Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2007
Edit Blog Post
What's Under Yer Kilt Laddy?
Scotland playing on their stereotype. This guy was quite good actually. God obviously doesn't want me in Ireland. Back when I was in the UK 3 months ago, the Irish Sea was stormy, and the ferries weren't running on that day. Yesterday, the train to the port of Wales was delayed by an hour. An hour! I thought the trains in the United Kingdom were reliable, but I guess I gravely overestimated them.
So, nice as they are - the train service offered us bus service to the port, which of course got our hopes up. 45 minutes later we got to the port, and the ferry had just left.
So, Logan and I packed up all the dignity we could muster and took a train back to Colwyn Bay. The train service was, however, nice enough to offer us customer feedback forms in amends.
Off to Scotland. We said our quick goodbye to the Cripps', and took the next train to Edinburgh. Couple of minutes into the trip, we managed to get some shuteye, and guess who was there to wake me with his smile with a set of teeth that would make any dentist a fortune? The Welshman with the grotty life we had met earlier on our
Daffy
Words cannot describe this man's insanity. way to Wales. What are the chances? The train was less full than last time, and he decides he wants to sit next to us again. Anyway, he was a nice guy, and he ended up helping us get onto the right connection train to Scotland.
Scotland is beautiful. It is somehow even more green than Wales, which I find hard to fathom. Logan and I were kind of worried about finding a hostel (we had nothing prepared), but fortune has it, as soon as we stepped out of the train station there was a hostel which charged us a reasonable 14 pounds to share a 10 person bedroom. As soon as we put our stuff down, we were off to explore the city. There is so much history to Edinburgh. Our hostel was located right in the center of the city, and had a beautiful view of Edinburgh Castle, and the surrounding gardens.
After we did a short expedition of Edinburgh, we headed back to our Hostel for a beer. That is when we met him. I've dedicated an entire paragraph to this guy, because I want to describe to you in vivid detail how looney Daffy
Edinburgh Castle
The Castle in all its glory. (the name Logan and I gave him) was. The first time Logan and I met him was at the bar. He was on the floor with several travel bags (which we still debate if they were really his). He seemed like a normal looking guy, nothing too odd about him. But when he started speaking to us, we both realized this is someone that has fried one too many brain cells sniffing glue or doing God knows what. He approached us and started speaking what we thought must be some form of archaic Scottish language. After a time we realized that he was just speaking in a really low tone and he garbled pretty much every word. Another confusing element thrown into his so-called form of speaking was that every other sentence was a completely different subject to that of the previous one. One of the first things he did was show us 3 raggedy, half-torn up polaroid pictures of his life. The first one was of him as a young lad. The second was one of him as a cadet in school, and third was a snogram picture of his fetus-baby at 5 months.
He would describe with nostalgia
A Close-Up
Édinburgh Castle has only been defeated once before. his days as a cadet, he would then mumble some statement to us and then came the laugh. He would laugh such, that you could hear a bit of madness in the laugh. It obviously made every patron in the bar turn and stare, but he didn't notice. As soon as his shrill cackle died down, he would then stare at us intently, with no emotion whatsoever. This happened 4 or 5 times with the one-way conversation that Daffy was having with us. Then all of a sudden, he started pleading with us. He came right up close to my face and said (one of the first legible sentences that I understood) "Ya gotta 'elp me with da Mrs.! You'll take care of 'er won't cha?!" Then he gave me some sort of wink which implied that "take care of" meant dispose of.
Then he started rambling on about how he has to get out of this place, interrupted briefly with showing us the picture of his 5 month fetus again, and how he had to get away. He has to get away from it all, somewhere where no one is, like America he suggested. Then again with the cackle.
Scottish Parliament
Some Spaniard designed this building. Figures.. As you can imagine at this point, Logan and I didn't know whether he wanted to befriend us, pickpocket us, or who knows what else.
After we had left Daffy to his ramblings, we went to some of the local pubs. Authentic local pubs, not some tourist-orientated pub. It was quite awkward because we were the only ones under 50, and were obviously foreigners. But no one seemed to care that much, they were playing some scottish music with the fiddle, and guitars; quite interesting.
We then ended off the night at some pub closer to the hostel; and of course, Daffy was there. So we sat down for some drinks, and he then came over mumbling to himself. When he sat down he gave Logan and I a good stare for a few seconds, and then he took out his fetus polaroid again to show us. We quickly downed our beers and left.
Next morning we woke up and went straight to what every tourist does: go on a tour of the city. It was a really good tour, and was well worth the 8 quid. We got to see pretty much all of the city,
Freezing!
Coming from So-Cal, we´re not quite used to the 'warm' Scottish summer. and learned a lot of new things about Scotland (did you know that the guy who invented the decimal point was born in Edinburgh?) Fascinating.
The entire time in Scotland Logan and I were looking for tobacco pipes (just like Sherlock). We thought we would fit in better with the locals.. but, when we eventually did find them, they were 15 quid ($30) and decided we weren´t that desparate to fit in with the Scots.
Originally we were going to stay 3 days in Scotland, but when we found out it was $200 (one way) to London we decided to head out that same day because our Brit Rail passes were going to expire that night. So we went back to the hostel for one last round of drinks, and of course, Daffy was there to see us off. However, this time he spoke to us in German. Not the cute kind of German that you expect the chubby blonde bar-maids with pigtails in Germany to speak to you with; but the harsh German that Hitler used to rouse the masses in his speech rallies. We were kind of glad we were going for that reason. Daffy seems like
A ´View of the City
Had to hike up some extinct volcano to get this bloody picture. It was well worth it. one of those people that will smother you in your sleep.
5 and a half hours later we were in England, and Lloyd (who hasn´t changed a bit) was standing there with 2 bottles of $100 champagne ready to party. Got to love my brother.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0357s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
binks
non-member comment
Some great pics, especially liked the one of you and logan on the bus. Looking forward to having you back in london so that i can haze you! cheers bruda