We started the arduous task of packing up our room today, which had started to look like a war zone/Keeley’s bedroom over the last two weeks. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to get everything back into our bags. As our reward we wandered down to the end of Princes Street to the French market that had been set up. It was uninspiring, but we did discover yet another discount shop, PoundLand. We had previously experienced the wonders of £-Stretcher, but this was something else. There was all kinds of BRAND NAME stuff, and unlike the Two-Dollar-Shop, everything was actually £1. We also went to Camera Obscura, on Dad’s recommendation, and weren’t disappointed. Some of the stuff in there was really cool, the holograms were so good that you felt like you could touch them, there was a computer program that could distort your face to look like a monkey or baby, a wall that could ‘capture’ your shadow, a ‘neverending’ ladder to Australia, plasma balls and lightning tubes, kaleidoscopes, the camera obscura itself with its 360° reflected view of the city… heaps of cool stuff. It was really enjoyable. Dinner was an okay tikka misala with slightly undercooked dumplings in it (my fault), and now we’re about to head to bed for our last night in this hostel. I’m excited to get moving again, and we just hope our next hostels will be as good as this one.
Really quiet day today, rest and relax before we head off to London in a couple of days. Truth be told it's probably more that we don't really have much else to do. We've probably spent a few days more here than we needed to, and both of us are getting anxious to move on (me moreso than Keeley I think, or at least longer). The shine the hostel had last week has faded because all the friends we made are hiding upstairs in the permanent section and the tour group is either here talking with each other or gone on some excursion. So bored was I that I even went for a run today. It wasn't as cold as I had expected, but my lungs hurt a bit at the end from the cold air (or is that just lack of fitness?). It'll be good to get going again, to become travellers again.
With the thousands of new people staying at the hostel, all presumably throwing money at the tour they are on, breakfast stepped up a notch. In addition to the regular cereal and bread, we had yoghurt, fruit, three different types of marmalade, three different types of jam, the works. Other than that, we had a low-key preparation for Hogmanay, just organising drinks, buying Keeley some amazing orange gloves, and walking around trying to find a post box to send some postcards – all of the post boxes had been boarded up for the day so that people couldn't put drinks or anything in them.
We picked up an evening meal at The Grosvenor hotel around the corner, which offered two meals and two pints for £10. Unfortunately, we weren't the only people with the same idea and it took us over an hour to get our food. The pub seemed to run out of food completely by 7pm so they obviously didn't anticipate so many people. The food was pretty good though and you can't knock the value.
The Hogmanay street party was a little more laid back than I was expecting – it's not illegal to drink on the street here so you were not only allowed, but encouraged, to bring alcohol in. Getting in was easy – flash the wristband and walk in, no queues, and it's just as well. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the streets: it was incredible. It was kind of like a giant, open-air nightclub, except there were children as young as eight or so, up to old-age pensioners. The atmosphere was, in a word, busy. You never really felt uncomfortable like at Torquay beach or anything though – everyone seemed to genuinely be there for a good time and not to start anything. There were four open stages, two with DJs, one with a traditional Scottish band and one with rock groups like the headline Glasvegas. There was also a ticket-only stage in the park with Groove Armada, but our wristbands didn't get us into that area. Every hour before midnight they would fire a dozen warm-up fireworks, but they were nothing compared to the finale. It was neverending – normally in fireworks there are natural pauses while they reload, but this was just explosion after explosion seemingly ad infinitum. It was amazing. To round it off, everyone linked arms and sang 'Old Lang Syne' and The Proclaimers' '500 Miles'. The actual countdown and fireworks was great, but we couldn't help feeling strangely alone in the sea of people; it's definitely the sort of thing you want to come to in a group, especially because we've always spent New Year's with friends. It was also kind of strange getting New Year text messages at 1pm from Australia.
