Edinburgh
So Lisa and I started our travels at about 5 am. Luckily I kept my skype on because my alarm didn’t go off and Lisa had to wake me up. The flight to Endinburgh was nice and short and only took about 45 minutes or so. When we got into the city center we amazingly found our hostel unbelievably easily. We just made our way to the giant castle and then right in front of our noses was the Castle Rock Hostel. Awesome! The name of my room as the underwear room and my bed name was Thong. That’s a nice little side point. After we got their we went out to explore the city. About halfway down the main street, the Royal Mile, we found a cigar store and decided it would be awesome to buy Ryan a nice Cuban cigar to smoke for his birthday. We bought him two, a Monte Cristo 3 and a Cohiba.
After the cigar store within a few minutes we walked by an overzealous tour guide encouraging us to join his free tour that afternoon. It was a walking tour and would take about 3 or3.5 hours to complete. While at first we weren’t sure if we were going to do it, by the end of the tour we were really glad that we had. Doug told us pretty much anything that we would have wanted to know about Edinburgh and even more. He was a fantastic story teller. Apparently Edinburgh is also a very haunted tour and the second half of our tour (after our lunch at an irish pub with a deal for tours) focused a lot on these haunting and all the stuff that happened in past history. Some crazy prison hauntings that have even been reported as recently as 2003. After our tour we went back to the hostel for a much needed nap. Since Lisa and I were in separate rooms we decided to just meet in the main room around 6ish. When I woke up from my nap though there was a guy named Allen who said that he was goin to go for a hike up this hill to watch the sunrise. Sounded pretty cool to me and I figured I would join him. The only problem was that Lisa was no where to be found and I had no way to call her or get into her room. So I left her a note and went for a walk with Allen and two other dudes from South Africa. I forget the name of the hill but it was at the very end of the Royal Mile next to the Parliament building. It looked steep but it didn’t take too long to get up to and the view was incredible. You could see the entire city and it was really awesome. It was also cool to talk to the guys because they were from such different places. (allen was actually a high school teacher in London but is from Australlia) On our walk back we went by a place that sold deep fried mars bars. Sounded interesting enough so we split one for the 3 of us. (one guy had given up chocolate for lent) It was a very interesting taste. I wouldn’t mind trying it again someday.
Anyway once I got back Lisa was hanging out in the main room and so we decided to walk down to the store and get some dinner. I told her all about the place we had just been and how we definitely had to take Ryan there and that it would be the perfect place to smoke his cigars. For dinner we were able to get some really cheap sandwiches from the grocery store and I decided that my beer of choice would be a Newcastle. Seemed fitting. We enjoyed some dinner and then decided to go to some clubs to see what the music scene was like. We went down to the main road where all the clubs are on and we made our first decision based on Doiiugs recommendation for a nice open mic night. I forget the name of the place now but it was like Colonel something or others. It was like 3 stories underground and smelt horrible and damp and was easily the dirtiest place I’ve ever been to for a drink but that just added everything to the atmosphere. It wasn’t that crowded when we got there and there were probably only like 10 or 15 people there but then after a little bit a tour group came in or a pub crawl or something and it picked up considerably. After that bar we decided to check out something a little bit different. We decided to go to ….. it was a pretty cool place and an indie band had just finished polkaying when we got there. The next group to go on looked like a total metal band but theyactually played cover songs and were actually really good. Theo only thing that they were bad at was that they played like crazy happy dance songs and then would play a slow not dancing song so it was pretty poor planning. Still really good though. We stayed there for an hour or so and then headed next door where there was a mates of state-ish band playing with a guy and a girl and a piano and guitar. That was pretty cool but ended not to long after we got there. On our walk back we got a little bit lost but luckily eidburg is pretty tiny so it didn’t take us long to right ourselves. AND we got some fries from some place called the pizza palace. A massive order of them that we ate all the way up until walking into our hostel. A great decision. We had had an awesome first night in Edinburgh and the next morning Ryan was due into the city for his one day trip to Edinburg for his birthday. Sweet.
So the day that Ryan got here we started out with a tour of the castle. A little pricey but something you have to do in the city. There were some cool views of stuff in their and a lot of the stuff was pretty self guided so it was nice. They showed you the prisons and the barracks and the meeting rooms etc. After the castle we grabbed a quick lunch at the hostel before making our way to the top of the hill. Before we got to the hill we took a nice little pit stop at the coffe shop where J.K. ROwling wrote harry potter. that was pretty epic. she had a great seat and you can see the castle that was the influence in the background.
