Skye-kylarkin on the Isle of Skye is a tiny town facing a bridge and most of the town centres around a giant carparking area surrounding the seaside/loch. the bridge leading to the island splits into two paths. One path leads into the centre of the town. Though it would be accurate to say the road leads through a carpark past a pub with a grocery store connected to it which also acts as the local postoffice and there just happen to be a few houses along the road.
The other path leads off into the mystical world of the Isle of Skye, an ancient land deep in the bowels of winter, frozen and covered in thick snow and shrouded in a mysterious thick fog, luminescent in the sunless morning light and like the icicles hanging from the mountain streams it drips with aeons of faerie magic from an age where a murderous barbarian could be a hero if not for the shame of defeat at the hands of a cunning and voluptuous warrior queen. But Neil's stories would have to wait, as now we had to get Hemorrhoid off us.
We opened the door to let the cat out and it lazily picked itself up and left the room as if it had decided on its own accord to leave the room. We found Hemorrhoid a moment later downstairs cutting circles on the kitchen floor while feigning affection in a ploy to get someone to feel obliged to feed him. Cats are smart like that, and also somewhat irritating, so naturally it works. There was a sense at breakfast that everyone was hesitating to finish their breakfast and head out of the cosy hostel to explore more Scotland.
That is because it was fucking cold outside.
We wound our way through the windy Skye hills around windy roads and wound up at Sligachan, a small frozen river ran from the mountains until it tucked itself neatly under an ancient stone bridge that was built wide enough for a car to pass over, proving great Scottish forethought as the invention of the automobile would have been stamped as witch craft in the days of the bridge's construction.
Neil gathered us on the bridge and we stood hand in hand in a giant circle as he switched over to "bard mode" and told us the legend of Sligachan. Enriched with more fairy magic than the Sydney Mardigra, the river below us was said to have magic healing properties, and if one were to fully submerge one's face in the icy waters for seven seconds, one would find oneself blessed with the fountain of youth. Sensing our scepticism, Neil promptly ran down to the water's edge, dragged himself carefully to a gap in the ice and face planted the water, while we counted to seven.
Despite fact that Neil didn't look any younger when he emerged from the frozen water, a few of us decided to give it a whirl after Neil said with sincerity that he was actually in his seventies. Dipping your face in a frozen river might seem like an easy way to attain immortality, however the remuneration for the prize is a strong kick in the face with the mother of all ice-cream headaches. My theory on the "icy river of youth" is that it works because all of the skin on your face stretches back towards your ears in a desperate attempt to flee from the ice-cold water.
Having attained immortality we fought off the urge to spend the next thirty or so years wandering the earth trying to figure out the meaning of life or grab a sword and decapitate our fellow immortals while listening to Queen. Instead we got back on the bus and headed south towards Oban, our second night's rest stop, while Neil continued his Barding ways and told us a fantastic story about a race of Giants who inhabited the hills and had a tea party on top of a mountain. With outstanding comic timing he finished his story by pointing to a road sign of a picture of a man holding a child's hand and said "see there are still giants in these parts today".
I guess you had to be there...
Our next stop was Glen Sheil where other than the pretty view from the car park across a loch, the highlight was a public toilet (which we had to pay for) that was decorated in Scottish history and had a clan map with all the locations and clan sheilds from Scotland. After finding the clans from my ancestry I decided it was a little weird to be taking photos in a public toilet. Then I remembered that I paid fifty pence to use the loo, so it was my right to snap out a few shots.
After passing a Loch with the imaginative name of Lake Lake, we arrived at the banks of Loch Oich. Another beautiful panorama spread out before us, a picture of absolute tranquility. We decided we should smash the peace with a rock and stood at the waters edge skipping stones across the silver surface of the Loch. Of course the Loch objected as best it could by denying us the perfect skipping stones, which it had frozen to the waters edge as if they were cemented in place.
Our next stop was the confusingly named Spean bridge, which wasn't a bridge at all. As far as I could tell it was a monument to a bunch of Commando's which I'm sure had a glorious and bloody tale to be told, one that probably involved a bridge, probably involved some fighting and most definitely involved drunken Scotsmen. Alas, I don't know the story, maybe I wasn't paying attention to Neil, or maybe it was just a crap story, maybe there is no story... Either way, if you really care you can Control-T and Google it.
From Spean-Bridge we had our first glimpse of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in all of Britain. At only 1,344 metres above sea level, it is slightly underwhelming, but it does look quite impressive covered in snow and ice with massive bare rock faces sticking out the sides. I like its name, no one bothered calling it Mount Hardcore or Mount Doom, just Ben. Actually, Ben Nevis means "Venomous mountain" or "Mountain with its head in the clouds", and yeah, I Wiki'd that.
Our next stop was in the uninspiring town of Ft. William where we ate lunch in a supermarket cafe. Which as you can imagine was crap, but they served eggs and baked beans for lunch and it came with chips. Ft. William is a bit of a nothing place, primarily used as a place to stay when you want to do interesting things in the nearby area. With that in mind we headed back to the bus to do some interesting things in the nearby area.
One such interesting thing was Glencoe. I think I missed the point at Glencoe. Glen means a valley, however I think I spent most of the time staring at the hills on either side of the glen as Neil told us the grim story of the massacre at Glencoe. In my defence I shall relate Glencoe to a pair of breasts, where men tend to enjoy looking at the sticky outy bits, and not so much the gap between them.
After a long days driving and stopping and looking and sitting and looking some more we finally arrived in the sea-side town of Oban. We took a short tour around town on the bus, which was mostly due to the fact that the roads were narrow and Neil missed the parking so we had to drive right into town and back again to find a place to turn-around. This turned out to be quite helpful as we were given a quick preview of the town's collection of pubs. Eventually we parked illegally directly in front of our Hostel and unloaded ourself upon it.
After picking up keys to our room, we took a quick stroll into town before deciding to head to our pre-determined pub of choice. It was at this pub, in the highlands of Scotland, that I had my first experience at not understanding someone speaking English. While doing my business in the urinal of the men's toilet a couple of locals came in speaking fluently in some kind phlegm derived language. Eventually I figured out they were actually speaking English, but to this day the only two words I have been able to translate are the ones they used between every other word, "fook" and "coont".
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Driving Scotsman
The adventure began the night before in an underground bar called Frankensteins (Not Dracula's as previously posted) which had a toilet that played creepy sound effects. We were introduced to our fellow MacBackpacker tour companions by way of a meet and greet drinking session. It was here that we met Neil, a kilt wearing Scotsman with a hereditary gift for story telling. He was to be our bus driver, our tour guide and our entertainment for the next three days as we toured the Highlands of Scotland.
Neil would later explain to us that his family came from a Highland Clan renowned for its Bards. This was self-evident for as soon as the Bus has set off gliding down the icy hill he had switched on his mic and set about telling stories with as much humour and as many tangents as a Billy Connoly joke. He even began the trip with an apology for his use of profanity, but he explained that this was unavoidable as he was Scottish there was nothing he could fookin do about it.
We headed out into the frozen country side with every surface blanketed in thick white snow, the bus dug in or veered menacingly across ice patches, which added a slight alarm when Neil would interrupt himself from a story with a "Oops Shit!" especially alarming as we crossed the Forth Bridge, a massive suspension bridge crossing the ocean and completely concealed by thick fog which gave the impression that we were surrounded by a vast empty void, our only tether to the living world was the frozen bitumen around the bus and the vague shadows of railings through the fog.
We wound our way northward as the plains turned into rolling green hills, or at least we assumed they were green, somewhere deep underneath the snow. Scotland had been lavished with snow like a spew is lavished with sawdust. The further north we travelled, the deeper and whiter it became. The trees drooped as the burden of snow pulled every branch downwards. The snow even piled up on fence wire creating thin lines of white. The snow even covered the sheep, the sheep covered the fields and the fields were covered in snow. It was like a fluffy white layered cake, but Scottish... and not cake.
The snow was so deep that several times early in our trip Neil apologised that we may not be able to get to some places as the roads would be closed. Never less he would still try his best to find some "cool stuff to look at". The first "cool stuff" was the small town of Dunkeld, which is famous for being the muse place of Beatrix Potter and also for some very elaborate and violent story about Vikings and Scottish bravery that may or may not have been embellished a little for entertainment purposes by our Bus driving Bard.
Dunkeld was our first glimpse at a quaint little village in Britain, and very far removed from the mountain villages of South East Asia, the similarity was only in the name (It must also be mentioned that referring to a Scotsman as a Brit could find oneself being led to the carpark or shown the underside of a barstool). Dunkeld was also our first indoctrination into paying for a ticket to use a public toilet. But after two hours on a bus it was a necessary expenditure.
We explored the town a little and tried our hand at snowballs, but the snow was so cold it wouldn't stick together and was as useless as throwing balls of sand. The store in the village should have been called the "Mother Hubbard" as the cupboards were bare and on the way back to the bus I found myself ducking and weaving to avoid the patches of yellow snow behind the public toilet block, obviously not everyone thought it was a necessary expenditure.
