s Night here in Edinburgh. Burn’s Night celebrates the National Poet Robert Burns on his birthday, January 25. I like to think the Scots just look for any excuse to celebrate haggis and scotch! Robert Burns, as some of you might know, is responsible for such famous works as “Auld Lang Syne” and the poem “To a Mouse”, which is where Of Mice and Men got its famous line: “The best-laid plans of mice and men/Go oft awry” or as it is written in the poem “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley.”

Here is a good link to how they celebrate a traditional Burns Supper in Scotland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_supper#Order_of_the_supper

After reviewing all the invitations we got, we chose the COMPASS Post-Graduate International Student Burns Supper. The tickets were reasonable and included the whole shebang AND Ray could come along with me. So I contacted them about getting tickets, but sadly they had sold out. The other couple events were very lack-luster and were mostly Undergraduates getting together at pubs and listening to bagpipes.

As Ray walked to the tiny store on the corner near our flat, he saw that the restaurant near our house was serving a special Burns Night meal. He went in and made reservations. So around the time of our reservation we got all dolled up and headed over. The place was packed, which made getting to our tiny table for two difficult. Once we were situated they took our drink orders and then never came back.

As we waited with our water and Sprite, we noticed how everyone around us was drinking bottles of wine and Champagne. Most people were ordering the haggis or a bowl of soup and haggis. So as we waited to order, we decided to get a small glass of wine each to celebrate the evening and then also order the haggis meal with Dauphinoise potatoes instead of “tatties” (mashed potatoes), but we wanted to keep the “neeps” (mashed yellow turnips).

For a tiny appetizer we ordered the scallops with blood sausage and an orange citrus sauce. It was interesting and fairly tasty. We also ordered a recommended wine to go with our haggis, because the waitress said the wine we wanted might not go with the haggis very well. So we took her recommendation based on what we told her we liked in our wine. The first sip or so was very good. Then our main course: Haggis (sheep's 'pluck' [heart, liver and lungs], minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours) with drambuie (is a honey- and herb-flavoured golden scotch whisky liqueur made from aged malt whisky, heather honey and a secret blend of herbs and spices) cooked into it, neeps (mashed yellow turnips), and Dauphinoise potatoes (a lighter form of potatoes al gratin) which we understood we’d have to pay a little extra for.

Sadly, the wine tasted horrible with the haggis. There was no complimenting whatsoever. I actually didn’t want to drink the wine anymore. All of the flavor was sucked out of it and it was very dry. The potatoes this time had hardly any flavor. I really wanted to add ketchup or something to them. The haggis, though, was pretty good. It wasn’t the kind of haggis I had tried at Fort William during our Highland tour. That haggis was more like meatloaf. This was more like a stew of meat with a sweet flavor to it. I enjoyed eating it with little bites of the neeps. They complimented each other wonderfully.

Once we finished, we decided to splurge just a little more for this special occasion and get a small dessert. I got the bread and butter pudding and Ray got a whiskey, cherry and white chocolate triffle that was very alcoholic. My bread and butter pudding was kind of hard and crispy and not very good until you got past the outside layer.

Overall, this was hardly as impressive as the last time we had come here on my birthday. And we were even less impressed once we got the bill. The wine the waitress recommended was at least a pound more than the wine we had wanted to try. We were charged the whole price of our meal plus an extra 3.50 for the potatoes. When we checked the menu price it was the potatoes as a side by themselves were 2.50. So why were we charged the full price of a meal plus the price of the side? We should have gotten a serving of tatties the way that she charged it. I debated with Ray over complaining, but the waitress had come back so we could pay and when she didn’t offer to add a tip to the bill we walked out claiming her little additives were her tip. Especially because we were so mad that what the amount we budgeted was spoiled by her little additives.

And with that, we went home and that was our first Burn’s Night. Next year I intend to get tickets to the COMPASS event or maybe we’ll be in a position to host our own little Burns Night according to the above instructions. Who knows, it could be fun! But most the parties that we were invited to were just people getting together and drinking and having tiny bites of haggis.

Our next event that weekend that as so traditionally Edinburgh was a fundraiser. My friend Teale, a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies, was screening some of her films as a small fundraiser, called HitchFest, at the Brass Party to help raise money for her friends, Mike and Helena, who are hitchhiking from Edinburgh to Morocco to raise money for education in rural Africa with Link Community Development (a registered charity) (http://www.lcd.org.uk/). Also helping Mike and Helena were a few musicians and some photographers. The event took place at the Brass Monkey, a local pub that is incredibly awesome! They have a screening room in the back which is set up in such a way that makes the whole room one big comfy, raised lounge with oriental rugs covering the foam platform. Authors like J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), as well as modern, local authors like Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith (44 Scotland Street) have made it their local hang out or praised the glory of its originality. One of these days I'm going to get good pictures of the inside of it. Right now all I have are some outside pictures and some dark pictures from the event. Bottom line is, the pub is small, quaint, clean, creative and absolute fun! The drinks are even reasonably priced and one of their walls is plastered with various photos from films, of famous people, and other fun memorabilia.

While the donations on the invitation sounded like they would be a lot (5 pounds a person), when we got there it was simply whatever you could give to help out. And that's how it worked for everything. I ended up purchasing two prints cheap. One for myself to hang in my tiny room that I am trying to make into a personal sanctuary and one for my brother Aaron. We talked with Teale and her girlfriend for a bit, catching up after the holidays. And then Teale showed her various short films. They were quirky and lots of fun. I did not expect this from Teale and it actually made me sad, because I wish I knew the Teale who had made these movies. (http://www.teale.rawcity.net/)

After hanging out for a little while longer, we told Teale we had to get going. We had a brief conversation where we gushed over how films and how much we enjoyed them. Then Teale and I tossed around the idea of making a screening event for people to share their personal films. I loved the idea, because I love promoting people's work. So we'll see where that goes and if it isn't done soon, it will be done eventually.

Overall it was an interesting weekend, experiencing new things and being part of something different. Our list of things to do in Scotland is getting shorter and shorter. Now we can cross-off "fundraiser" and "haggis" and "Burn's Night." HA!

Photobucket Album