I am going to leap over day three in Scotland because that was mostly family functions and as I’ve said before, I don’t want to delve too deeply into family things on my blog.    So onto day four….

This was when we decided to be tourists and spend some cash!    So we headed on up to the main shopping street in Edinburgh called Princes Street.    Despite the day being Sunday, the shops were all open.    You see, Britain doesn’t have any stupid laws about having to close on a Sunday like here in Germany.    British shops don’t close because it’s a day of rest or because it’s a day of worship or any of that crap.  No, they treat it pretty much like any other day, shops-wise.   The opening hours might be a little shorter on a Sunday but they still open.

So I decided it was a tragedy that I had been in Great Britain for three whole days and I hadn’t bought a book yet!    So my first stop was Waterstones bookstore and when we saw the “buy two, get one free!” offer in the window, Monika started swearing in several different languages and I started dancing towards the door.

Books, books, glorious books!   Which ones will I buy first?

The upshot of it was that I walked away with 9 books (I would eventually come back to Germany with 14).    I mean, what do you expect when you put me in a “buy two, get one free” scenario and a credit card in my pocket?   I mean, come on!   Get real!  

As we walked along Princes Street (well by this point, I was staggering along with my 9 heavy books), we noticed how tacky the street was becoming with their tourist shops.    The street used to be filled with large respectable stores – now the west end area is filled with cheap touristy tacky shops selling everything from plastic Nessie monsters to cheap kilts.   Each of the stores blares out Scottish bagpipe music from morning to night and what I find most amusing is that NONE of the staff are Scottish!    It’s very telling that in these “authentic Scottish souvenir stores”, there are no Scottish people working there.

There was one shop though called the Edinburgh Woollen Mill which is a very old and respectable establishment (Prince Charles is known to shop there for his tweed jackets) and Monika bought some scarfs and blankets there for a knock-down price.    By this point, we were seriously wondering how we were going to fit everything into the suitcases going back home!

As the afternoon wore on, we made our way to a theatre on the Bridges because we had tickets to see a comedian called Dean Haglund.   You may know him better as Langly from the X-Files (one of the Lone Gunman).    I did a little write-up on the concert – the X-Files Improv – on Geeks Are Sexy here.   But needless to say, it was a fantastic show and highly recommended.   Plus meeting Dean afterwards was a real treat.   A very nice guy.

That makes two X Files people that I have met.   About ten or twelve years ago, I met Jerry Hardin who played Deep Throat in the first season.    He was doing a signing session in Edinburgh and I still have the X Files magazine that he signed.