Throughout the following days, the snow decided to prevent us from going to a lot of places. The first of which was Culloden, the site of the final battle in the Jacobite uprising. Unfortunately the road was snowed over and we travelled around it, missing out on visiting the battlefield but Neil treated us to a good yarn about it regardless.
Our next stop was Ruthven Barracks which was prefaced by Neil telling us we couldn't get there as the road would be snowed over, which was followed by a collective "ohh" from the bus to which Neil replied "fook it lets give it a shot". We arrived at the Barracks and set out to explore the old stone ruins. I was a bit of an excited little kid as this was the closest I'd come to a real Castle so far. Although it wasn't really a castle, it was still cool and could've have looked a bit castle-ish if you squinted and tilted you head to one side.
From the Barrack's hilltop we watched with amusement as Neil tried to turn the bus around on the narrow road and managed to get it completely stuck in the snow. With the help of the group he managed to get the bus free from the snow, moved it around a bit, got it stuck again and then got it out and turned around. I watched safely from the well guarded position of my hilltop castle, deciding to leave my garrison to help exactly one second before they finally got the bus free.
From Ruthven we headed into Aviemore where we stopped for lunch. Aviemore is a ski resort town, and was bustling with holiday makers. I found the place a little strange as there weren't any visible mountains on the horizon, yet there were skiers and snowboarders filling the lines in the cafe's. I reached the conclusion that Scottish people are known for being drunks, which of course distorts their vision making the ground seem uneven, they then ski down the slanty bits. This probably meant that the ski lifts would be no more than a few well spaced bar stools.
It would be an understatement to say that our next stop is the most well known point of interest in all of Scotland, but before we could reach the gift shop we stopped the bus on the side of the road and headed down to the icy shores of Loch Ness. It is fair to say I have a fair portion of scepticism regarding the myth of a gigantic dragon like sea creature living in the deep water of Loch Ness. Especially one with such a girly name.
But, being a little wise to possibility that Scottish people are occasionally sober, I decided to keep one eye Loch-ward and of course the camera was waiting in anticipation of getting a million dollar photo, or at least a soon to be discredited one. Loch Ness was beautiful, especially when flanked by snow covered hills and covered in whisps of mist, it is also fookin huge, so it was nearly half an hour before we reached the gift shop.
It was mid afternoon and night time was upon us. While still travelling along side the length of Loch Ness we turned off the road at Urquhart Castle. From the hill we could see a real Scottish Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, lit up brightly with yellow flood lights and mostly destroyed by time, war or lazy caretakers. We didn't have long to stop, as Neil was becoming nervous about the number of hours ahead of us driving on narrow and windy icy roads in total darkness. I was becoming nervous that he kept bringing it up.
Driving through the darkness was an eerie experience, Neil had gone quiet (well mostly) to concentrate on driving, so we listened to his favourite playlist of obscure songs while I stared out the window watching the trees and hills fade in and out of the darkness, illuminated by the moon reflecting on the snow and ice. Occasionally the lights of a small (and no doubt quaint) village would flash past until eventually we wound our way alongside another massive body of water, The North Atlantic Ocean, or Loch Alch, if you think lakes should be allowed to be connected to Oceans.
We had one last stop before crossing the Skye Bridge over Loch Alch (and the North Atlantic) to the Isle of Skye. There can be only one, and that is Eilan Donan Castle. We trudged from the bus into the bitterly cold night air to cross a short stone foot bridge leading to a small but mostly intact Castle which featured in a couple of wars, a whole bunch of romantic comedies, but most importantly, it was in Highlander.
At the time none of us knew that like Connor McLeod of the clan McLeod, who was an immortal, we too would be facing our own chance at immortality a small distance away on the other side of the Skye Bridge, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, as for now we have a bigger issue to face. Arriving in Kyleakin on the isle of Skye we quickly noticed that there was only two pubs in town, and one of them was closed. Luckily the open one was next door to our Hostel.
The hostel was pretty cozy (read: small but comfortable) and after grabbing one of the private rooms for an extra £7.00 we headed off to feed and water ourselves at the pub as quickly as possible. Our plan was well rewarded after finding the pub only had one cook, was already full of locals and didn't have enough available chairs for 20 or so hungry backpackers, especially after another bus full of more MacBackpackers arrived shortly after us.
We had to wait too long for meals that wern't really worth waiting for, however those on the bus that took their time in the hostel, were told by the bar staff they couldn't take any more food orders for an hour. So we ate our meals as slowly as they came out while a few hungry backpackers stared longingly at our forks and checked their watches.
While having a cigarette outside the pub I was interrupted by a young local Scotsman who had heard me say the word "dollar" and assuming I was American was ready to have a fight. Turns out he didn't like Americans and he definitely didn't like the English who denied the Scottish their right to be a republic by way of a conspiratorial voting manipulation and were a bunch of no good oil stealing bastards.
I didn't realise Scotland had oil, so I assumed that my drunken Scottish friend didn't like Americans because they would start a war with Scotland for its oil. Or maybe he didn't like Americans because he had common sense... and maybe he was sober, hard to tell with him being Scottish and all. Fortunately he had no negative opinion about Australians or Kiwis and encouraged us to spend money in their tiny island economy. I made a mental note to tell the couple from Chicago not to say the word "dollar" and headed back to the bar.
Back at the Hostel we settled down by the fire in the common room, where I managed to rid myself of my guitar withdrawals and have a nice cup of hot chocolate. Unfortunately time away from playing guitar hadn't improved my ability to play it, and any ability I had previously attained seemed to be content hibernating. Later on after pulling myself away from the coal fueled fire and the book I was reading I returned to our private room to find a fat ginger and white cat asleep on the bed.
The cat's name was Hemorrhoid, or Hemmy for short. Prue had been unable convince him to leave the room, so after filling the sink with water for the cat to climb into and drink out of, Hemmy nestled into the end of the bed and dozed off. Prue, who was suddenly missing our own cat Lucy was soon also in the land of nod. After a massive day of seeing the Highlands of Scotland, I too found myself heading for dreams, thankfully my dreams were enriched with more colours than just white. I like that...
Neil would later explain to us that his family came from a Highland Clan renowned for its Bards. This was self-evident for as soon as the Bus has set off gliding down the icy hill he had switched on his mic and set about telling stories with as much humour and as many tangents as a Billy Connoly joke. He even began the trip with an apology for his use of profanity, but he explained that this was unavoidable as he was Scottish there was nothing he could fookin do about it.
We headed out into the frozen country side with every surface blanketed in thick white snow, the bus dug in or veered menacingly across ice patches, which added a slight alarm when Neil would interrupt himself from a story with a "Oops Shit!" especially alarming as we crossed the Forth Bridge, a massive suspension bridge crossing the ocean and completely concealed by thick fog which gave the impression that we were surrounded by a vast empty void, our only tether to the living world was the frozen bitumen around the bus and the vague shadows of railings through the fog.
We wound our way northward as the plains turned into rolling green hills, or at least we assumed they were green, somewhere deep underneath the snow. Scotland had been lavished with snow like a spew is lavished with sawdust. The further north we travelled, the deeper and whiter it became. The trees drooped as the burden of snow pulled every branch downwards. The snow even piled up on fence wire creating thin lines of white. The snow even covered the sheep, the sheep covered the fields and the fields were covered in snow. It was like a fluffy white layered cake, but Scottish... and not cake.
The snow was so deep that several times early in our trip Neil apologised that we may not be able to get to some places as the roads would be closed. Never less he would still try his best to find some "cool stuff to look at". The first "cool stuff" was the small town of Dunkeld, which is famous for being the muse place of Beatrix Potter and also for some very elaborate and violent story about Vikings and Scottish bravery that may or may not have been embellished a little for entertainment purposes by our Bus driving Bard.
Dunkeld was our first glimpse at a quaint little village in Britain, and very far removed from the mountain villages of South East Asia, the similarity was only in the name (It must also be mentioned that referring to a Scotsman as a Brit could find oneself being led to the carpark or shown the underside of a barstool). Dunkeld was also our first indoctrination into paying for a ticket to use a public toilet. But after two hours on a bus it was a necessary expenditure.
We explored the town a little and tried our hand at snowballs, but the snow was so cold it wouldn't stick together and was as useless as throwing balls of sand. The store in the village should have been called the "Mother Hubbard" as the cupboards were bare and on the way back to the bus I found myself ducking and weaving to avoid the patches of yellow snow behind the public toilet block, obviously not everyone thought it was a necessary expenditure.
Throughout the following days, the snow decided to prevent us from going to a lot of places. The first of which was Culloden, the site of the final battle in the Jacobite uprising. Unfortunately the road was snowed over and we travelled around it, missing out on visiting the battlefield but Neil treated us to a good yarn about it regardless.
