Edinburgh & Nairn

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Pre-Travel

So things have been pretty quiet lately as I had been taking some time to chill out for a bit before my Contiki tour started around Europe this Thursday. However, before tour, I thought I'd get a little bit of travel done to prepare myself for the big journey.

Before I left for Edinburgh I needed to buy a phone charger (left mine in Blackpool) and some new shoes as having one pair proved to be a tad uh "smelly".. The only problem was I've got big feet and no-one had my size. I searched all the shops in Newcastle, but none of them had my size available. "They don't make that size" yeah fucking right dickhead what do you think I'm wearing right now huh? I'll give you a clue, I'm not homeless so they're not plastic bags..
I went home and had a look on the Converse website and they didn't have any stock of size 13 shoes. But managed to find a website who had some...who then cancelled my order for no reason...funny that.

I went to the Vodafone shop to get a new charger, but as it turned out buying a new phone would cost me the same as getting a new charger. So I spent the £20 ($53) and got a new phone. Not bad.

Edinburgh

Dom and I caught the train up to Edinburgh which is about 1.5hours travel on the train from Newcastle. I got a really cheap train ticket of £9.9 ($26) up there which was pretty cool. Dom was going up to stay with some friends and see them at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so he gave me a few directions and then went off on his way.
The first thing I noticed when I got off the train in Edinburgh was that it smelt like dog food. Weird.

Edinburgh has a Festival called "The Fringe Festival" every yeah in which they have acts (comedy, theatre, musical, etc) on all month which attracts tourists from all over the place. The city was completely packed out. It was like being in the supermarket Christmas Eve. Shitloads of people standing staring and taking photos. Fucking tourists.

I made my way to my Hostel and dropped my stuff off. It cost me £16 ($42) for the night to share a 6 bed room. I then decided to follow my map, provided by google, to find out where Henry Rollins would be playing. I walked around for about an hour and a half trying to find the venue. Eventually found some place that appeared to be where my map said he was playing. Turns out it wasn't. Thankfully there was a lady there who could point me in the correct direction. Turns out the venue was actually 5 minutes walk from where I was staying. Fucking Google.

I found the venue picked up my tickets and went and got some food from a Sainburys (supermarket) close by. I considered going to the Edinburgh Castle, but I was pretty tired and not really in the mood for thinking, so I went and got a pint of Guinness for $3.45 ($9.2) which was the most expensive drink I've ever bought since being here. Turns out that was the average price for pints whilst the Fringe Fest was on. Pricks.

I explored for a bit, getting more and more frustrated at the number of people, then decided to go and see a free comedy show. I now understand why the show was free. The comedians there were awful. I seriously would've paid for them to go to comedy class they sucked so bad. There was far more material when me and my friends sit around and rip the shit out of eachother (or just Everdt, depending on how we're feeling... haha) then these guys.

Eventually some desperate recovering alcoholic 40 year old 'hasn't been laid in awhile' lady got up who made things remotely interesting. For the record, my description of her, yeah, that wasn't a joke, she actually made an effort to tell us all that.
I was sitting in the second row, everyone was sitting behind me, and of course, being that I look different from your 'Normal' person (define normal dick head. Normal - Living your life as everyone else does... Oh you mean being a sheep?) she got herself some material.

After telling everyone about how shit her life was, she decided to make advances at me. She pretty much sat there rubbing her thigh and making jokes about how desperate she was. She said something about how she didn't understand how Nuns could be celibate and I said something like "Well it sounds like you're getting NUN" HAR HAR HAR. The sad thing is my shit joke was funnier then anything she had said up to that point. Of course, this automatically gave her more material.
She then asked what I wanted to be when I grew up which I responded "Na, I don't want to tell you that, it'll give you more material.." I then told her 'Fireman.'
And woola.

She had this prop that had an eye poking out and she put it on her forehead and said to me "This looks like I've got a dildo strapped to my forehead doesn't it" and then proceeded to pretend to ram herself with it.
So yeah. That was kinda interesting. She was actually a little bit funny, but her whole routine basically became bare able because I was there. I should've asked for half the profits.

After that Dom and I met up, had a beer and watched an act then he went off to see his friends and I went to go see a 'punk comedian' called Will Hodgson.
He was pretty funny. It was real intelligent subtle humour where he stood there talking in a monotonous voice the entire time. Was an interesting act.

I then had to sprint from that venue to see Henry Rollins which was about 5 minutes away. The reason I had to sprint was because it was raining something chronic. Of course, I got completely soaked, but fortunately the venue was quite small and all the C02 dried my clothes.

Before Henry went on, I went to the toilet and as I came out, he was standing right there preparing to go on. He was talking to someone so I stood there and waited for him to finish before I invaded. Then a security person saw me and dragged me away. Stink buzz.
He was a shit load bigger in real life then what I thought. Not as tall, but you really noticed how much of a muscley mother fucker he is.
His act was fucking awesome. He only had 75minutes this time which was shorter then the 3.5 hours he talked for last time I saw him. Apparently the fringe people wouldn't give him longer which he bitched about the entire show. This show was way funnier then last time and made going to Edinburgh totally worthwhile.

I got back to my dorm room about 1am to a completely empty room with 5 bags on all the beds. Lovely. Whoever they were, they were going to be out late. They got in at about 2am, apologised for waking me and actually seemed like good people. They introduced everyone who came in later to me and yeah.
I ended up with about 3 hours sleep that night.

The next day I went to Edinburgh Castle which cost me £12.5 ($33). The place is really big, there's lots of informative information and cool stuff to look at, but unfortunately I was really tired so I couldn't appreciate everything as much as I would've normally. Had a really good time looking around. You were allowed to take photos in some places which was kind of annoying. I wish I could've taken a photo of the Crown Jewels.

Nairn

Met Jane in Inverness and went to a bar where we chatted away. I saw some lady wearing a NZ jumper and asked her where she was from. Turns out she wasn't from NZ but introduced me to her friend that was Australian. I looked at her and walked off. haha. Shame.

Caught the bus to Jane and Gareths place and watched some videos. I really can't remember what we watched because well, I was drunk, but it was British humour that I really should've seen according to Jane.
The next day she educated me on numerous comedies, how to be Scottish and told me off for saying "Soccer" and pronouncing Celtic - "Caltik." haha I make her sound like the grinch. Jane showed me the sights of Nairn, we made pizza for dinner, which was the business, then went off to get drunk with her friends.

The next day I continued my learning, we went for a walk and then made more pizza <3 <3 <3. Gareth returned home from the Wizard Fest (which was actually a music festival) and we got drunk. We watched a show called 'Bottom' which is made by Rick and Vivian from The Young Ones. Fuck it was funny.

In generally we didn't really get up to a lot. I make this all sound plain, but I really had a lot of fun. I really like Jane.

I went up to catch the train the next morning and got totally fucking soaked again. THANK YOU UNITED KINGDOM.

The train ride was alright, up until I got to Edinburgh where the train was over packed, someone had taken my seat and I had to sit in the fucking doorway. Thank god it was only for 1.5 hours.



That's me for awhile. I don't know how much time I'll get to update my blog while I'm in Europe, so this will probably be the last entry for a bit. Didn't take any photos in Nairn, because I forgot and Jane didn't want me to take a photo of her, so you'll have to use your imagination... Think Bearded, Hunch Back, Mangled Hands, Moles everywhere and down syndrome. hahaha she's so going to hate me. SORRY DARLING.

Catch you up.

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Photos

Edinburgh Castle
Showing some of town and everything