Our last day in the Scottish capital was a surprisingly busy day. The time we spent packing yesterday was well spent, and we were quickly out of our room and looking for something to do. We decided to attempt the walk to the top of Arthur's Seat, the 251-metre high volcanic mountain overlooking the city. On the way down the Royal Mile, we ducked in and out of shops looking for a pin for Keeley to add to her collection as a memento. Although this was fruitless, we did stumble upon a very cool children's toy museum with all sorts of exhibits of dolls, bears, clothing, collectables (eg tins), and other assorted ads and knick-knacks. It was surprisingly big and well laid out for a free museum with a tiny shopfront. We wandered past Hollyroodhouse, the Queen's official residence, and some very modern buildings such as the Scottish Parliament, and went up the mountain. Owing to Scottish law about free land, there wasn't really a defined path to take and we quickly discovered that you could walk any way you want to the summit. It was so cold the ground was frozen, which actually helped us out because it would have been very slippery in the mud otherwise. The view was stunning from the top, and visibility was very clear (unlike my trek to Calton's Hill the other day).
Beginning to get hungry, we made our way back to the Grassmarket and revisited Maggie Dickson's for the special student deal (two meals for £7.95). My bangers and mash was nothing special but Keeley's chilli con carne was pretty impressive. The search for the souvenir pin continued, and it turned out the perfect one was right under our noses near the castle the whole time – we must have walked past that shop a dozen times but never gone in. Keeley also finally found a Scottish hat that she not only liked but fits her, and we followed an Israeli anti-war protest to our now-regular haunt, the Brass Monkey.
Following a movie there we went to Jimmy Chung's all-you-can-eat buffet to fill up for our long bus ride to London overnight. The food was actually pretty good, and some of us filled up perhaps a little too much. After five plates of hot food and six bowls of dessert, Keeley was not feeling so well and removed a little food from her system. You can't say she didn't get her £12 though. We picked up our bags and went to the bus station, the Scottish part of our adventure over and keen to see the rest Europe.
DAY 17 – LONDON 04/01/2009
A very long and disrupted bus ride got us into London ahead of schedule, and when we called our hostel they had apparently lost our booking. Fortunately the email confirmation I had saved on my laptop came to the rescue and we had a bit of a nanna-nap for the rest of the morning. The dorm is nothing special – just a four-bed mixed dorm with a very ordinary looking toilet, basic shower and fridge in the room. The kitchen is reasonably stocked, but the microwave doesn't work. The area is nice enough and there's lots of shops and stuff around. We bought a week-long Oyster card (their equivalent to MyKi) which is brilliant. So easy to hop on and hop off to all the underground stations. The stations are pretty big and have multiple exits so that most points of the city are only a block away from one tube station or another. Sometimes you accidentally end up at a different station to what you were headed to, but it doesn't matter because the network is so well connected here.
The major excitement of the day was going to Harrod's. This redefines what you think of when you say 'department store'. Our analogy was this – if you were a well-off person with a good insurance policy and your house burnt down, you would only have to go to Harrod's to fit out your new house. There was clothing, food (ready to eat and raw), homewares, furniture, toys, music, games, bikes, horseriding gear, ski and snow gear, shoes, bedding, and more helpful staff than you could poke a stick at. It was a truly eye-opening experience as to what shopping could become. It was like a shopping centre with rooms instead of tenancies. Amazing.
Our roommates for the night were Brazilians who slept at all sorts of funny times, meaning we were always interrupting each other when we came in and out. That was a bit annoying, as was the cold of the room (the heater didn't work) and the fact I kept hitting my head on the kitchen ceiling and doorframe. Our discomfort is growing by the minute, and I for one can't wait to get out of this place.
