Burn's Night Celebration

Despite whatever idea of plans I had earlier in the day, they all completely changed when I learned that yesterday was Burn's Day -- a scottish poets birthday, which meant that many pubs across london were celebrating with a truly scottish celebration. I went to a pub called Rob Roys where some friends of mine had just finished eating dinner. I ate dinner at home to save money, but if I had known how much food I would be offered later that night I don't know if I would've made a point to go home. The celebration included various scottish assets. Cricket was playing on the TV (a game i've yet to understand), a man playing bagpipes walked through the tables, occasionally stopping for some sort of toast invovling the strongest whiskey i'd ever taken a sip of, this stuff just runs through your entire body and really "warms you up" i only tasted a sip of someone elses and it was so strong tasting! Later in the night one of the men wearing a scottish kilt recited a poem to everyone in front of a huge plate of haggis, if you haven't heard of this and are easily made sick to the stomach... skip over this description: its a collection of mostly lung and heart, and also kidney and liver and the fat from around organs all mixed together and typically served with mash and turnips. pretty gross ey?

but i tried it anyway! it was free for a big plate of haggis, buttery mashed potatoes, and turnips. it tasted okay... but the texture was really really hard to handle! chewy and pasty, but the taste itself was good. i don't know if i'd order it again, but i'm glad i tried it.

Later that night we went to brixton planning to hear an afro-latin quartet, but the place was packed and it was hard to hear the music. so we found yet another place celebrating burns night, this time with a whole scottish band and lots and lots of scottish dancing. not knowing how to dance the scottish way we mostly watched and clapped and listened, it was really nice though. i thought i'd re-cap that night just because it was so great! even though i'm in "england" there are so many nationalities that are celebrated here (example: today is aussie day!). but i think they don't much celebrate 4th of july for americans... ;) alright, i'm off to enjoy the SUN, yes its actually sunny here today!

jo