Our next stop was Ruthven Barracks which was prefaced by Neil telling us we couldn't get there as the road would be snowed over, which was followed by a collective "ohh" from the bus to which Neil replied "fook it lets give it a shot". We arrived at the Barracks and set out to explore the old stone ruins. I was a bit of an excited little kid as this was the closest I'd come to a real Castle so far. Although it wasn't really a castle, it was still cool and could've have looked a bit castle-ish if you squinted and tilted you head to one side.
From the Barrack's hilltop we watched with amusement as Neil tried to turn the bus around on the narrow road and managed to get it completely stuck in the snow. With the help of the group he managed to get the bus free from the snow, moved it around a bit, got it stuck again and then got it out and turned around. I watched safely from the well guarded position of my hilltop castle, deciding to leave my garrison to help exactly one second before they finally got the bus free.
From Ruthven we headed into Aviemore where we stopped for lunch. Aviemore is a ski resort town, and was bustling with holiday makers. I found the place a little strange as there weren't any visible mountains on the horizon, yet there were skiers and snowboarders filling the lines in the cafe's. I reached the conclusion that Scottish people are known for being drunks, which of course distorts their vision making the ground seem uneven, they then ski down the slanty bits. This probably meant that the ski lifts would be no more than a few well spaced bar stools.
It would be an understatement to say that our next stop is the most well known point of interest in all of Scotland, but before we could reach the gift shop we stopped the bus on the side of the road and headed down to the icy shores of Loch Ness. It is fair to say I have a fair portion of scepticism regarding the myth of a gigantic dragon like sea creature living in the deep water of Loch Ness. Especially one with such a girly name.
But, being a little wise to possibility that Scottish people are occasionally sober, I decided to keep one eye Loch-ward and of course the camera was waiting in anticipation of getting a million dollar photo, or at least a soon to be discredited one. Loch Ness was beautiful, especially when flanked by snow covered hills and covered in whisps of mist, it is also fookin huge, so it was nearly half an hour before we reached the gift shop.
It was mid afternoon and night time was upon us. While still travelling along side the length of Loch Ness we turned off the road at Urquhart Castle. From the hill we could see a real Scottish Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, lit up brightly with yellow flood lights and mostly destroyed by time, war or lazy caretakers. We didn't have long to stop, as Neil was becoming nervous about the number of hours ahead of us driving on narrow and windy icy roads in total darkness. I was becoming nervous that he kept bringing it up.
Driving through the darkness was an eerie experience, Neil had gone quiet (well mostly) to concentrate on driving, so we listened to his favourite playlist of obscure songs while I stared out the window watching the trees and hills fade in and out of the darkness, illuminated by the moon reflecting on the snow and ice. Occasionally the lights of a small (and no doubt quaint) village would flash past until eventually we wound our way alongside another massive body of water, The North Atlantic Ocean, or Loch Alch, if you think lakes should be allowed to be connected to Oceans.
We had one last stop before crossing the Skye Bridge over Loch Alch (and the North Atlantic) to the Isle of Skye. There can be only one, and that is Eilan Donan Castle. We trudged from the bus into the bitterly cold night air to cross a short stone foot bridge leading to a small but mostly intact Castle which featured in a couple of wars, a whole bunch of romantic comedies, but most importantly, it was in Highlander.
At the time none of us knew that like Connor McLeod of the clan McLeod, who was an immortal, we too would be facing our own chance at immortality a small distance away on the other side of the Skye Bridge, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, as for now we have a bigger issue to face. Arriving in Kyleakin on the isle of Skye we quickly noticed that there was only two pubs in town, and one of them was closed. Luckily the open one was next door to our Hostel.
The hostel was pretty cozy (read: small but comfortable) and after grabbing one of the private rooms for an extra £7.00 we headed off to feed and water ourselves at the pub as quickly as possible. Our plan was well rewarded after finding the pub only had one cook, was already full of locals and didn't have enough available chairs for 20 or so hungry backpackers, especially after another bus full of more MacBackpackers arrived shortly after us.
We had to wait too long for meals that wern't really worth waiting for, however those on the bus that took their time in the hostel, were told by the bar staff they couldn't take any more food orders for an hour. So we ate our meals as slowly as they came out while a few hungry backpackers stared longingly at our forks and checked their watches.
While having a cigarette outside the pub I was interrupted by a young local Scotsman who had heard me say the word "dollar" and assuming I was American was ready to have a fight. Turns out he didn't like Americans and he definitely didn't like the English who denied the Scottish their right to be a republic by way of a conspiratorial voting manipulation and were a bunch of no good oil stealing bastards.
I didn't realise Scotland had oil, so I assumed that my drunken Scottish friend didn't like Americans because they would start a war with Scotland for its oil. Or maybe he didn't like Americans because he had common sense... and maybe he was sober, hard to tell with him being Scottish and all. Fortunately he had no negative opinion about Australians or Kiwis and encouraged us to spend money in their tiny island economy. I made a mental note to tell the couple from Chicago not to say the word "dollar" and headed back to the bar.
Back at the Hostel we settled down by the fire in the common room, where I managed to rid myself of my guitar withdrawals and have a nice cup of hot chocolate. Unfortunately time away from playing guitar hadn't improved my ability to play it, and any ability I had previously attained seemed to be content hibernating. Later on after pulling myself away from the coal fueled fire and the book I was reading I returned to our private room to find a fat ginger and white cat asleep on the bed.
The cat's name was Hemorrhoid, or Hemmy for short. Prue had been unable convince him to leave the room, so after filling the sink with water for the cat to climb into and drink out of, Hemmy nestled into the end of the bed and dozed off. Prue, who was suddenly missing our own cat Lucy was soon also in the land of nod. After a massive day of seeing the Highlands of Scotland, I too found myself heading for dreams, thankfully my dreams were enriched with more colours than just white. I like that...
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Chapter 7: Can you hear the pipes?
After having breakfast and saying our goodbyes we left the Astor Hyde Park Hostel and headed out. We'd decided to catch the number 10 bus instead of the Tube because it went directly to Kings Cross Station, we wouldn't have to change trains and it was a lot cheaper. We walked across the road and waited for the bus and climbed aboard realising straight away that we weren't going to be able to get upstairs let alone sit down due to our huge backpacks strapped to both our front and back.
We squished in and tried not to knock anyone out. The Bus made its way slowly up Oxford St, thanks largely to the second day of the post-Xmas sales and the resulting crowds. By now we were starting to worry as we were getting close to our departure time and we weren't even half way to where we needed to be.
We stood side by side waiting and waiting for the Bus to say it had arrived at Kings Cross Station and when it finally did we had less than 10 minutes till the train left. We ran into the station and found the automatic ticket dispenser. The easiest machine ever, using the credit card that we booked the tickets with 2 months earlier, we instantly grabbed out dispensed tickets.
We found our way into a huge open train station like I hadn't seen before. It had as many lines as the huge station in Bangkok or back home at Spencer St in Melbourne, but it was all made out of wood with vaulted ceilings. We walked past platform nine and three quarters to our platform, secure in the knowledge that we had a few minutes to spare and found our train and our allocated chairs.
We were facing backwards and sitting down, but that was the end of the similarities between this and any train we'd caught before. The chair had sturdy tables that came down off the back of the seat in front of us. Similar to an airplane, but more solid. There was a power point on the floor next to the window to plug in your laptop and free wifi! This was amazing.
As we pulled out of the station Drew Skype called his parents, though due to the overuse slowing the bandwidth it was easier just to use text chat. We played on the net, ate a dodgy meal from the food car. We watched the snowy English landscape change into a wild Scottish countryside marvelling as the flat lands changed into rolling hills so quickly once we were over the border.
People got on and got off the train as we stopped on our way to Edinburgh and we realised that there was a huge lack of seats. People were standing in the walkways packed together so tightly that they could hardly move with all there belongings at their feet stopping people from being able to squeeze past.
Overhearing conversations we discovered that you can book allocated seated or non allocated seated tickets. Non allocated seating was cheaper, but they still sold them after they sold out of allocated seating meaning that all the people with non allocated seating were standing up and like late day female commuters in high heels, all vying for the one seat that gets freed up each time someone gets off the train.
If you went to the toilet you'd come back to Drew or me trying to explain that the person sitting in the spare seat would be back and no, they couldn't take the seat. As amusing and oddly embarrassing as this was, we will never forget the people that had to stand up the whole way and will never book unallocated seating. What a horrible time they had with little kids crying and parents at a wits end. They couldn't even sit on the floor because they'd just have to get up for someone to go around them.
We pulled into Edinburgh station and as it was almost 3:30pm it was about dark. We made our way into the foodcourt at the station to find a map and a toilet (which you have to pay for in Scotland). The map was quite hard to find and the city was being descended upon for New Year. We tracked a dodgy map down with adverts all over it and found our way out of the station.
