In Search of a Battered Mars Bar

It was a cold and rainy night as I traversed the streets of Stirling.  My goal was the elusive, the magical BATTERED MARS BAR.  (Translation: Fried Milky-way.)  As I walked, the rain drumming on my umbrella, the water seeping through the holes in my shoes, I considered how I had arrived in this situation.

Each week, the staff at the ISS give us a suggestion of something Scottish to try. This weeks was the battered Mars Bar.  They also gave us a suggestion of a place to buy it from.  We had decided that it sounded delicous so on Wednesday we went out in search of it.  First we stopped at the suggested establishment.  It was closed.  We walked for a bit, had lunch and went grocery shopping, all the while stopping and asking different people where we could find a battered Mars Bar but with no success.  We had finally given up and were heading back to the bus stop when we noticed that the original chip shop was now open.     We went in, elated.  We could smell our prize wafting in the oily air.  We eagerly stood in line and when it was our turn, we asked for our Mars Bars.

"We don't do those anymore," said the man behind the counter.  Dejectedly, we headed back to the bus stop but we were determined to finish our quest at a later date.

And so we struck out once again into Stirling.  We first stopped in what appeared to be a Middle eastern pizza place.  We asked if they had battered Mars Bars and the guy said they didn't but they could fry them up for us if we bought them and brought them back.  We were elated.  We decided to see if we could find a convenience store that sold candy in the mall.  Little did we know, the mall closes at 5:30 on Friday nights.  Once again we hung our heads and went out into the rain.

As we headed up the street, we passed another fish and chips shop and went in.

"Do you do battered mars bars?" we asked.

"Yeah, we do, replied the Scottish guy behind the counter.

"Yes!"

"But we're out of Mars Bars," he continued.  "If you go get them and bring them back, we'll do them for you."

"Where can we get them?" we asked in desperation.

"Just up the street," he replied.  So we raced up the street to a little shop and bought our Mars Bars and then rushed back down the the chip shop.

As  Scottish guy #2 prepared our deep-fried delecacies, Scottish guy #1 asked us different question and figured out that we'd only been in Scotland a few days.  He asked if we'd tried haggis and we said we hadn't so he pulled out a deep fried haggis for us to try as well.

We took a few goofy pictures and then headed back out into the rain again because the chip shop didn't have anywhere to sit.  Eventually, we found ourselves sitting in the William Wallace pub.  Just picture in your heads what a Scottish pub should look like.  That is the Wallace pub.  We sat in the pub eating our haggis and Mars bars, drinking cider and listening to golf on the TV.  It was a very Scottish night.