Scotland

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We arrived into Edinburgh excited to be seeing friends and the possibility of squeezing in some of the Edinburgh Festival events to our brief 4(?) nights here. Our hostel is right behind Edinburgh Castle and we can hear the Military Tattoo every night and it sounds so cool. The streets are buzzing with tourists and there are street performers everywhere. We’ve arrived and it’s cold and wet. We’ve had to dig out the jumpers for the first time in a long while and it’s kind of nice to be cool.

Our first night was welcoming as Vix - one of the many friends Jay made whilst travelling Cambodia and Laos - is staying in the hostel and managed to get us beds to stay and even cooked enough food for us to join the rest of the long term residence for dinner. What a way to break open the welcome mat!

Our first morning in Edinburgh started at a bright and early 7am for me (Jay and I are in separate rooms) as I set off to queue for tickets to the Tattoo, a must on my list of things I want to see/do on this trip. After waiting in a cold windy queue for almost 3 ½ hours I was successful in getting returned tickets for quite a reasonable price. During the afternoon Jay & I caught a short comedy act Apocalypse something or rather. It was skit on the end of the world and how we can survive by a group of 4 actors, very well done with plenty of light humour as you’d expect.

The Military Tattoo, well our seats are looking right over the middle of the parade ground. The Castle is light up as a backdrop for nearly all of the show and although the seats are probably more crammed together than those of Anzac Day, fortunately it wasn’t anywhere near as cold. It had rained for most of the afternoon but fortunately there wasn’t a drop to be seen for the duration of the show.

It would be hard to pick a favourite piece of the Tattoo. It may have been the opening with all the pipe bands participating in the evening cascading out onto the parade ground to open the show, but then they were followed by the Tongan Royal Band who came out and wowed us with their white suits and hats and dancing at different intervals and several men and women out the front performing a traditional dance.

The Swiss Band that came out and mesmerised the audience with their skill and extremely fast hands and drumming complete with all lights out and neon sticks. Another Swiss Band, the secret swiss band, came out not long afterwards and wowed us even further with igniting their sticks and drumming in the dark with flames glowing.

The SAS did a tactical manoeuvre that gave the whole thing the Military event feel and that was followed by the Chinese contingent putting on a stunning display of discipline and balance with a performance that was to represent the yearly harvest festival for a bountiful crop or something like that. There was plenty more performance and all just as precise as the one before and the evening ended with the Last Post and then the Lone Piper, spine tingling stuff.

The rest of our stay in Edinburgh consisted of a climb up to Arthurs Seat to be mobbed by flying ants to watching some more comedy acts, Will Anderson on the Friday night and Adam Hills & Jayson Byrne on the Thursday night, or maybe it was Wednesday night, I am not sure. Days seem to be blending into the next and I am starting to lose track for the first time in quite a while.

On Friday we caught up with another friend we made in Seville Spain, Andreas. He works just down the road from the Castle in The Whiskey Experience Shop so we bundled in there and had a very enlightening tour of how whiskey is made and how you can tell the flavour of the drink from smelling it. Was a great tour and we caught up with Andreas for a drink after work and before heading to Will Anderson.


Aberdeen

Saturday morning it was time to trudge through the pouring rain to catch the bus back to the airport to pick up our hire car for the next 5 days and to head up to Aberdeen to catch up with Aarian and Jody in Aberdeen. We stopped off at Stonehaven and grabbed a quick bite to eat then headed out to visit highly recommended castle ruins before making the final 15 minute drive to Peterculter where Jody’s parents live who we kind enough to say we could stay with them.

Jay headed out Saturday night with Aarian and Jody to a local nightclub in Aberdeen as a Jody had organised a catch up with all her old friends, I opted out as I hadn’t had much sleep due to noisy dorm mates in Edinburgh and our spaced out roomy in Amsterdam has left me quite exhausted and ready for a bit of quality sleep.

With the next day being a chill out day for Jay and myself we got the low-down on some waterfalls to see about a 2 hour drive from where we are from Jody’s Dad, Gordon so out we headed out there the following day. The scenery is so pretty and everything so green. There is no shortage of water and coming from drought stricken Australia where water restrictions are the norm these days it was refreshing to see so much green.

Overall our stay in Petercoulter was very relaxing and we were made so welcome by Gordon and Trish that it was sad to say bye. They are such a lovely couple and I now know why Jody is such an awesome chick.
Our next stop is Paris for 5 nights.

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