When we came out of the tunnel onto the street we were immediately overwhelmed by the old stone buildings. We walked along past so many dark towering buildings that even with the map we were starting to second guess our ability to find our way. We turned a corner and asked some policemen who, with adorable Scottish accents, pointed us in the right direction.
We walked up a small alleyway and out onto what could only be the main street in the old town. It stretched as far as we could see down to the sea in one direction and up to what from this angle looked like more buildings on the hill. The afternoon sun had set by now and visibility was quickly slipping away, much like our feet underneath us on the slippery ice covered stone.
We followed the map and the Policeman’s directions and walked up past a lot of Scottish themed souvenirs shops and onto the quieter street that our hotel was on. We walked around the corner and noticed the amazing view that left us standing in the cold staring. It really was Castle Rock!
The huge castle standing on top of the hill in the middle of Edinburgh was monolithic and Gothic in the encroaching dark and we were left feeling overwhelmed by the sight. In the end the cold got to us and we made our way into the hostel and checked in. There was going to be a meet and greet tonight and we would have a few hours to kill before then. We made our way down to our room past the suits of armor and the huge murals on the walls. Our room was a huge open space with our bunk beds all pushed up against the walls leaving a large open space in the middle of the room.
We wandered outside and walked down through the town a little bit. We made our way out of the old town and over the other side of the parks where we walked into some of the newer shops and picked up some bits and pieces we wanted. Slowly we made our way back towards the hostel with more “oohing” and “aahing”. We slipped into a pub just up from the hostel and grabbed some dinner and a drink.
After relaxing a little bit we headed back to the hostel and met with some of the people we'd be touring with. We went down to a bar called Dracula's and had some free shots and some normal drinks. We chatted to some people and met out driver whose name was Neil, who would turn out to be the best tour guide ever! We had some competitions and won some Macbackpackers stuff and then made our way back to the hostel for bed. Tomorrow would begin out great Scottish adventure and we couldn't wait to get started!
We squished in and tried not to knock anyone out. The Bus made its way slowly up Oxford St, thanks largely to the second day of the post-Xmas sales and the resulting crowds. By now we were starting to worry as we were getting close to our departure time and we weren't even half way to where we needed to be.
We stood side by side waiting and waiting for the Bus to say it had arrived at Kings Cross Station and when it finally did we had less than 10 minutes till the train left. We ran into the station and found the automatic ticket dispenser. The easiest machine ever, using the credit card that we booked the tickets with 2 months earlier, we instantly grabbed out dispensed tickets.
We found our way into a huge open train station like I hadn't seen before. It had as many lines as the huge station in Bangkok or back home at Spencer St in Melbourne, but it was all made out of wood with vaulted ceilings. We walked past platform nine and three quarters to our platform, secure in the knowledge that we had a few minutes to spare and found our train and our allocated chairs.
We were facing backwards and sitting down, but that was the end of the similarities between this and any train we'd caught before. The chair had sturdy tables that came down off the back of the seat in front of us. Similar to an airplane, but more solid. There was a power point on the floor next to the window to plug in your laptop and free wifi! This was amazing.
As we pulled out of the station Drew Skype called his parents, though due to the overuse slowing the bandwidth it was easier just to use text chat. We played on the net, ate a dodgy meal from the food car. We watched the snowy English landscape change into a wild Scottish countryside marvelling as the flat lands changed into rolling hills so quickly once we were over the border.
People got on and got off the train as we stopped on our way to Edinburgh and we realised that there was a huge lack of seats. People were standing in the walkways packed together so tightly that they could hardly move with all there belongings at their feet stopping people from being able to squeeze past.
Overhearing conversations we discovered that you can book allocated seated or non allocated seated tickets. Non allocated seating was cheaper, but they still sold them after they sold out of allocated seating meaning that all the people with non allocated seating were standing up and like late day female commuters in high heels, all vying for the one seat that gets freed up each time someone gets off the train.
If you went to the toilet you'd come back to Drew or me trying to explain that the person sitting in the spare seat would be back and no, they couldn't take the seat. As amusing and oddly embarrassing as this was, we will never forget the people that had to stand up the whole way and will never book unallocated seating. What a horrible time they had with little kids crying and parents at a wits end. They couldn't even sit on the floor because they'd just have to get up for someone to go around them.
We pulled into Edinburgh station and as it was almost 3:30pm it was about dark. We made our way into the foodcourt at the station to find a map and a toilet (which you have to pay for in Scotland). The map was quite hard to find and the city was being descended upon for New Year. We tracked a dodgy map down with adverts all over it and found our way out of the station.
When we came out of the tunnel onto the street we were immediately overwhelmed by the old stone buildings. We walked along past so many dark towering buildings that even with the map we were starting to second guess our ability to find our way. We turned a corner and asked some policemen who, with adorable Scottish accents, pointed us in the right direction.
We walked up a small alleyway and out onto what could only be the main street in the old town. It stretched as far as we could see down to the sea in one direction and up to what from this angle looked like more buildings on the hill. The afternoon sun had set by now and visibility was quickly slipping away, much like our feet underneath us on the slippery ice covered stone.
We followed the map and the Policeman’s directions and walked up past a lot of Scottish themed souvenirs shops and onto the quieter street that our hotel was on. We walked around the corner and noticed the amazing view that left us standing in the cold staring. It really was Castle Rock!
The huge castle standing on top of the hill in the middle of Edinburgh was monolithic and Gothic in the encroaching dark and we were left feeling overwhelmed by the sight. In the end the cold got to us and we made our way into the hostel and checked in. There was going to be a meet and greet tonight and we would have a few hours to kill before then. We made our way down to our room past the suits of armor and the huge murals on the walls. Our room was a huge open space with our bunk beds all pushed up against the walls leaving a large open space in the middle of the room.
We wandered outside and walked down through the town a little bit. We made our way out of the old town and over the other side of the parks where we walked into some of the newer shops and picked up some bits and pieces we wanted. Slowly we made our way back towards the hostel with more “oohing” and “aahing”. We slipped into a pub just up from the hostel and grabbed some dinner and a drink.
After relaxing a little bit we headed back to the hostel and met with some of the people we'd be touring with. We went down to a bar called Dracula's and had some free shots and some normal drinks. We chatted to some people and met out driver whose name was Neil, who would turn out to be the best tour guide ever! We had some competitions and won some Macbackpackers stuff and then made our way back to the hostel for bed. Tomorrow would begin out great Scottish adventure and we couldn't wait to get started!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Do They Sell Fridges?
After the eventful Christmas Day we decided to head into the sales. Drew was kind enough to fully agree, but I think this had more to do with making things up for throwing up on the Hostel room. We headed down the stairs of death, had breakfast and then jumped on the bus. I admitted to Drew that I was hanging out to see Buckingham Palace and we agreed to head there first.
We caught a bus that got us close to it and then realising that there was people all over the place heading there, we got our first inkling that something was up a the palace. Most of the people were running so we ran to catch up. We arrived out of breath and saw an enormous crowd gathered with Police keeping everyone in check.
We wandered through the crowd who were all trying to see into the front area of the Palace. Police on horses repeated over and over "remember to keep a hold of your valuables, pick pockets are operating in this crowd". We weaved through the crowd and I looked down and noticed one of my zips on my bag had become undone. Luckily I'd been keeping everything in the main part, just in case this happened. Drew didn't believe that I hadn't left home with it open, but I maintain someone was a bit disappointed that I didn't have anything to give them.
We couldn't see over the crowd and being vertically challenged I decided to walk further along the front of the Palace and see if there was a spot that had less people trying to see through the fence. To do this we had to wait for marching bands to walk past while Police kept everyone from moving. We waited at the edge of the gates with the Police holding us back until the horse guards passed and we could move again. Grumpy Police kept people from stopping in front of the gates to take pictures without the fences by shouting at people "if you want to be able to see, you should have been here earlier". It was actually a lot of fun.
We headed up to the north side of the front fence and found a spot and after a while of moving and shuffling Drew and I made it to the fence to see guards with guns marching up and down the square while a military band played Christmas carols. The whole thing was an amazingly diverse show from the cheery Christmas music to the straight-backed-gun-toting-guards marching about. It turns out we'd ended up watching the Boxing Day changing of the guards. We had arrived fairly late though and it was over about 10 minutes after we finally got a good spot to watch from.
The crowd dispersed quickly and we headed north towards Oxford St. We had decided to walk as the distance wasn't actually that far. We walked up through Mayfair with all the old London houses that hark back to a bygone era. We found ourselves on Oxford St and decided to have some lunch. We found a little pub and went downstairs into their eating area and had some typical English pub food, Pie and Mash.
After a nice pint (or half pint if you're me) we headed off to brave the shops. It was horrible. I like shopping with female friends who can spur you on if you start getting tired or over it, but it doesn't work that way with husbands. We battled massive crowds like I've never seen before. It's like being at a over crowded music festival, but instead of everyone enjoying the music and having a good time they are practically killing each other trying to get to modestly discounted "bargains" that they probably won't want in a few days.
