From here Mum and Dad were heading to Morocco and I was off to Scotland and would meet up with them on New Year's Day. They left for the airport at the crack of dawn and I hopped on a train to Glasgow. London really does have a well thought out public transport system that’s generally easy to use, and the delays of like … a minute(!) only piss off Londoners cause they’re used to such services. I actually thought when I arrived at Pete and Di's that I was lucky to be arriving so late in Lodnon, not Adelaide, where there would have been no public transport! Anywho, it was a Virgin Train (yes, like the planes) to Glasgow and so was a ‘budget’ service which or course meant they’d overbooked the carriages and there was some freeloader sitting in the seat I’d reserved!!! I stood up for myself and the 20-something looked at me blankly. I was about to have to get all “oi, get outta ma seayt!!” on him when a surprisingly courteous kid in his late teens vacated the seat on the opposite side of the aisle for me – he hadn’t reserved a seat either (see how great this system works, they let people reserve seats and then don’t mark which ones are reserved!). After this little hiccup tho the rest of the ride was really pleasant. I was seated next to a cute old guy wearing a tweed cap who’d packed his own sandwich, kit kat and Ribena fruit box and read the paper (my kinda grandpa!) while I munched on numerous snacks I’d shoved into my backpack at the last minute, read my new ENGLISH NON-TEXT-book, listened to my new ipod (thanks bwetty) and even dozed off for a bit. What I found I enjoyed most though was the view out the window. You could literally see the landscape and the weather change over the 4.5 hours as we headed north. It had been quite mild in London (the weather lady was getting inordinately excited about 8C temperatures :P) so it was a bit sunny as we left and its outer burbs, then onto green rolling hills, then cloudier until a thick fog set in about 2 hours out of Glasgow which made everything look like out of a movie, until it finaly switched to almost all white with ice on the hills and floating in the streams etc which there were more of than I’d expected. Also, its more sheep than I’ve seen in one place since leaving home! Even black sheep which I don’t think I’ve actually seen before :S
We finally pulled into Glasgow central and, looking like the pregnant black turtle from my very first blog entry, I emerged from the train with all my lugga to see two smiling Scottish faces waiting for me on the platform – Katie and Kathleen :) despite the baggage, we wandered for a bit before they took me to, wait for it … drumroll pleeeeaaase… the infamous WALKABOUT bar!! The girl’s have told me many times, with more than a little mirth, about this chain of bars based on the land down under and staffed by bartenders more ocker than me and Sydneysider Nakita put together. Personally I was unimpressed, lol. It felt like an aussie version of a hardrock café! Although it gets points for the crows 1997 premiership poster sporting Darren jarman’s cartoon face on it. And the drinks menu was inventive to say the least – cocktails named “auntie edna’s blue rinse”, “kanga-lusion”, “sex on bondi beach”, “French kiss down under”… you get the gist! And ofcourse the sign to the toilet said “dunnies”. I refused to order a fosters on tap (can you blame me?!) so we had cider and caught up on the whole week and a half since we’d seen each other :P
Katie's dad came to pick us up later and it was a nice drive back to their place which seems to be in the golden grove of Glasgow, all the houses are manicured and similar looking, but obviously older with more character than golden grove!! But a bit far out like GG with the obligatory speed bumps and roundabouts. They’d set up a lovely spare room for me and even had a real chrissie tree. Again, it was so nice to be in a real house again for a bit :)
Day 165 (Thurs) Getting my "fill" of Scotland
Up bright and early for a proper scottish breakfast! Katie’s been talking them up in Maastricht and then there it was in front of me – bacon, lorne(??) sausage, black pudding, white fruit pudding, eggs, toast, juice, tea THE WORKS – and the verdict: lorne sausage – NOT a sausage bc it doesn’t have a skin (don’t listen to crazy Katie try to convince you otherwise!) but still a tasty kind of meat pattie thing with heinz sauce, black pudding not exactly my cup of tea (basically oats and animal blood and very black looking) bit dry but I tried it anyway! And the white pudding was just like a hot cross bun without the bun really, a sort of sultana and oat pattie thing you put in the oven – really tasty.
Fuelled for the day (and more) we hopped on the one-hour train from Glasgow to Edinburgh to join a 3.5-hour walking tour. This took in (in no particular order) the café where the first two harry potter books were written, the school building which inspired hogwarts’ description, the outside view of the imposing Edinburgh castle up on its craggy perch, a couple of tales of gore and murder in the olden days, a cemetery visit (where apparently ole JK nicked a couple ‘o names from toombstones for HP) etc etc. At each corner I found myself turning and exclaiming “oh wow, wats that?”, which must have got a bit tedious for poor Katie but I really found the architecture and layout of the city just beautiful, lots of old, dark gothic towers, rolling hills and green, even some sea water if you looked out far enough.
