Finally, Scotland! (Day 1)

Alright, so I'm going to try to do this as quick as possible, so excuse any and all errors and non sequiturs that sneak in.

Starting from where I left off with my last post. We got up in the morning on Friday and threw all our stuff in our bags, then headed out for the train station only a short distance away. An inexperienced hostel-stayer-inner and a poor packer in general, I had not thought about things such as a towel, soap, shampoo or flip flops. So I had skipped the shower thing, hoping we were staying someplace later that might have any or all of those things. It was alright because everyone else skipped showers too because it was incredibly early in the morning (for college students).

We were met at King's Cross by the two Arcadia guides going on the trip. They checked our names off their list, and that was essentially the last we heard from them for the rest of the trip. They literally did absolutely nothing, and probably got payed to do it. The train ride in was relatively uneventful. I sat with Briana and her friend Nicole who goes to school in Swansea (they're friends because they both actually attend Arcadia University in the US). The group had a group ticket and essentially had a whole car of the train to itself. The ride took 4 hours? Approximately. We were met on the platform in Edinburgh as we got off the train by Michael, a Scotsman in kilt and raincoat. He had two features everyone noticed first... his long relatively wild (but not so wild it that it looked unkempt) hair, and his calves the size of my torso. He started leading everyone up the big hill in Edinburgh towards our hostel which was actually right next to the cliff on which Edinburgh Castle sits (the last picture was actually taken from the door of the hostel). On the way there I got my first taste of what my fellow Arcadia tourees were like when one of them stopped all 50 people to ask if he could run back to the train to get the book he left behind. The answer dear friend, is: if you can find the hostel on your own!

Upon arriving at the hostel they first let everyone into their rooms, and then let us go find lunch. At the room divide was the first time I realized how few men there were. There were exactly 8 guys, which worked well in our hostels since they had 8 person rooms. It did not work out in the sense that only one of the other guys was of the right personality for me to bear spending time with, two were alright but just interested in different activities, and the other 4 were a combination of the stupidest and least friendly people I've ever stumbled upon. This was balanced by about 40 girls. A little lopsided one might say.

After grabbing a quick and non-memorable lunch we took off on a walking tour of the old city of Edinburgh. It actually covered very little area, but took a pretty long time. Michael, was really interesting, and told us the stories surrounding all of the various pub names, which was pretty cool. For instance, Greyfriars Bobby's was a pub named after a dog in the 1800s. He apparently belonged to a policeman who died, making him homeless. Always loyal he would sleep at night on his master's grave in the Greyfriars graveyard, and during the day he made himself into a favorite with kids and lived by receiving meals from a local restaurant owner. He was ordered to be killed by the city however, because law dictated that stray animals were to be killed. Everyone protested to the city, which eventually agreed to do something to save Bobby. They decided that since the Greyfriars graveyard belonged to the city, and Bobby slept there, they could have the city formally adopt Bobby, thereby technically giving him a home. A cute little story, and almost all the pubs have some sort of story like that attached.

It rained through the entire walking tour, making it a somewhat miserable experience physically, but interesting nonetheless. Everything was nearly ruined at the end by one of the other students, who had the gall and empty-headedness to approach Michael, a Scotsman in a kilt, and ask him if he knew where the nearest McDonald's was (she was asking seriously). He looked her in the eye and responded "no, and if I did I wouldn't tell you." She then went on to explain that she has this tradition of going and eating at a McDonald's in every city she goes to. Michael again looked her in the eye and responded, "that's pretty sad." I was dumbfounded by the question. On the tour we had heard that Edinburgh has over 850 pubs (possibly an exaggeration after getting to Michael and his excessive proclamations of Scottish price), and here is our American representative actively seeking out a McDonald's! Grrrrrr.