We walk into Selfridges because everyone said we should, the prices were less than 5% off and that still left things starting at around £150.00 for some makeup or a top. We walked out and past a line of about 100 people waiting to get into the Gucci part of Selfridges for the sale. Not being racist at all, but it was hard not to notice that all except about 4 people in the line were Asian. It was just amazing.
We went in Primark which we'd been loving, but the enjoyment didn't last very long. We couldn't move and the lines for the registers wound around the store. In the end, with my dreams of getting something nice for myself gone, we gave up and grabbed the first bus we could home. I won't ever go to the sales again in the UK, at least not on Oxford St. I've been and had a great time in Australia, but the massive crowds here make it no fun.
We decided to go out to dinner and ended up heading to an Indian restaurant around the corner. It was kind of pricey, but the food was really good and that was all we really wanted at this point. We stumbled home tired and full. After watching the TV for a while and contemplating the stairs we headed up hopefully one last time to pack our bags and get ready to catch the train to Edinburgh, Scotland early in the morning.
We caught a bus that got us close to it and then realising that there was people all over the place heading there, we got our first inkling that something was up a the palace. Most of the people were running so we ran to catch up. We arrived out of breath and saw an enormous crowd gathered with Police keeping everyone in check.
We wandered through the crowd who were all trying to see into the front area of the Palace. Police on horses repeated over and over "remember to keep a hold of your valuables, pick pockets are operating in this crowd". We weaved through the crowd and I looked down and noticed one of my zips on my bag had become undone. Luckily I'd been keeping everything in the main part, just in case this happened. Drew didn't believe that I hadn't left home with it open, but I maintain someone was a bit disappointed that I didn't have anything to give them.
We couldn't see over the crowd and being vertically challenged I decided to walk further along the front of the Palace and see if there was a spot that had less people trying to see through the fence. To do this we had to wait for marching bands to walk past while Police kept everyone from moving. We waited at the edge of the gates with the Police holding us back until the horse guards passed and we could move again. Grumpy Police kept people from stopping in front of the gates to take pictures without the fences by shouting at people "if you want to be able to see, you should have been here earlier". It was actually a lot of fun.
We headed up to the north side of the front fence and found a spot and after a while of moving and shuffling Drew and I made it to the fence to see guards with guns marching up and down the square while a military band played Christmas carols. The whole thing was an amazingly diverse show from the cheery Christmas music to the straight-backed-gun-toting-guards marching about. It turns out we'd ended up watching the Boxing Day changing of the guards. We had arrived fairly late though and it was over about 10 minutes after we finally got a good spot to watch from.
The crowd dispersed quickly and we headed north towards Oxford St. We had decided to walk as the distance wasn't actually that far. We walked up through Mayfair with all the old London houses that hark back to a bygone era. We found ourselves on Oxford St and decided to have some lunch. We found a little pub and went downstairs into their eating area and had some typical English pub food, Pie and Mash.
After a nice pint (or half pint if you're me) we headed off to brave the shops. It was horrible. I like shopping with female friends who can spur you on if you start getting tired or over it, but it doesn't work that way with husbands. We battled massive crowds like I've never seen before. It's like being at a over crowded music festival, but instead of everyone enjoying the music and having a good time they are practically killing each other trying to get to modestly discounted "bargains" that they probably won't want in a few days.
We walk into Selfridges because everyone said we should, the prices were less than 5% off and that still left things starting at around £150.00 for some makeup or a top. We walked out and past a line of about 100 people waiting to get into the Gucci part of Selfridges for the sale. Not being racist at all, but it was hard not to notice that all except about 4 people in the line were Asian. It was just amazing.
We went in Primark which we'd been loving, but the enjoyment didn't last very long. We couldn't move and the lines for the registers wound around the store. In the end, with my dreams of getting something nice for myself gone, we gave up and grabbed the first bus we could home. I won't ever go to the sales again in the UK, at least not on Oxford St. I've been and had a great time in Australia, but the massive crowds here make it no fun.
We decided to go out to dinner and ended up heading to an Indian restaurant around the corner. It was kind of pricey, but the food was really good and that was all we really wanted at this point. We stumbled home tired and full. After watching the TV for a while and contemplating the stairs we headed up hopefully one last time to pack our bags and get ready to catch the train to Edinburgh, Scotland early in the morning.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Curse of Irish Dan
We had planned to spend an Orphan’s Christmas with the rest of the wandering souls at the Hostel. We had an invitation to spend Christmas with people we knew, but logistically and financially it was not possible. The Trains and Buses are given a day off on Christmas day, and the Taxi companies are known to double their already expensive prices. Unfortunately there are no Tuk-Tuks in the UK.
After lavishing each other with inexpensive gifts, we trundled down the stairs of death and greeted them with a feeling of Christmas immunity while we made our way down to breakfast. Normally a Christmas breakfast involves a minimum requirement off eggs and bacon, we forgot to buy any, so we settled for toast and cereal. Some of the more organised Hostel Staff did have eggs and bacon, and they frequently taunted us with their delicious smells.
The dining room in the basement was buzzing with Skype users, so we joined the fold and sent home our Christmas cheers, the replies were slightly more cheerful due to the massive time difference which found the Australian Christmas well into its last drinks. I had been told sternly that it was far too early to start drinking and so I spent most of my time watching the clock as it slowly wound its way around to lunchtime.
We had paid five quid each to have Christmas lunch cooked for us by the Hostel Staff, who were a little frantic cooking for a large number of people and panicking that they didn’t have enough food. Lunch was due to start at 2pm, but apologies were made shortly before this time. While the dining hall filled with hungry backpackers, we made new friends among the people on our tables and therefore decided the time had come to have a drink.
Lunch had been organised by the Hostel Staff, who were mostly Aussie and Kiwi, therefore the spread was pretty much similar to what we were used to. Roast meat and vegetables were in plentiful supply, and by the time everyone had finished eating it was pretty clear that the Hostel Staff had over catered and would be eating leftovers for the next week. I vaguely remember someone discovering a full tray of potatoes still sitting in the oven later in the night.
With lunch done and the drinking underway the party kicked up a gear. The Hostel staff started the drinking games, therefore they are responsible for most of the blame. I started playing a home made team oriented board game, where rolling a dice landed you on a square, giving you an instruction or telling you to take a card. Unfortunately for my team mate and I we kept rolling on the square that said go back to the start, or the square one space after that said go one space backward.
By the time the game ended we were all well lubricated, I had run out of beer and started drinking the punch. My team mate and I were still on the starting blocks of the board game and therefore had the honour of wearing the “looser” stickers. But it didn’t matter because we were all having a great time. It was decided to scrap the board game and just take turns pulling cards. The tables were all pushed together in a giant circle and one by one each person read their card, then either drank or made a fool of themselves in some way.
At about this point I decided to make a run for the shops for more booze. The streets were quiet but there were a few people out walking around. Even on Christmas I failed to get any eye contact or greetings from passer-bys, a little disenchanting considering that even on Christmas day in South Yarra the Stuck-Up-Elitists tend to nod their head and say “Merry Christmas”. Anyway, the guy in the off-licence was friendly enough, still had booze on the shelf, and even said a small festive goodbye even though it apparently wasn’t in line with his religious denomination.
I returned to the basement of the Hostel and walked through the doors to find Prue drinking a shot out of the belly of a half naked man. The crowd looked at me, then looked at Prue, then looked at the guy, then looked at me again. The guy looked at me nervously thinking I was going to go ape shit, but I just shook his hand laughing while the crowd let out a unified sigh of relief, followed by more laughter and revelry as the games continued.
Prue made a close friend out of a girl after they pulled a card telling them to perform simulated sex, which they climbed onto the table and performed with much hilarity. I pulled the card telling me to drink a shot from the belly of my neighbour. I looked over at the guy next to me, and said “come on big fella”. He flinched and we decided that we’d skip the card by sculling our drinks as punishment.
After trying to instill more enthusiasm in the drinking games by writing new cards with an ever increasing level of filth and debauchery, eventually the games were abandoned before anyone had a chance to drink from their neighbours boot. Prue found her lost childhood by playing hand slapping games with her new friend, of whom I think may have had a small crush on Prue…Shhh.
Things were getting pretty messy late into the night. We had moved over to the pool table, and by some act of god, or perhaps an infusion of alcohol I found myself transformed into the Jedi Knight of pool. With the precision of a surgeon I cut up my opponents, wielding my cue like a wand I performed sorcery and trickery upon the table. After sinking five balls in a row to win a match (including one rather brilliant jump shot), Prue broke the glamour I had imposed by calling out “how the fuck did you do that?” to which I replied “Got my drunk game on”.
