You call this breakfast?

You might have heard that we were staying in a B&B in Edinburgh.  What you didn't know was that that second B stands for Breakfast.  Our hostess, Jill includes breakfast in the cost of the night's stay.  This lovely breakfast came with a silverware set-up to rival The Waldorf Astoria.  There were spoons for everything.  Three spoons for the jams, 2 large spoons to eat with, a spoon for your coffee, a spoon for the fruit...BUT, we never had enough and found ourselves wiping them off so we could have one more spoon.  There has to be a limit to the number of spoons you might for a simple breakfast, right?

The first two mornings, we had fresh Scottish strawberries, 3 choices of mystery cereal (all in glass jars with no names), croissants (plain and chocolate), some strange bread-like roll with sunflower seeds and poppy seeds on top (the same 2 kept showing up reheated and presented as new for three days), marmalade, strawberry jam and apricot jam, orange juice, yogurt and coffee.  The yogurt was called Greek yogurt.  Oddly enough its consistency and taste were exactly like cream cheese.  I'm not talking about sort of like, I'm talking exactly like.  We saw the container and it said "Greek yogurt", but this was like no yogurt we have ever had.  What do you do with the yogurt once you have taken it?  You mix it with the mystery cereal and strawberries and call it a parfait.

We are Starbuck fans, so when someone serves us a coffee press without giving instructions, we are somewhat lost.  Is there a way to keep it from making an inch of sludge in the bottom of your cup?  And, when you want a second cup, do you just jump up and make your own?  Turns out, yes you do.  But, watch out because there is a formula for the number of spoon fulls of ground coffee to hot water.  And, if you get it wrong, the coffee is either so weak you think it might be muddy water, or so much you get the caffeine rush of your life.

Jill has offered to cook us a hot breakfast every day...in addition to the spread above.  Last night, we agreed to let her cook the breakfast, but did tell her that the fruit, croissants and coffee were almost too much already.  But, hey when someone insists on making you breakfast, you let them.  Since we had to leave this morning to catch our tour bus, we asked Jill to have breakfast ready at 8AM.  At 8:02, we sat down to the same fruit, cereal, breads, jams, and coffee we have seen the last 3 mornings and watched as Jill baked the rasher of bacon, poached eggs (over cooked to the level just under hard-boiled), 2 baked tomatoes and a baked mushroom cap.  The bacon was good, the eggs do-able, but what is it about a baked tomato and mushroom that the English and Scots feel they have to include with every breakfast?  By U.S. standards, these are not side dishes that would normally be included with breakfast.  Would it be rude to ask them to hold the tomato and mushroom?  I hope not.

Our driver, Liam from Rabbie's Highland Tours took off at 9:00 AM today.  First stop, the edge of the Firth of Forth to see the train bridge and the car bridge.  The car bridge is, according to Liam,  "modeled after the Golden Gate bridge" (the most beautiful and most photographed bridge in the world), but much smaller and only similar in that it is a suspension bridge, but who are we to quibble about that. 

The suspension car bridge over the Firth of Forth

Next stop, Dunkeneld Cathedral on the River Tay.

 Tonight, we are in Invernesss at a hotel on the River Ness.  We have an early start tomorrow, so bye for now.