A Foodie’s Guide to a Weekend in Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh and I have a strange relationship. I was an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh for four years, so the city should be full of fond student memories. And in some ways it is. But it was also the period of my life during which I felt the least secure, the least confident, and the most depressed. Unlike many of my classmates, I learnt a lot: I threw myself into my courses on postmodernism and phonetics and other useless but lingua-geek topics that I can now barely remember with a gusto that most students reserve for downing a yard of ale. I made friends: friends whose popularity left me agonising about when they were going to see though me; friends who I’ve now mostly lost touch with due to moving overseas. I was cold: cold enough that I could see my breath in the mornings; cold enough that even with three pairs of pyjamas and two duvets I couldn’t keep warm. I was invisible: the girl who no one remembered at parties and who never had a boyfriend. But it was during my time at Edinburgh that I got a chance to study abroad - and that’s how I first came to Amsterdam.

Last time I was in Edinburgh, I fed myself for £15 a week and nursed endless cups of tea in my frozen fingers; this time, I was determined to be warm and well-fed. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).