Indeed I did, as did everyone else, and around midnight the cracks started appearing among the crowds. Irish Dan braved the carnage and challenged me to another game, which seemed only a ruse to get a hold on my can of Beer when I wasn’t looking. This continued for my last two cans and after returning from a cigarette upstairs on the street, Prue forced a nearly full bottle of Red Wine into my hand, pleading with me to hold onto it so that Irish Dan would stop trying to steal it. Thus began the downward spiral.
Prue had gone to bed and I found myself outside talking shit to Joey and Adam (Pronounced Eeeedem) two Kiwi guys that worked at the Astor Hostel. Irish Dan was still lurking around with intent to pilfer the last of the wine. I wasn’t going to let that happen, so continued to swig away on the bottle. At some point I found myself sitting in a shopping trolley spinning around and around and then trying to smuggle a traffic cone into the Hostel. Joey and Eeeedem went downstairs to attack the tray of potatoes we’d discovered earlier. I took up arms and battled the stairs of death all the way to bed after a fun and memorable Orphan's Christmas.
The next day...
I blame Irish Dan. If he hadn’t been so intent on stealing our wine, perhaps I wouldn’t have drank the entire bottle before getting in the shopping trolley. I blame Astor for their drinking games forcing me to mix beer, punch, white wine, red wine and spirits. I blame the stairs of death for being deathly and I blame the off licence for opening. Maybe I even blame Prue a little for handing me the bottle of red. But I suppose, to be truly honest… it was mostly… alright, totally my fault.
I woke in the morning to discover I had made a cock of myself. At the end of the bed a purple stain gave a hint of something more menacing. When I looked at the floor beyond the bed, a giant purple splattering of an unknown liquid stretched out its stench in every direction. Needless to say Prue was not impressed. Luckily our room was next to the linen cupboard. I changed the sheets and hid the evidence, cleaned up the rest of the splatter and tried to diffuse the smell.
Now I just needed to diffuse Prue… Hmm, boxing day sales are on… Maybe we could go to Oxford street and go... err… Shopping?
After lavishing each other with inexpensive gifts, we trundled down the stairs of death and greeted them with a feeling of Christmas immunity while we made our way down to breakfast. Normally a Christmas breakfast involves a minimum requirement off eggs and bacon, we forgot to buy any, so we settled for toast and cereal. Some of the more organised Hostel Staff did have eggs and bacon, and they frequently taunted us with their delicious smells.
The dining room in the basement was buzzing with Skype users, so we joined the fold and sent home our Christmas cheers, the replies were slightly more cheerful due to the massive time difference which found the Australian Christmas well into its last drinks. I had been told sternly that it was far too early to start drinking and so I spent most of my time watching the clock as it slowly wound its way around to lunchtime.
We had paid five quid each to have Christmas lunch cooked for us by the Hostel Staff, who were a little frantic cooking for a large number of people and panicking that they didn’t have enough food. Lunch was due to start at 2pm, but apologies were made shortly before this time. While the dining hall filled with hungry backpackers, we made new friends among the people on our tables and therefore decided the time had come to have a drink.
Lunch had been organised by the Hostel Staff, who were mostly Aussie and Kiwi, therefore the spread was pretty much similar to what we were used to. Roast meat and vegetables were in plentiful supply, and by the time everyone had finished eating it was pretty clear that the Hostel Staff had over catered and would be eating leftovers for the next week. I vaguely remember someone discovering a full tray of potatoes still sitting in the oven later in the night.
With lunch done and the drinking underway the party kicked up a gear. The Hostel staff started the drinking games, therefore they are responsible for most of the blame. I started playing a home made team oriented board game, where rolling a dice landed you on a square, giving you an instruction or telling you to take a card. Unfortunately for my team mate and I we kept rolling on the square that said go back to the start, or the square one space after that said go one space backward.
By the time the game ended we were all well lubricated, I had run out of beer and started drinking the punch. My team mate and I were still on the starting blocks of the board game and therefore had the honour of wearing the “looser” stickers. But it didn’t matter because we were all having a great time. It was decided to scrap the board game and just take turns pulling cards. The tables were all pushed together in a giant circle and one by one each person read their card, then either drank or made a fool of themselves in some way.
At about this point I decided to make a run for the shops for more booze. The streets were quiet but there were a few people out walking around. Even on Christmas I failed to get any eye contact or greetings from passer-bys, a little disenchanting considering that even on Christmas day in South Yarra the Stuck-Up-Elitists tend to nod their head and say “Merry Christmas”. Anyway, the guy in the off-licence was friendly enough, still had booze on the shelf, and even said a small festive goodbye even though it apparently wasn’t in line with his religious denomination.
I returned to the basement of the Hostel and walked through the doors to find Prue drinking a shot out of the belly of a half naked man. The crowd looked at me, then looked at Prue, then looked at the guy, then looked at me again. The guy looked at me nervously thinking I was going to go ape shit, but I just shook his hand laughing while the crowd let out a unified sigh of relief, followed by more laughter and revelry as the games continued.
Prue made a close friend out of a girl after they pulled a card telling them to perform simulated sex, which they climbed onto the table and performed with much hilarity. I pulled the card telling me to drink a shot from the belly of my neighbour. I looked over at the guy next to me, and said “come on big fella”. He flinched and we decided that we’d skip the card by sculling our drinks as punishment.
After trying to instill more enthusiasm in the drinking games by writing new cards with an ever increasing level of filth and debauchery, eventually the games were abandoned before anyone had a chance to drink from their neighbours boot. Prue found her lost childhood by playing hand slapping games with her new friend, of whom I think may have had a small crush on Prue…Shhh.
Things were getting pretty messy late into the night. We had moved over to the pool table, and by some act of god, or perhaps an infusion of alcohol I found myself transformed into the Jedi Knight of pool. With the precision of a surgeon I cut up my opponents, wielding my cue like a wand I performed sorcery and trickery upon the table. After sinking five balls in a row to win a match (including one rather brilliant jump shot), Prue broke the glamour I had imposed by calling out “how the fuck did you do that?” to which I replied “Got my drunk game on”.
Indeed I did, as did everyone else, and around midnight the cracks started appearing among the crowds. Irish Dan braved the carnage and challenged me to another game, which seemed only a ruse to get a hold on my can of Beer when I wasn’t looking. This continued for my last two cans and after returning from a cigarette upstairs on the street, Prue forced a nearly full bottle of Red Wine into my hand, pleading with me to hold onto it so that Irish Dan would stop trying to steal it. Thus began the downward spiral.
Prue had gone to bed and I found myself outside talking shit to Joey and Adam (Pronounced Eeeedem) two Kiwi guys that worked at the Astor Hostel. Irish Dan was still lurking around with intent to pilfer the last of the wine. I wasn’t going to let that happen, so continued to swig away on the bottle. At some point I found myself sitting in a shopping trolley spinning around and around and then trying to smuggle a traffic cone into the Hostel. Joey and Eeeedem went downstairs to attack the tray of potatoes we’d discovered earlier. I took up arms and battled the stairs of death all the way to bed after a fun and memorable Orphan's Christmas.
The next day...
I blame Irish Dan. If he hadn’t been so intent on stealing our wine, perhaps I wouldn’t have drank the entire bottle before getting in the shopping trolley. I blame Astor for their drinking games forcing me to mix beer, punch, white wine, red wine and spirits. I blame the stairs of death for being deathly and I blame the off licence for opening. Maybe I even blame Prue a little for handing me the bottle of red. But I suppose, to be truly honest… it was mostly… alright, totally my fault.
I woke in the morning to discover I had made a cock of myself. At the end of the bed a purple stain gave a hint of something more menacing. When I looked at the floor beyond the bed, a giant purple splattering of an unknown liquid stretched out its stench in every direction. Needless to say Prue was not impressed. Luckily our room was next to the linen cupboard. I changed the sheets and hid the evidence, cleaned up the rest of the splatter and tried to diffuse the smell.
Now I just needed to diffuse Prue… Hmm, boxing day sales are on… Maybe we could go to Oxford street and go... err… Shopping?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Gifted
There are times in my life where being a sneaky bastard has really paid off. During our expedition through South East Asia, Prue and I were plagued by one sad misfortune; the impracticality of purchasing anything. Unfortunately due to the fact we had to carry everything in our backpacks which were becoming progressively fuller and fuller. We could not buy anything, in countries that the regular tourists come to just to shop.
But Christmas was approaching. We had agreed to curb our usual gift spending and imposed a limit on our gift budget. The idea was to come up with a great present which cost very little. The first of the presents I bought for Prue while we were in Luang Prabang. Prue had fallen for a little silver necklace charm that was locally made. After first seeing it she regretted not buying it and set out to find it our last day in Luang Prabang.
However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to get any money from the ATM machines in town, we had managed to pay our Accommodation and buy tickets for the Boat trip north, but we were left with only enough money to buy dinner. That is until I walked 500 miles to find the only ATM in town that was still working, on the way back to meet Prue I spied the silver charm and purchased it for the same price Prue had negotiated. Then I asked the merchant to do me a favour and not sell anything to my wife if she came back… Sneaky.