DAY 18 – LONDON 05/01/2009
Breakfast at the Central Hostel was nothing special – toast, jam and stale cornflakes. The TV room/dining room/reception is comfy enough, but the dimly lit, low ceiling-ed kitchen will probably be what I remember. That and the cold. It was cold last night, but it's all okay because we moved out and on to bigger and better things, kind of. In my haste to get away from the other place, I had looked at a number of hostels on the internet, and the prices of this one I particularly liked were going up in front of our eyes – the managers obviously decided it was time to step it up. Keen to get the cheap dorm, we booked it. The hostel, Christopher's Inn in Hammersmith, is a big step up from the last place. For a start, it is warm. Secondly, I can see the Hammersmith underground station as I write this from my bed, so the location is perfect for us. There is a nice looking public bar on the ground floor, and the staff are friendly and didn't lose our booking. Unfortunately, there is no kitchen. Not even a microwave. This has slowed our good record of being grossly under-budget, and Keeley was very unimpressed. I don't think it was the hostel really, because it is quite nice, but rather that she's getting sick of the museums and especially galleries that we've been to. This puts us in a bit of a bother, because these are the sorts of things that are free and get us in from the cold.
Speaking of cold, it finally happened. Perhaps a week or two too late, but it snowed today. It wasn't enough to cover the ground or even take a good photo, but it was magic. Maybe it was just because we wanted it so bad, but it was very satisfying for the couple of minutes that it lasted. It's a bit ironic it happened in the middle of London and not for the entire time we were in Scotland though.
Our activities today were mainly moving, wandering the streets, and visiting Somerset House. The amazing courtyard had some ice-skating on, but we went into the Courtauld Gallery (strangely, free admission on Mondays) and saw some very nice impressionist works and watercolours. We also went to nearby Covent Garden Markets, which was a little uninspiring. Our dinner was perhaps the most impressive adventure of the day – 'Ultimate' burgers at Edward's, a small pub on the corner of Hammersmith Broadway, which we got a two-for-one deal on. They were massive, and Keeley struggled to finish hers. We also bought a giant frozen chocolate cake from a discount supermarket nearby and ate some of that, which was very satisfying.
I'm getting to that point where I'm worrying about how long we're spending here and in Dublin. It's quickly coming to the fore that we're going to get very sick of museums and buildings if we continue to spend days at a time in cities. When we get to the continent I think we'll stick to one or two days in a place, get a feel for it, do the major attractions and move on. Otherwise this is going to turn into a grind rather than a holiday. Keeley is keen to make sure we take our time, but she's also getting bored with the lack of excitement. Hopefully our planned pub-crawl in the coming days will take the edge off that.
DAY 19 - LONDON 06/01/2009
Keen to do something "fun" today, we headed to perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in London – the Tower of London. The admission wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and we got a lot more for our money than we did at Edinburgh Castle. We arrived just in time to join a tour of the grounds with a bona-fide 'Beefeater', an older bloke whose time in the military then as a glorified tour guide had obviously made him a little insane. He certainly kept the tour interesting though and worked the rather large group pretty well. We learnt a lot about the terrible history of the Tower and grounds, particularly about its history as a makeshift prison. The Tower itself was constructed in 1066, and it's incredible to think that a single building can last in such a brilliant condition for so long (until you see the huge amount of scaffolding around it for maintenance works). There is a cool little chapel on the grounds, and when they replaced the floor a couple of hundred years ago they found the remains of around 1500 people buried beneath it. It also houses the remains of three of Henry VIII's wives and three other 'traitors' underneath the altar. We saw a long, protracted and rather confusing procession of rooms leading to the Crown Jewels, which was okay I suppose, but I liked the setup at Edinburgh better. We also wandered around the grounds and into the Tower itself, which had a large collection of armour, swords, handguns, and the history of minting and coinage spread out over its floors. It was interesting, but a little dry. The better rooms were around the outer wall, such as the Bloody Tower where the two heirs to the throne (aged 9 and 12) mysteriously disappeared after their uncle (next in line) saw them alone. Their bodies were found in another part of the castle hundreds of years later behind a false wall. There was a little tower devoted to the medieval residences of the monarchs, which was well set out, and a couple of relatively entertaining rooms about diamonds, Queen Adelaide's crown (she wasn't happy with her coronation crown so made a new one) and what it would have been like to be a soldier in the Tower.
We were very hungry, and went away for some food. Keeley is convinced the cold is fuelling her appetite, and cold it is. Today was the most spectacular day, with completely clear blue skies and no wind, but the air temp is pretty low. They’re expecting snow tomorrow morning, so we’ll see how that eventuates. We ended up at the Tate Modern for some culture, but quickly realised how much we hate modern art. After just over an hour we couldn’t take it any more so went back to the hostel to do some planning for the coming days.
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