Japan to Australia via Eastern Europe and stuff - Part 30 - Day 26 – Scotland Aye...

We wake up sort of late by our standards (6:45am) and Ant was a little “dehydrated” from the previous night. So I went out and bravely bought some water from a nearby supermarket without putting any product in my hair or any deodorant.

Another day in the UK – another bit of breakfast TV news. The big news story for today was some “GMTV Phone Competition Scandal” – where the company doing the phone competition for GMTV would pull out potential winners before the phone lines close – so those that call towards the deadline would never be in the running for the prizes. If only something like that would happen to Sunrise (oh wait – I think it did when we were away – something to do with a dodgy dawn service with Kevin Rudd or something..)

Although the breakfast at the hotel was a little bit “colder” a little bit “bolder” – it was also a bit quieter – probably because the marathon crowds weren’t here today.

We do a quick pack (although we never really get a chance to get stuff out of our bags in the first place) – and check out. Thankfully – the breakfast must have come with the room rate as we weren’t charged for it when we checked out. I guess this was the first hotel booking that worked with “Wotif.com” this holiday.

We catch the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross – which was quite squashy as it was a Monday morning and it was a peak commuter crush. When we arrived at Kings Cross station – it was pretty much organised chaos. Some escalator broke down – and no one seemed to cope with that very well.

We were catching a train to Edinburgh today (we had bought the tickets a few weeks ago when we were first in London). We were a little early for our train and had an hour to kill. We both got some coffee (coffee means “hot chocolate” for Ant) and I bought a Mixmag which had a “free” Claude Vonstroke CD so it wasn’t half bad.

Our train to Scotland was a bit of a shock to the system after our experiences with the not so fast and speedy trains that were from Eastern Europe. Everything was fast, clean and efficient. We had our own little table – but unfortunately we had to share it with a couple of moody British girls. The scenery was quite pretty – green and lush, apart from the odd coal fired power plant here and there.

I was getting really stoked about going to Edinburgh – “finally I’m going to get my Trainspotting fix of smashed off yr face junkies” – but Ant was dousing that hope as he had thought that Trainspotting was set in Glasgow not Edinburgh.

After our four hour trip – we arrived at Edinburgh station at around 2pm. The whole “Little Britain” skits of that Scottish “Fawlty Towers” hotel was springing to mind (where that fat white couple are sunbaking and it is soaking wet)… because it was miserable and soaking wet.

We grabbed a free city map to orientate ourselves – only to realise that our guesthouse looked a little over the “advertised” distance from the station of one mile.

Our TWO mile walk to the guesthouse was depressing and bleak. The weather was rainy and totally overcast – with us sans umbrellas and raincoats.

We kept getting harassed by locals who kept asking us “Are you sure you know where you are going? The city is back that way!”… almost code for “go back to London!”.

We arrive at the gay guesthouse – only to find that the place seemed kinda empty. We had the obligatory speech from the guesthouse manager guy – who loved to joke about his “hard-to-understand” accent and Scottish people in general. It was a bit reminiscent of that Connection Guesthouse in Budapest – only a bit less sleazier. Although what is it with people that run gay guesthouses – they always seem to run some dodgy sex shop elsewhere – the Edinburgh one was no exception.

I also confirmed with the guest house guy that Edinburgh was the home for “Trainspotting” – not Glasgow. Yes – in your face Ant! I’ve read the book, I’ve seen the movie – and now I can buy the T-shirt or something.

After unpacking our stuff – we took up the offer to go to the nearby gay pub “The Regent” – and it is apparently the only gay pub in the “Good Beer Guide”. We passed on the Haggis but had a couple of big Sheppard’s Pies for lunch and a couple of pints of Scottish beer…. Leaving us slightly pisshed for the rest of the afternoon. The pub was pretty good – reminiscent of those UK pubs – but I guess this was the real deal (although I don’t tend to see Scottish pubs around the place!). Another thing which was good is that all venues in Scotland are completely smoke free now – meaning that you don’t have to smell like an ashtray after going out. According to BBC news the other day – smokers are crossing the border over to England to get their fix of smoking pubs – although that will soon change because England will be smoke free come July or something.

So – slightly pished – we headed over to the start of the Golden Mile (which was just around the corner from the pub). At the start of it – there was an impressive modern building with pointy things – which was the Scottish Parliament building (or Executive building – as Scotland isn’t really a country or something). It’s very newish as Scotland has only achieved “Devolution” from England only very recently (some Tony Blair thing or something)… where the Scottish Executive have the power to do almost everything except for foreign policy and some miscellaneous stuff (which is left up to Westminster). Ant was a little dubious if Scotland became fully independent of the UK – and wonders if they are financially viable (as the arse fell out from their economy a couple of decades ago because manufacturing moved from developed countries to developing countries). After getting bag searched – we checked out a small free exhibit on the Scottish Exec which was OK. There was the obligatory mass of school children at the Exec building which was not OK.

Ant and I then set off on the Golden Mile – which we redub the “Windy Mile” as we were almost being blown away by the huge gusts and stuff… It was Katrina all over again peoples…!

We checked out some small old school, but free Museum of Edinburgh. It had some freaky obsession with some allegedly “famous” dog from Edinburgh – on which some stewpid Disney movie was based upon… Plus there was some other freaky old museum guy who kept shutting doors on us (perhaps it had something to do that we were there at closing time?).

Although the Golden Mile was somewhat “windy and wet”, it was really pretty. There were cherry blossoms everywhere (sounds somewhat familiar on our holiday) but without the hordes of Japanese tourists going crazy. In fact – Edinburgh seemed “touristy” without being full of tourists.

Not only were all of the tourist shops filled with kilts and crazy Scottish wigs – but you could get your fix of Mel Gibson dolls as well… (ewwwrrr…!). We avoided the Edinburgh Dungeon (which suspiciously looked exactly the same as the touristy London Dungeon – complete with Hangman rollercoaster ride). And we also avoided the “Optical Illusion World” – which had the dubious claim of being “Edinburgh’s #1 attraction”… Yes – when you think of Edinburgh – you don’t think of the castle – you think of the “Optical Illusion World” with bendy mirror things…

Although we walked up to the Edinburgh Castle – we decided to do it tomorrow because it was getting late. Although it was late – it doesn’t get dark here till late because you are so far north or something…

We walk down from the castle from Old Town to the New Town side… And New Town here means 19th Century “new” town. Although new town seems to have more in the way of shopping and stuff. Ant and I dub the “Fossies” of UK shops – BHS – “British House of Sh#t”.

We wander around New Town for a bit when I come to the conclusion that Edinburgh is way more of a scenic place than London is. Sure London has some big sites – but it sure is an ugly place. Ant’s way of explaining why London is as ugly as it is – because it was bombed the s##t out of in WWII and most of the building were rebuilt in that awful 1940s style. Whereas Edinburgh wasn’t really bombed during the war – hence the old town and new town remains somewhat intact.

We chill out a bit at the Guesthouse. I cure some chick of vampirism on Sims 2 (as you do).

Ant falls asleep – and I wake him up at 9ish (despite it still being light-ish outside). As we had a really late lunch – we decide to just get some takeout at a nearby take out place across the road from the guesthouse. We had both ordered some “scary” jacket potato chilli con carne dish with “orange plastic” cheese. But not just a sprinkle of orange plastic cheese – but a whole mountain full. We take our dinner back to the guesthouse – and have a quiet one in.