After the tour we were free for the night. I wound up hooking up with a large gaggle of girls, and the only guy I could stand, Raphael, and we toured around a little, checking out St. Giles Cathedral, as well as the Edinburgh court building, which was interesting. It had a big Great Hall through which there were lawyers actually pacing and debating legal stuff with one another. Kinda nifty. From there it was resolved that everyone wanted to go find this elephant cafe thing, which is apparently where JK Rowling dreamed up and first wrote about Harry Potter. I was game to go along, but we wound up stopping for the girls in a bunch of shops (though I did pick up some souvenirs for people while there), and generally taking forever. By this point Raphael had bailed, and I took off on my own as well. I took the opportunity, as it grew dark to catch a couple more scenic shots of Edinburgh Castle, and to check out the Greyfriars cemetery. It was too dark by that point to see much though, so I headed back to the hostel.

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon two girls, Charlotte and Kelly, as I walked into the hostel. They both attend King's in the city of London, and I had met Charlotte during my homestay in Swansea. They're both incredibly nice, and I made plans to meet them with Raphael to go to dinner at a pub about an hour later. I filled that hour by renting a towel for 20 pence from the hostel, and taking a soapless, shampooless, flipflopless shower. It was something less than cleansing, but it helped a little.

At the pub that night we had a pretty good time. There were all sorts of really interesting people out, even at 7:00. For instance, we saw an oompa-loompa. It was really a little person that had painted himself orange, put on a green wig and white suspenders, and then handcuffed himself to some other dude. We have no idea why, but it was interesting to watch. There was also a very interesting grandmother, probably in her early 70s, who had clearly started drinking early, and who seemed to be attempting to pick up 20-something guys, who were less than interested in her dancing. Weird.

From there we took off to another pub down the street, the White Hart, that Charlotte and Kelly said was supposed to have live music at 9. We got there about a quarter till and asked, because it was a tiny place that was absolutely packed and there appeared to be no room for any musicians. They said there would be music, but not until 9:30. So we departed again and went to yet another pub, also on the same street as the other two. We sat down there, ordered some desert and relaxed, before returning to the White Hart for the music. The White Hart was now even more crowded, and there was still no sign of the musicians. Finally, some guy with a guitar comes out, probably at around 10:15, and starts playing covers of things like the Beatles and the Killers. It was fun, and he was good, but it was really crowded and after awhile we'd just had enough. We had kinda been hoping for more authentically Scottish music. We left Raphael behind, however, because he had found another girl from our trip that he had started chatting with ;-)

So now Kelly, Charlotte and I began the search for more authentic music (or should I say Kelly did, because she did all the work). She began just asking random bouncers where we could go to find a pub with good Scottish music. During our travels we had a good serenade from a group of drunk Scottish teens across the street who were stumbling down the street singing "It's time to go home! It's time to go home! F&@# off (gibberish), it's time to go home!" repeatedly. Finally we wound up at this place called the Sandy Bells. It was a cute little pub with far fewer tourist types. At the back sat a collection of musicians with various instruments like violins, weird guitar-like things, an oboe, etc. They weren't really a group, and they didn't really have anything arranged, but they would just play together randomly. It was really nice; one of my favorite experiences. After enjoying that for awhile it was getting late, so we took off back for the hostel and went to bed.

End day one. The next two were far busier!


On a side note, just in an attempt to keep this current, I went to Portobello Rd. today. I was inspired to do so when I read it in my friend Jenn's travel book a few weeks ago, and realized that it was a place that existed in reality as well as in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It made for a really long day in a lot of big crowds, but we had a lot of fun. It was really like walking through an endless museum at which you could touch and look at all of the items on display at will. The highlight of the day was the exceptional salesman we stumbled across at one stall. My friend Leah was picking up various items and looking at them (as most Portobello Rd. stalls simply throw their merchandise in heaps and let the customer sort it out). The guy behind the counter brusquely asks with a thick accent "you gotta touch everything?" She responds cautiously, "no... I guess not," and turns to leave. Determined to ensure we never give him any business he adds as we walk away "good, well piss of 'den. F#@$ing students." His comments pretty much summarize the impression I get from the English as a society. The Welsh and the Scots are infinitely nicer, and I can now understand why they hate the English.