But after all that walking it was time for a refuel scot-style (again!). This time – a scotch pie, baked beans, HAGGIS and the infamous IRN BRU to wash it all down. For those not familiar, scotch pie is like sausage roll meat, in the shape of a pie, surrounded with short crust pastry – no gravy. As for the haggis, well I must admit, it was actually much tastier than I expected, given its basically mushed up animal offal! But there were plenty of oats or barley or something similar and herbs/salt/seasoning etc to actually make it quite tasty. Unfortunately this didn’t stop me from gagging a little mentally every time I took a bite. Just couldn’t quite put its contents out of mind completely. (Although I’m now more Scottish than Kathleen, my other host who wasn’t with us today, who has never tried it!!). And finally, IRN BRU – the national drink of Scotland – radioactive orange in colour, FULL of sugar, caffeine and malaria-fighting quinine (also found in tonic water) it’s a strange sounding concoction that EVERYONE there drinks … but honestly just tastes like hyped-up creaming soda!
With our stomachs full, we headed off down the main street again to the tune of bagpipes (naturally) to join a torch light (as in flaming sticks) procession for NYE eve, winding its way through the city to a hill where fireworks signalled the finale. It was quite magical actually, in the firelight – as long as you kept one eye on your torch and the other on any torches threatening to singe your head! Unfortunatley though, the magic of this experience was slightly dimmed when we then had to about face and leg it back to the centre of town to start our third walking tour of the day!! This time a ghost tour: the lady was a bit overly theatrical at first but toned it down a bit when she took us underground to a system of vaults where there’s supposed to be ghosts. I didn’t “feel” anything, but the stories were entertaining nonetheless. By then, after about 10 hours on our feet it was time to head back to Glasgow.
Day 166 Fri) Hogmanaaaaaayyy
After packing all my gear (for flying out on New Year's Day) we headed back into Edinburgh for the infamous Hogmanay celebreations (happen every year, always included in those round the world on NYE wraps). We were fortunate enought to be able to stay at Katie's cousin's place right in the centre of the Hogmanay street party area. So we dropped our gear there and set off for another day of sightseeing before the night's festivities. First on the list was the "one o’clok gun" which is supposed to be this big loud cannon that goes off from the castle every day at 1pm … after all the hype it just sounded like someone dropping a heavy suit case on the ground! Apparently lots of people pay to go in to see the little guy dress up and light the blank charge :P
From there we rushed to the Oz Bar for Adelaide NYE. It was much better than Walkabout, not as cliché, had real aussies behind the bar, coopers and little creatures in the fridge and PIZZA SHAPES!!! which Katie bought me as an early birthday present. The pub held countdowns for all the aussie capitals, plus NZ, ringing a big bell each time. I even put a pin on one of those maps they always have in international pubs to show where you live - representin' for Henley Beach!
Later, we went to meat Kathleen (grabbing a steak pie on the way, which is apparently a new year's tradition in scotland ... but which really was just to further satisfy my pie craving). Once together, the three of us set about climbing Arthur's Seat - this big volcanic rock formation on the edge of the city, right near the parliament building. You come round the corner and BANG there it is, going straight up and man is it steep! Needless to say we were puffing like crazy in about 2 seconds flat! Was worth the struggle to (half way to) the top though, great view out over all of edinburgh, could see cliffs to one end, sea water even to the other and all the main monuments in between including the palace where the queen stays when she visits. Was a great time to do it too, at twilight when there was still light but the street lights were turning on. Following that little exertion we went back to base camp (katie's cousin's place) for a rest, as we had a long night ahead. To get us through the night we had some drinks, pizza and a DEEP FRIED MARS BAR! Apparently the scots will deep fry anything! Even whole cheeseburgers and stuff. But unfortunately the batter they use goes all crispy, not like the ones in Adelaide which are like pancake batter and actually taste way better, like chocolate cake melted. Instead, this batter just went all chewy in ur mouth once all the chocolate had dissolved. Anywho, was worth a try.
Finally got out of the flat (was cold outside L and I realised I have never worn that many clothes on NYE before!) We wandered around listening to open air bands and taking in the chrissie lights etc. When the clock struck 11pm we pulled out a few Grolsch beers for Maastricht NYE and there were even fireworks bc that’s when most of Europe has NYE. Then the real deal an hour later, with major fireworks off the side of the castle. I was able to sing auld lang syne properly for the first time thanks to words on the big screen. Katie tried to make me memorise the words beforehand so I wouldn;t embarass the scots but that wasn’t happening! Later we visited the dj stage where they played the proclaimers '500 miles', classic Scottish band, and there was someone with a blow up kangaroo in the crowd! Luckily after all that we didn't have far to walk back to base camp and crash. Hello 2011...
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