Today we finally made it to the Writers Museum! After two unsuccessful attempts, we got a day when it was open. There were three rooms, each dedicated to an influential Scottish writer. Although it was a bit dry for Keeley's taste, it was very well set up and brought together the links and differences between the three. The common thread was one of advancement from lowly peasant or farmer to upper class heavyweight, through various means. It was pretty interesting stuff, and it was free after all. Keeley's acceptance of the cold was starting to wear very thin, so while she stayed in the hostel researching on the internet I went for a walk around the New Town and up to Calton Hill, a rocky outcrop overlooking the city. The view was pretty good, although the fog limited the viewing distance. There was a tower on the hill, but admission was a steep £3 for little more than a slightly elevated, 360° platform, so I gave it a miss.
Looking for something to do, we went back to our favourite bar from a couple of days ago, the Brass Monkey, and managed to get a seat to watch Superbad. After a spectacular pork dinner we attended the Hogmanay Dancin' at Grassmarket. There were three stages set up with a Scottish band at one end, highland dancing and "follow the leader" in the middle, and a rather ordinary lineup on the other end including some mediocre tap dancing, some truly terrible cabaret and an over-enthusiastic and very cringeworthy country and western group, at which point we couldn't stand it any more.
Hogmanay is in full swing though, that much is clear. There are people everywhere, including in our hostel. A busload of Aussies and New Zealanders arrived today, and it seems that we are the only other people in the hostel (other than the permanents, who have gone into hiding). These tourists are loud, and not especially bright – one guy came into the kitchen while we were making tea and asked if we were making it for them! Obviously they haven't had much experience with hostels. Keeley thinks we could have made a bucketload by selling it to them for £5 a serve (it only cost us £1.50 each).
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A very early start today to make it to our Loch Ness tour bus. The 16-seater took us north through the Highlands to the southern-most tip of the 25-mile long loch. As is always the way, today was one of the coldest air temp days we've felt, although it was very still, and heading north and higher in altitude didn't help. On the upside we did see frost so thick you can only imagine – frozen spider webs, frozen plants, frozen puddles, everything. All of this in the middle of the day! We were a little pleased; it wasn't snow but it looked very close to it, and we had an ice fight. The bus, led by driver and tour guide Tony, learnt about all sorts of cool anecdotes about the history of Scotland, its formation and the many wars that have been fought on its soil (mainly against the English). He was suspiciously patriotic and took great joy in recounting all of the things that Scotsmen had apparently discovered, invented, witnessed, been part of, written and generally claimed in his many entertaining stories. Along the way to the famous loch we passed through many quaint villages (not surprising really considering the capital, Edinburgh, is only about 450,000 people), got free whisky tasting and met characters such as Hamish the mountain ox and a semi-tame red deer that is due to be terminated because it has had too much contact with humans and consequently is being persecuted by its deer friends. Additionally, we passed a number of castles (including where Monarch of the Glen was filmed) and heard the histories of their various inhabitants. We also saw some amazing things like the Three Sisters (big mountain buttresses) among the lumpy, stumpy mountains that make up the Highlands. Interestingly, many people up there still speak Gaelic – it is taught in primary schools alongside English as a first language and all the street signs have both English and Gaelic on them. Also, there is no trespass law Scotland - if you own land in the countryside it is illegal to prevent people from hiking across it or camping on it.
Loch Ness itself was pretty underwhelming, perhaps because we went to the less touristy Fort Augusta and not all the way to Inverness. It was very foggy, and we passed on the £10 per person boat ride on the loch, which was from all reports bloody cold. It's a pity, but at least we can say we've been here. There was a cool little system of locks up the hill though.
Our return to Edinburgh at 7:30 tonight meant we missed almost all of the torchlight procession, a walk up Princes St that marks the start of Hogmanay. We had planned to do it, but had forgotten about it and only caught up for the last few hundred metres. There were people (theatre students?) dressed up as demons etc and a lot of people. A very impressive fireworks show followed, which only whets our appetites more for the new years fireworks in a few days time.