We took our time walking over their and showed Ryan some of the highlights from our tour the day before. When we got up the hill the sun was out and the weather was perfect for an afternoon of chillin. At one point Ryan something along the lines of man it would be awesome if we had a few beers or something to do up here. Almost on cue, Lisa pulled out some Bullmer as I took out the box with his gift in it. He was pumped about the cigars and I think he really really enjoyed them. We hung out up there and smoked the cigars for close to an hour before we had to put them out and we all took a great nap. Once the sun went down we all got up pretty much at the same time and continued to just talk until we started walking down the hill. I thought it was a pretty good idea to roll down the hill and I think one of the two got it on video. So that should be fun to watch. After the hill I got Ryan and Lisa to try the fried Mars bar too before Ryan got on his 35 bus to go to the airport. I think he had a pretty sweet birthday. Definitely a great memory.
For dinner that night I made myself some awesome Paela from Lidl. Really really really great tasting dinner for myself and it only cost like 2 pounds. I definelty have to find that here in Dublin. That night we went to a few places for music but nothing was too special. At the end of the night though we ended up at a dance club called Caberet Voltiare. It was another really cool underground club that played some great house music. We left around 1or 2ish and didn’t stay till the end.
The next morning Lisa hadn’t met in the main room when we were supposed to so after I waited for an hour or so I just decided to go off on my own and meet up with her later. (Turns out she had woken up earlier, laid down to rest and didn’t wake up for a long time) Anyway I wandered on my own and some of the first places that I went were a few music shops. The first one I went in told me about a really cool skatepark about 20 minutes away that I though seriously about going to but I didn’t have my camera and I didn’t have any clothes that would be good to wear if I felt like renting a bmx. She also told me about a really sweet drum and bass group that was playing that night at a club. Even though it was a 6pound cover this girl made it sound totally worth it and I definitely was very interested in it. The next place that I went to was a record shop actually and the people there were also really really cool. I must have listened to 10 or 15 different cds trying to figure out which one to buy because I knew I wanted something to remember the store from. It was totally worth it and I ened up getting a double disc by a house dj called Dj Hell. Ive been listening to it for the last few days and I think it might be my new paper writing tracks. Anyway I kept wandering around and the next thing that I saw was the Sir. Walter Scott monument and that was basically a giant tower structure in the middle of Old and New Town dedicated to the author from Scotland.
I also found the coolest little cd store. It is pretty much like a newbury comics or the virgin store in new York with tons of music, movies, and books about music. Everyrthng was REALLY cheap and I immediately wanted to spend hundreds of dollars on awesome U.K. music and some cool books. I decided not buy anything but that I would come back and pickup a record or two before I went back to the hostel for dinner. My wandering also took me to the top of the first public park in Scotland called Canton Hill, where I was able to hang out and write some stuff down and read some of the free music magazines that I had picked up. After Canton hill I continued to explore and get myself lost only to refind myself time and again. I even checked out the Scotland Museum that had a special presentation on hands on science. That was fun to go to a science museum with interactive activities perfect for a 5th grader. I didn’t care that I was playing all the games and activities by myself. I loved it. Ha! After that I grabbed some lunch at a little deli where I also wrote some post cards finally and sent them on their way. About time I did that. Before going back to the hostel I was torn between going to the cd store or trying to get lisa to check it out too but I luckily decided to go first because I wasn’t sure if she would be home and I also wasn’t sure if I would want to walk all the way back after sitting on the fantastically comfortable couches they have at the hostel. When I got to the cd store it was awesome. They were playing the new YeahYEAHYeah’s cd that didn’t come out for a couple days over the pa and I was totally content to just sit on the floor reading magazines and books and listening to the perfection that is Karen O’s voice. The moment the cd ended the store began to close so I grabbed a few cds that interested me and checked out. I got a 2Many Djs album, an arctic monkeys Alex Turner side project, a book on 60’s history in Britain, and a book called …..
When I got back to the hostel Lisa was chillin and told me about her great day she had too. I cooked up the last of my dinner from yesterday and I started reading my …. Book. Right from the start I was hooked. Mark my words this book will be a movie someday. Every page I read I could imagine a scene directly out of my high school experience or something that I could easily relate to. While I couldn’t relate to everything I am positive I know people who could and I also can imagine certain actors playing the parts perfectly well. Some indie favorites. Think like Juno or Nick and Norah or Accepted types of actors. Those would be perfect. Anyway, I got so into the book that I didn’t even go out that night. I sat on the giant leather couch and read the entire thing, nearly 300 pages of it and loved every minute of it. I don’t even remotely regret staying in and I figure ill just see a drum n bass group another time. While I was reading the book it was one of the hostel employees last day in the hostel so all the workers or whatever had a nice little party together and were singing and dancing so that was a pretty entertaining side show. When I finally finished my book I rented an alarm clock and got ready for my 6 am wake up to get back to Dublin.
Overal I had a really really really awesome time in Edinburgh. I loved every minute of being there and would love love to go back. The music scene was incredible and supposedly Glasgow is the same way. I seriously am thinking about spending my week after school ends in Scotland and the U.K. It could be great. Seems silly to go back to a place I have already been though so ill probably stick with the Poland or Germany deal instead. Ahh it’s a rough life. Also I need a good peace out line like Eggy has…im influenced by his get into it. Im up for suggestions. It could be great.
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