DAY 2 -Evening

Saturday night's gonna be alright, gonna be, it's gonna be alright now baby...it is if I can get out this damn bed.

Into the second day without Red Bull, and I can feel its effects. Low energy, hard to concentrate, what are all these people talking about? It's when you don't drink the stuff that you suffer.

Finally was able to drag myself out of the nap phase about a 1/2 hour before I'm supposed to meet Colm and Lauren. Lauren's friends Phil and Susanna are joining us too. Head out to a place called (of all things) the Brass Monkey...I was just hoping they wouldn't be playing the Beastie Boys when I got there.....

Found Lauren and Co. in the back room and proceeded to try Stella, another Scottish Lager. Quite good and tasty. Colm showed up and we began to trade stories, jokes and whimsical comments. It was interesting sitting in this pub with these friends. One of the things you come increasing cognizant of is that, just like in MN or the South, you're often the only Black person in the room, difference is here no one says anything about it...instead you can tell they notice you're American, but again, to their credit, no one says anything about it. More interesting is that to these friends, it didn't matter and that's the kind of world it's good to be a part of. I mean look at the times that we're in, that a Black man can come to Scotland to trace his heritage and no one bats an eye....

The do spit takes instead.

So then Lauren and I decide to head out for dinner, everyone else has someplace they need to be. She's really hungry (mentions this a couple of time during drinking, and then apologizes for mentioning it) and it really excited about skipping the pizza joint she'd plan to take us to, and hitting her favorite Indian restaurant.

I mean REALLY excited...

and really hungry....

And we get there, she's practically dancing in the streets.....and it's vegetarian.

ALL vegetarian....

And I look at her and remember her saying how hungry she was, and I look at the menu, and it's all vegetarian....and I'm struggling with this one of those monkeys working with the block puzzle. I know these things fit together, I just can't seem to connect them....

really hungry...vegetarian restaurant.

Lauren eats meat, she's not a vegetarian. She's lactose intolerant, but not a vegetarian. I've got a number of friends who have become vegetarians and fooled themselves into believing that all those vegetables and cheese curds are satiating, but not generally meat eaters. So I'm trying to figure out where the joke is...and there isn't any...or maybe that's the joke, but she's entirely serious. So I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to go to get a real meal after this when the waiter comes....oh well, I think, I'll try and fill up on bread.

~Later~

Okay, I've got to admit the food was good....not the kind of things you do to fix "really hungry" but good nonetheless. If I was ever going to try and believe that twigs, berries and granola satisfied me. I'd go there.

Dropped Lauren off (funny, you couldn't even notice any weight distribution when she got out, will try and encourage her to eat real food more often) and headed back to the Hotel Ceilidh-Donia (such a lovely place, such a lovely place), where it turned out the owner and some friends (in addition to other people in the bar) were having a pint and invited me to join them. Nobody would let me by a round unfortunately, but we had a rousing good time...and that's a story for another time....