New Years !!

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So Id booked myself onto a 4 day PP bus tour to Edinburgh for Hegemony. Sis Merrett was going to come along, but ended up having to work instead. All her flatmates came up on one of the other buses though, and 2 of them were tour leaders, so it was sweet. Didn’t matter anyway, as I was on the double decker bus, with about 50 other Kiwi’s and Aussies, so made a bunch of mates pretty quickly.

30-12-04 Early start at Paddington, then we were off on our 9 hour journey to Edinburgh. Didn’t really hit the booze on the way up, only one toilet and I didn’t want to peak early either. Crew in the back seat started in from the start though, (they knew each other from Beerfest, so had had some practice!) My bus buddies ended up being 4 girls from Oz and Steph from NZ (don’t know how I do it, but ratios like that I like!) 3 hour driving stints, then ½ hour breaks made the trip pretty painless and just chatted most of the way up.
We arrived in Edinburgh, dropped our stuff off and back in the bus. We were driven into town, (love Edinburgh, really pretty city) and taken to a night club called Espionage. All the buses and trains met up there, so we were about 500-600 strong! Cool club, dead old and about 4 subterranean levels of stone arches and stuff. Alright night, shot home about 12 and grabbed a camera and walked around the city taking photos till 2 in the morning!

31-12-04 Up the next day for big brekkie before heading out to the corn exchange to start the celebrations. Basically a big fancy shed where they used to trade corn, (go figure). It looked like a Blue Light Disco inside, but was a great day. As NZ is 13 hours ahead of here (and light years ahead in most respects), when everyone at home was raising glasses, it was only 11am here.
So what did we do? Raised glasses as well! Then Australia has 4 different time zones, so that was another 4 toasts over the next 5 hours. Basically rat faced.
Back to the hostel about 4pm, where we all chilled a bit before me, Domi, Rach, Renae and Kim headed into the street party on Princess St. Basically, they just barricade the street, throw up some big screens at either end, bunch of toilets in the middle and let you go for it. There was a concert down in the valley to the side of the road, with Blondie, (eat your heart out Dad!) and the Scissor Sisters playing. The concert cost extra, but they had it on the big screen anyway. We popped into a couple of pubs, nothing outstanding, headed up into the fun fair, (bloody cork guns were defective), got lost in the train station, ran into some others from the bus, and made it back to the street party to cheer New Years on, (once again.) They fired off a canon on the hill at the castle, then led into HUGE fireworks. Not a long show, but big. Wandered around the streets for a while, went up to the castle, headed back to the hostel.

01-01-05 Another great warm breakfast at the hostel. We had a day trip planned to Stirling today, up to Stirling Castle, the original home of the Kings and Queens of Bonnie Scotland. Started heading out there about 11am, in varying degrees of illness. Still say the worst off were the Ben and Mark the tour operators, they looked crook as. Straight into forecasts of 60mph winds and snow we went. No snow, just rain, pretty blowy as well. Very interesting and educational tour of the castle, before heading into the on site whisky shop for a warm up! Managed to get pretty well on the way to being drunk during the bus ride home, thanks to Macka and Brontes bottle of whisky liqueur. Topped the tour boys up as well, it was a great trip! Back to the hostel, then straight down the pub to keep the theme going. Few Kiwi/Aussie songs on the karaoke machine before stumbling outta there to grab a pizza. This was the last night in Edinburgh and we were scheduled to take over Frankenstein’s pub. This was probably the best night. We knew each other better, we were already hammered and the pub was great fun! Made it out of there at some early hour in the morning, to be greeted on the walk home by fresh snow coming down!

02-01-05 Up for breakfast in good time, ended up lying in bed for a couple of hours waiting for the bus, trading war stories with the other 7 boys in the room. Everyone on the bus was pretty jaded, so after we’d finished off the beer in the bus, the guys threw on a couple of movies and we all just chilled out / slept. Pretty uneventful trip home, was nice driving by the sea leaving Edinburgh though. Back into London about 8pm, followed Bens lead and headed straight to the She Bu Walkabout. The place was heaving as some of the tour people were there, plus it fills up on a Sunday after the Church empties out, so didn’t stay long. Headed off to bed and well earned sleep!

All in all, one of the best New Years I’ve had. Was a bit weird not being with close mates as the clock struck, but made heaps of new friends in the process, which has lead to a couple of wild nights already! Hell, we hadn’t been in town a week before the reunion was held at the Walkabout, and me and Ben have decided it’s a good thing he’s moving to Taiwan, after the trouble we managed to get into this weekend just gone! Will definitely be going on more PP tours in the very near future. Once I earn some more cash to pay for it!

Happy New Year everyone!

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