Returning to Prue with a small fist full of Laos Kip, she decided we needed to take one more look at the markets. When we reached the stall with the silver charm, Prue immediately tried bartering the price of the silver charm down. Meanwhile I was standing behind Prue, making faces at the merchant and waving my hands around. The merchant obviously had no intention of honouring our agreement. Fortunately Prue’s bartering skills were becoming shrewd and not getting the price she wanted, she walked away.
Prue almost returned to the store a few minutes later, but as she had just purchased something else, I decided to take an accountant’s stance and told Prue not to spend anymore money in case we couldn’t get any more cash out. Turned out that we couldn’t get any more cash and spent the next two days fretting about money. Prue was still disappointed she had missed out on the silver charm, so the surprise was enormous when I drew first blood and gave her the hand made silver necklace from Laos.
The second gift was a leather belt from Thailand, a designer clothes item with vibrantly coloured Mini Coopers around it and a cost increasing signature of a designer. Prue first spotted the belt in MBK Shopping centre in Bangkok. The shop keeper wanted 1500Baht as first price ($50) and Prue could only barter them down to 800Baht. Prue gave up on the buying the belt, but saw it several times and entered into negotiations in different shops only to fail to achieve a reasonable price.
After making a quick exit from the hostile nightclub in Pat Pong, Prue passed the belt on sale in the Pat Pong market, where she managed to barter the price down to 300Baht ($10). She giggled with consumerist excitement as we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk driven by a lead footed 17 year old and were whisked back to Kao San Rd. The excitement was short lived as two minutes later Prue realised that we had left her belt on the back seat of the Tuk-Tuk.
It was our second last day in Bangkok, and returning to Pat-Pong was not an option I was fond of, although Prue suggested it more than once. We spent hours grazing through the markets looking for the belt again, only to find that it wasn’t to be found. There weren’t even any stalls or shops selling belts in the vicinity of Khao San Rd. A placed rumoured to sell everything.
So a sneaky plan was hatched in my brain, Prue had excused herself for an hour to pamper herself with her last cheap Thai massage. I worked both sides of the street of Khao San in a last ditched effort to find the belt as I made my way to the end of the street where there would be a Tuk-Tuk to take me to Pat Pong and back before Prue realised I was gone. The trick would be getting a Tuk-Tuk to Pat-Pong without getting dragged into a sex show or a den of hurt.
But you wouldn’t believe it if you read about it on this very blog. We had searched the street several times for the belt and never saw any belts anywhere. But as if by magic, at the eleventh hour a small stall appeared out of the humidity and there was the Designer branded Mini Cooper belt. I enquired its price and the reply was “1500 Baht”. Shit… I managed to only get him down to 800 before trying the elite bartering technique of walking away. I didn’t work.
My only other option was to make a twenty minute trip to Pat Pong, find the belt, barter the price then get out of Pat Pong and back to Khao San Rd without being accosted by Mr Bang or any other seedy Ping Pong Peddling type. All this in a ever decreasing 45min window.
I ran up the street again, hoping that another magical belt store had appeared, one with more reasonable prices. It hadn’t, I bit the bullet and went back to the only magical belt shop in Khao San, I managed to get it down to 600 Baht, but the price didn’t matter when I saw Prue’s reaction on Christmas morning as she opened her presents on the bed in our little private room at the top of the evil stairs of death in the funky hostel down the steet from Hyde Park somewhere in the centre of ice-cold London, on the other side of the world. Prue was happy, and being a sneaky bastard had really paid off.
But Christmas was approaching. We had agreed to curb our usual gift spending and imposed a limit on our gift budget. The idea was to come up with a great present which cost very little. The first of the presents I bought for Prue while we were in Luang Prabang. Prue had fallen for a little silver necklace charm that was locally made. After first seeing it she regretted not buying it and set out to find it our last day in Luang Prabang.
However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to get any money from the ATM machines in town, we had managed to pay our Accommodation and buy tickets for the Boat trip north, but we were left with only enough money to buy dinner. That is until I walked 500 miles to find the only ATM in town that was still working, on the way back to meet Prue I spied the silver charm and purchased it for the same price Prue had negotiated. Then I asked the merchant to do me a favour and not sell anything to my wife if she came back… Sneaky.
Returning to Prue with a small fist full of Laos Kip, she decided we needed to take one more look at the markets. When we reached the stall with the silver charm, Prue immediately tried bartering the price of the silver charm down. Meanwhile I was standing behind Prue, making faces at the merchant and waving my hands around. The merchant obviously had no intention of honouring our agreement. Fortunately Prue’s bartering skills were becoming shrewd and not getting the price she wanted, she walked away.
Prue almost returned to the store a few minutes later, but as she had just purchased something else, I decided to take an accountant’s stance and told Prue not to spend anymore money in case we couldn’t get any more cash out. Turned out that we couldn’t get any more cash and spent the next two days fretting about money. Prue was still disappointed she had missed out on the silver charm, so the surprise was enormous when I drew first blood and gave her the hand made silver necklace from Laos.
The second gift was a leather belt from Thailand, a designer clothes item with vibrantly coloured Mini Coopers around it and a cost increasing signature of a designer. Prue first spotted the belt in MBK Shopping centre in Bangkok. The shop keeper wanted 1500Baht as first price ($50) and Prue could only barter them down to 800Baht. Prue gave up on the buying the belt, but saw it several times and entered into negotiations in different shops only to fail to achieve a reasonable price.
After making a quick exit from the hostile nightclub in Pat Pong, Prue passed the belt on sale in the Pat Pong market, where she managed to barter the price down to 300Baht ($10). She giggled with consumerist excitement as we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk driven by a lead footed 17 year old and were whisked back to Kao San Rd. The excitement was short lived as two minutes later Prue realised that we had left her belt on the back seat of the Tuk-Tuk.
It was our second last day in Bangkok, and returning to Pat-Pong was not an option I was fond of, although Prue suggested it more than once. We spent hours grazing through the markets looking for the belt again, only to find that it wasn’t to be found. There weren’t even any stalls or shops selling belts in the vicinity of Khao San Rd. A placed rumoured to sell everything.
So a sneaky plan was hatched in my brain, Prue had excused herself for an hour to pamper herself with her last cheap Thai massage. I worked both sides of the street of Khao San in a last ditched effort to find the belt as I made my way to the end of the street where there would be a Tuk-Tuk to take me to Pat Pong and back before Prue realised I was gone. The trick would be getting a Tuk-Tuk to Pat-Pong without getting dragged into a sex show or a den of hurt.
But you wouldn’t believe it if you read about it on this very blog. We had searched the street several times for the belt and never saw any belts anywhere. But as if by magic, at the eleventh hour a small stall appeared out of the humidity and there was the Designer branded Mini Cooper belt. I enquired its price and the reply was “1500 Baht”. Shit… I managed to only get him down to 800 before trying the elite bartering technique of walking away. I didn’t work.
My only other option was to make a twenty minute trip to Pat Pong, find the belt, barter the price then get out of Pat Pong and back to Khao San Rd without being accosted by Mr Bang or any other seedy Ping Pong Peddling type. All this in a ever decreasing 45min window.
I ran up the street again, hoping that another magical belt store had appeared, one with more reasonable prices. It hadn’t, I bit the bullet and went back to the only magical belt shop in Khao San, I managed to get it down to 600 Baht, but the price didn’t matter when I saw Prue’s reaction on Christmas morning as she opened her presents on the bed in our little private room at the top of the evil stairs of death in the funky hostel down the steet from Hyde Park somewhere in the centre of ice-cold London, on the other side of the world. Prue was happy, and being a sneaky bastard had really paid off.
Monday, February 22, 2010
iSkate
We didn't do much during the day on Christmas eve, maybe we did, but whatever it was has been overshadowed by the evening. I know we missioned out to the supermarket and picked up some food and beverages for the celebrations on Christmas day. I remember asking the guy in the off-licence if he was open for Christmas and being surprised at his glum "yes" reply.
Before leaving the shop we watched as the doorway was cast in shadow and a massive beast of a man waddled through the door who kinda looked like a menacing trucker version of Stephen Fry. I was half expecting some kinda crazy shit about to go down, when all of a sudden the frightful looking man opened his mouth and a soft and gentle posh English accent wafted through the room. Lol, British people.
We had collected enough supplies that we wouldn't need to venture out on Christmas day. I was certain that we didn't have enough alcohol, yet Prue forcefully assured me that we "didn't need anymore alcohol you drunk bastard". Later the next day she was, naturally, proven wrong. So I was glad I'd inquired to the man in the shop about his opening hours. But lets not get ahead.