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An unusually early start this morning got us on a bus to Glasgow. We decided to go and check out the 'other' Scottish city since we had time to spare. It has a completely different feel to Edinburgh. Everything in Edinburgh feels comfortably spread out, small, human-scale, and it feels much older than Glasgow. Glasgow seems more like a 'normal' city, with more modern architecture, taller buildings, and generally more hustle and bustle. It was enjoyable for its difference, but I'm glad we're in Edinburgh. Anyways, on a very cold and frosty day we headed east to Glasgow Cathedral, the oldest surviving Cathedral in Scotland (and/or UK?). It's stunning, 800 years of severe stone, incredible vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, smaller chapels underneath the main one, and surprisingly a lot of battle references and memorials to soldiers. Trekking back to the city centre, we noticed how well Glasgow handles visitors – every few hundred metres there is a big poster map of the CBD with attractions conveniently located, and they play on their architectural history in very overt fashion. It's kind of like they're trying to make up for the way their ancestors basically ignored Charles Rennie Mackintosh during his lifetime. I'm glad the public transport is so good here though – the city is almost exclusively made up of one-way streets, and would be terrible to try and navigate in a car unless you knew what you were doing.
We then jumped on a bus to the west end of Glasgow to see the transport museum. It was incredible how many artefacts they had on display, and across such a broad range. There were steam locomotives, the evolution of the car, dozens of bicycles, boats, metal detectors (re: aviation, following the destruction of a 747 over a small Scottish town due to a timed explosive in a suitcase), trams, motorcycles, fire engines, you name it. Each exhibit was well presented, but it felt a little incoherent and will benefit greatly from the imminent move to a much larger, Zaha Hadid-designed building. We grabbed some overpriced lunch (a necessity as our cheese and ham to make sandwiches was stolen and presumably eaten by drunk residents last night… grr) and headed across the road to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. That was truly a fantastic setup – very informative, easy to understand, a huge variety of stuff (including some very cool medieval swords and other weapons) and most impressively a section dedicated to explaining art to novices like us. It was really good.
I really liked Glasgow, although it doesn't have Edinburgh's character it does what it does very well.
DAY 10 – EDINBURGH
Our plans to see the Writers Museum were foiled for the second time today (it was closed on Boxing Day, and also apparently on Sundays), so we did a few housekeeping things like food shopping and booking our Loch Ness tour for tomorrow. Following a tip from a notice in the kitchen of the hostel we wandered to a nice little bar called the Brass Monkey. Before you judge us for going to the bar at 2:30 in the afternoon, this one is different. Every day they show a DVD on a projector in the back room, which is basically one giant mattress with cushions everywhere and cool little tables with holes in them to support your drinks while people walk past rocking the mattress. The best part is that the cost of the movie is only a drink from the bar. The drinks are good too – our coffees were among the best we have ever tasted and were huge for the price. We saw Leon – an excellent film that, surprisingly, we both enjoyed. It's a cool idea and perfect in a uni town like this, a good way to attract people to your bar and a nice way of escaping the cold. Keeley has already announced plans to open one in Melbourne. It would work really well in the CBD I think. Edinburgh and Melbourne are similar in that regard.
There are things you notice when travelling that aren't so similar though – cultural differences that stand out. For example, this morning a guy was shaving in the bathroom with both the hot and cold taps turned on full bore the whole time. I can't imagine anyone in Australia wasting water like that. Also, here people blatantly ignore pedestrian signals at traffic lights. Seriously, most people don't even look for the little man – they just check for traffic and run across. And everyone here smokes. It must be a way of escaping the cold (although you have to go outside to do it, so I'm not sure if that theory is dodgy). It's much more socially accepted, although illegal indoors.
The streets of the city are getting busier every day in preparation for Hogmanay. The carnival has doubled in size, and there seemed to be more people roaming around. We met more Aussies today too. Hopefully there will be fewer of them on the continent.
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Another slow start following the shenanigans of last night led us to Boxing Day sales on the main street, where Keeley bought a new belt, and the National Museum of Scotland, where a rather eccentric old lady gave us a tour about Mary Queen of Scots. It was very informative and interesting, although the tour guide made for some pretty funny moments. Keeley became the star of the group when asking a reasonably innocuous question about the infant Queen Mary being sent to France for her own protection, and the guide was absolutely rapt that someone was not only listening to, but understanding what she was saying. The highlight of the day was, however, the drinking session with more randoms from the hostel. Our new friends – two Frenchmen, an Australian, a girl from Manchester and an American bloke studying in Dublin – took us out to a cool little pub in the Old Town. It was a really enjoyable night. Hopefully all the hostels will be as friendly as this.
