Japan to Australia via Eastern Europe and stuff - Part 31 - Day 27 – Scotland Sh!te Aye...

We had an excellent night sleep (for a change). I helped myself to some dodgy crappy breakfast TV – where GMTV were in apology mode for the mobile phone competition scam. Good old BBC was still putting the boot into GMTV because of it.

We had a pretty good “help yourself” continental breakfast at the guesthouse – where Ant got his fix of sugary breakfast cereals – but not to the same extent as our Kings Cross hotel.

Our goal for today was to visit the castle. Outside – it was a much warmer day (by warmer – I mean 12 degrees or something). There was no rain – but there was some glorious Scottish overcast weather.

Entry to the castle was almost as steep as the hill on which the castle was situated on – 11 pounds (which works out to be $23ish Australian pesos). Although we managed to hook onto the end of a free tour once we entered the main gate. The guy had a really thick Scottish accent – and in true Scottish style – he loved to bag out the Scots, Scottish culture and stuff all the time. No wonder there are so many junkies – they all have low self esteem or something.

The tour lasted for about 30 mins – and he went through all the previous wars that involved Scotland and the Castle. Their track record against England seemed pretty lousy – they kept picking all these fights with England – but time after time – they always lost. It usually ended with someone getting executed or decapitated or something.

We were shown the 1pm Clock Gun – a big f##k off cannon thing which acts as a “1 pm alarm” (funny that being called the 1pm Clock Gun). Sailors used to set their watches to it (depending on how far they were from the gun – as the speed of sound is slow or something... here endth the science lesson for today).

After the tour – we checked out the Scottish War Memorial – which just looked like a converted church in the middle of the castle. They had heaps of books on the dead there and because Scotland is home of people with red hair – I thought I might try and find some of Ant’s relatives there. But alas – I couldn’t find any Collis’s... So maybe he isn’t of Scottish background or something?

We check out a big hall (but with no indoor jousting) and some Scottish crown jewels (but once you’ve seen one crown jewels – you have pretty much seen them all).

There was this strange POW museum (as the Scots used to keep all these French POWs locked up in the Castle or something). The first half was strangely like the Pirates of the Caribbean Disney theme park ride complete with animatronics and stuff with bad acting.

We checked out the Scottish Military Museum – which was really really detailed... Perhaps a little too detailed for someone who isn’t a details man. I exited the museum early and plonked myself on a bench – where I was subjected to really loud and bad bagpipe music. Stuff Chinese Water Torture for a joke – try Scottish Bagpipe Torture instead... I had enough of the music and grabbed Ant’s Ipod Nano out of his bag and cranked it up enough to drown out the bagpipes and give me permanent hearing loss.

After Ant resurfaced out of the museum – we checked out the 1 O Clock Gun Museum – which seemed to be a creepy memorial to some old Scottish guy in a kilt who appeared to have recently died or something.

We headed to new old town to Marks & Spenser (or M&S not to be confused with S&M or CBT) for lunch. We had the whole pre-packaged sandwich thing for lunch which wasn’t too bad.

We checked out the National Gallery of Scotland (which was just across the road from M&S) – which was an “old school” gallery – complete with old school art (eg: another bloody Monet Haystack!) and old school guards – who forced me to carry my backpack around my hip so I wouldn’t bang into anything or something. The good thing about the museum was that everything (even the crap) was well explained with little text thingys.

I grab a quick coffee at the gallery cafe and we decide to take the free shuttle bus to one of the sister galleries (there is some Edinburgh gallery mafia thing happening here).

After a 10 minute ride we hop off the bus at the Burns Gallery – a contemporary art museum which had an interesting geometry exhibit and some nice Picasso and Miro as well. Everything (like the National Gallery) was well explained. On our way out of the gallery – Ant gets shanghaied by some nice survey woman. Some of the questions seemed a little funny to us (eg: would you be coming back here, how much Scottish pounds do you make, blah blah blah).

We do a dash over the ride to the Contemporary Gallery – which had a cool exhibit called “Off the Wall” (not affiliated with the Michael Jackson album in any way whatsoever). It was a cool collection of those art installations which take up a whole room (eg: a room full of balls, etc). The permanent collection wasn’t half bad either.

So after a day of history and culture – we decide to make our way back to town via foot. I was slowly coming to the conclusion that Edinburgh is way more scenic than London. Ant was mentioning that London was bombed the hell out of during WWII – and everything was rebuilt in that awful 1950s style feral architecture – which makes a lot of London look like Coronation Street. Edinburgh – on the other hand – was mostly unscathed during WWII – hence the old town and the new town survived – and looks gorgeous.

Ant and I bum around the shops for a while (what a surprise) and I shamelessly order a McDonald’s thick shake – which tasted weird. The woman who I ordered from thought I was speaking Russian or something... Aye!

In a bit of a Nazi death march walk – Ant forced us to walk for miles and miles (like the Proclaimers – weren’t they like Scottish or something!?) so we could visit some dumb Royal Yacht. Getting out of New Town and Old Town – Edinburgh is starting to feel a little bit more like Trainspotting – you know – a bit more economically depressed. There were heaps of businesses shut down with “For Lease” signs in the front window. Of note – Edinburgh is like a big “Uni” town for Scotland – the other big city – Glasgow – is more industrial and Ant thought it might have been hit harder when the manufacturing sector in the UK ass fell out.

We stumble across the “Ocean Harbour Mall” – which we dubbed “Edinburgh’s Brand Depot” better known as “Ghost Mall”. The Mall looked pretty much brand spanking new – although with no customers. It claimed to have stayed open until 8pm every day – but half of the shops were shut anyway.

We both checked out the Vue Cinemas upstairs. It was tight arse Tuesday – yay for four pound tickets ($10AUD equiv). Although Ant and I couldn’t agree on a movie we wanted to see. I don’t think Ant was interested in anything – but I wanted to go see Sunlight (some Danny Boyle (aka Trainspotting) flick which I didn’t have a good idea of what it would be about). After arguing, having Jerry Springer style public fights and all out hissy fits (on both our parts) – I finally got Ant to agree to see it.

The cinema itself was fairly impressive – with v. Comfy seats and stadium seating – which sort of put Hoyts to shame... The ads were pretty funny too – there was a strange Orange Phone ad with the guy from Reservoir Dogs (Mr Blonde – ear cutting guy) trying to commit heinous serial killer phone calls on an Orange Phone – only for the police to instantly track him down. The upcoming Grindhouse trailer looked sweet (amputee chick with shotgun for leg = cool). And in true British nana state censorship style – they displayed the “Certificate 15” for Sunshine – a real certificate with a signature from some bureaucrat before the film.

Sunshine was pretty good – although I was getting really concerned about the state of Ant’s mental wellbeing (because the movie was pretty intense and scary in parts – and Ant hates scary movies) – but we both enjoyed it so it was all worth the “Jerry Springer” scenes from a mall.

We head back to town (and it was pretty late for a day out eg: 9ish at night). We soon make the conclusion that even though Edinburgh’s population is only slightly over that of Canberra (about 400K) –there is way more street life – especially for a Monday night. People were jammed into pubs everywhere – could be something to do with it being a “uni” town...

We decided to go for the familiar and have dinner at the Regent pub again – I had a big plate of nachos and Ant had a Beef and Beer Stew – for about $10AUD each. Bit of a bargain – and the staff love our accents.