We bummed around for the most part of the day, needing a bit of a break from the constant go-go of the past days and months. But by mid afternoon the spirit for adventure (and boredom) overtook us so we headed off to Hyde park for a Christmas Eve outing at the fair ground set up in Hyde Park corner.
The Winter Wonderland has a Bavarian theme, you can buy all sorts of Englishised Bavarian treats. There are show rides, side show stalls, music and of course food and alcohol. During the day it is mostly occupied by kids and their parents, but at night, and especially on Christmas Eve the place is packed with young adult revelers, drinking mulled wine and singing "Last Christmas" over and over and over and... Seriously it gets played more often than a Nintendo DS on a School bus.
The main draw card for us was the ice skating rink. What better way to celebrate a winter Christmas than by ice skating outdoors in the middle of London's most famous park, right in the middle of the city itself. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same romanticised idea and there were no tickets available until the last session at 9pm. It was around 6pm so we had a few hours to kill.
We went on a couple of the rides, which were about as expensive as the Melbourne Show. One of the rides was a mini roller coaster that reminded me of the one at Luna Park and which made better use of a small space than a Swiss inventor.
Then we stumbled across an old arcade games area. I'm not talking old like Virtual Cop, Daytona and Sega Rally. I don't mean nostalgic arcade games like Pacman and Space Invaders. These arcade games were made of wood and metal but had no electronic parts, apart from a few with flashing light bulbs, yes bulbs not LEDs.
We traded our show ride tickets for a handful of "old pennies" and proceeded to pump them into the slots of the machines. The arcade was a lot of fun, even though there was no hero levelling or cut-scenes, no quick time events or combo breakers. There was however a classic feeling of fun similar to the one that can be achieved by giving a kid a large empty cardboard box. We got a little hooked trying to bounce the pennies off the shelf into the collection tray and dwindled away our tickets buying more pennies in a vain attempt to win back the lost ones.
We headed to the large Bavarian drinking area. Mainly because it was heated inside and we were very cold. Thus the decision to purchase some Mulled wine was inevitable, and horribly regrettable. We both cupped our hands around the warmth of the mulled wine and took turns pulling faces best described by the word "Byerchk!" The mulled wine tasted like shit, actually it probably tasted better than shit, but was nonetheless disgusting. So we washed down our mulled wine with Steak Sandwiches.
Eventually it was time to head to the Ice Skating rink, so we lined up with the hundred or so others in our session and received our skates. My skates cut into my feet but they were tight around my ankles so we walked over to the edge of the rink as best as anyone who tries walking in skates can and found ourselves among the first people out to brave the ice.
I hadn't skated in a couple of years, last time was at Bendigo's rink where I managed to nearly break my ankle in the last five minutes of the day, and limped around for a fortnight afterward. So with some hesitance I skated out, found my balance, tried a dash of speed and weaved around the first lap to find Prue hugging the boundary ten metres out of the gate. So I grabbed her hand and we skated around hand in hand like a bunch of romantics until she found her balance again.
Then it got chaotic. They only sell a number of tickets so that there aren't too many people on the ice, the problem is there is obviously still a few too many people, a quarter of the people can skate, half of them are terrible skaters and the other quarter never take their hand from the rail as they wind around the loop of the rink for the entire hour session.
The good skaters duck and weave between the masses of terrible skaters, the terrible skaters freak out and fall over, then a good skater weaves to avoid the fallen skater and freaks out another terrible skater who jumps out of the way and into the path of another skater so they both fall over. Then they pick themselves up, wash, rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile on the sidelines the incapable skaters are moving hand over hand along the boundary rail until they reach someone leaning up against the rail taking a break. The incapables freeze and cause a butterfly effect traffic jam through the incapables behind them. The incapable looks pleadingly at the person leaning against the boundary, who then either skates forward to let them pass, or gives them an amused look and watches the incapable skater try to reach around them to get past.
Prue and I manage to skate the hour without any falls, despite being the victim (and occasional perpetrator) of a few collisions. Towards the end of the session the crowd started to leave and ice got choppier. I tried to remember how to do power slides while Prue did pirouettes like a Ballerina. Ice Skating in Hyde Park, London in Winter, a strange and unusual experience, but a hell of a lot of fun.
Before leaving the shop we watched as the doorway was cast in shadow and a massive beast of a man waddled through the door who kinda looked like a menacing trucker version of Stephen Fry. I was half expecting some kinda crazy shit about to go down, when all of a sudden the frightful looking man opened his mouth and a soft and gentle posh English accent wafted through the room. Lol, British people.
We had collected enough supplies that we wouldn't need to venture out on Christmas day. I was certain that we didn't have enough alcohol, yet Prue forcefully assured me that we "didn't need anymore alcohol you drunk bastard". Later the next day she was, naturally, proven wrong. So I was glad I'd inquired to the man in the shop about his opening hours. But lets not get ahead.
We bummed around for the most part of the day, needing a bit of a break from the constant go-go of the past days and months. But by mid afternoon the spirit for adventure (and boredom) overtook us so we headed off to Hyde park for a Christmas Eve outing at the fair ground set up in Hyde Park corner.
The Winter Wonderland has a Bavarian theme, you can buy all sorts of Englishised Bavarian treats. There are show rides, side show stalls, music and of course food and alcohol. During the day it is mostly occupied by kids and their parents, but at night, and especially on Christmas Eve the place is packed with young adult revelers, drinking mulled wine and singing "Last Christmas" over and over and over and... Seriously it gets played more often than a Nintendo DS on a School bus.
The main draw card for us was the ice skating rink. What better way to celebrate a winter Christmas than by ice skating outdoors in the middle of London's most famous park, right in the middle of the city itself. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same romanticised idea and there were no tickets available until the last session at 9pm. It was around 6pm so we had a few hours to kill.
We went on a couple of the rides, which were about as expensive as the Melbourne Show. One of the rides was a mini roller coaster that reminded me of the one at Luna Park and which made better use of a small space than a Swiss inventor.
Then we stumbled across an old arcade games area. I'm not talking old like Virtual Cop, Daytona and Sega Rally. I don't mean nostalgic arcade games like Pacman and Space Invaders. These arcade games were made of wood and metal but had no electronic parts, apart from a few with flashing light bulbs, yes bulbs not LEDs.
We traded our show ride tickets for a handful of "old pennies" and proceeded to pump them into the slots of the machines. The arcade was a lot of fun, even though there was no hero levelling or cut-scenes, no quick time events or combo breakers. There was however a classic feeling of fun similar to the one that can be achieved by giving a kid a large empty cardboard box. We got a little hooked trying to bounce the pennies off the shelf into the collection tray and dwindled away our tickets buying more pennies in a vain attempt to win back the lost ones.
We headed to the large Bavarian drinking area. Mainly because it was heated inside and we were very cold. Thus the decision to purchase some Mulled wine was inevitable, and horribly regrettable. We both cupped our hands around the warmth of the mulled wine and took turns pulling faces best described by the word "Byerchk!" The mulled wine tasted like shit, actually it probably tasted better than shit, but was nonetheless disgusting. So we washed down our mulled wine with Steak Sandwiches.
Eventually it was time to head to the Ice Skating rink, so we lined up with the hundred or so others in our session and received our skates. My skates cut into my feet but they were tight around my ankles so we walked over to the edge of the rink as best as anyone who tries walking in skates can and found ourselves among the first people out to brave the ice.
I hadn't skated in a couple of years, last time was at Bendigo's rink where I managed to nearly break my ankle in the last five minutes of the day, and limped around for a fortnight afterward. So with some hesitance I skated out, found my balance, tried a dash of speed and weaved around the first lap to find Prue hugging the boundary ten metres out of the gate. So I grabbed her hand and we skated around hand in hand like a bunch of romantics until she found her balance again.
Then it got chaotic. They only sell a number of tickets so that there aren't too many people on the ice, the problem is there is obviously still a few too many people, a quarter of the people can skate, half of them are terrible skaters and the other quarter never take their hand from the rail as they wind around the loop of the rink for the entire hour session.
The good skaters duck and weave between the masses of terrible skaters, the terrible skaters freak out and fall over, then a good skater weaves to avoid the fallen skater and freaks out another terrible skater who jumps out of the way and into the path of another skater so they both fall over. Then they pick themselves up, wash, rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile on the sidelines the incapable skaters are moving hand over hand along the boundary rail until they reach someone leaning up against the rail taking a break. The incapables freeze and cause a butterfly effect traffic jam through the incapables behind them. The incapable looks pleadingly at the person leaning against the boundary, who then either skates forward to let them pass, or gives them an amused look and watches the incapable skater try to reach around them to get past.
Prue and I manage to skate the hour without any falls, despite being the victim (and occasional perpetrator) of a few collisions. Towards the end of the session the crowd started to leave and ice got choppier. I tried to remember how to do power slides while Prue did pirouettes like a Ballerina. Ice Skating in Hyde Park, London in Winter, a strange and unusual experience, but a hell of a lot of fun.
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