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Mons Meg & James
Me and a big cannon named Mons Meg ... it fired over 300lb balls.Tattoos, Taxis & Stealing Towels!
And sent them homewards tae think again! - Flower of Scotland
Since my Germany blog last week life has been a bit of a blur as I get ready to return to the United States. Packing, cleaning and closing out work issues kept me pretty busy, but there was still time for fun. My friend Donna came over to spend the last week with me and we managed to get ourselves into a few dicey situations. The first few days went smoothly enough, a bit of sight seeing, some good dinners and a few pints just a normal couple of days in London.
I was really excited about the weekend though! We had tickets to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which is a really cool display of bagpipe and military marching bands from around the world, fireworks, and other performers (Kung Fu display, African children’s choir). Scotland will always be a second home to me, and this festival is as Scottish as it gets.
The plan was simple, on Friday as soon as the cable guy picked up my box we were going to head to King’s Cross and catch a train to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Castle
Always looks really cool looming over the city. Since the cable guy’s visit was scheduled for sometime between 08:00 and 13:00, we couldn’t really pinpoint our departure time which made detailed planning difficult. I’ve don’t a lot of rail travel over here and I wasn’t worried because
most of the time you can just show up and hop on a train. However, this was a holiday weekend in the UK and an awful lot of people were heading north to Scotland. Donna and I didn’t arrive at King’s Cross until 10 minutes before departure so we just bought our tickets and made for the train. When we got on board it seemed like all of the seats had a reserved card on them. We walked up and down the cars and found a couple of seats that were open until Peterborough (45 minutes away) so we grabbed them. Sure enough we got booted out of these seats at that station and found seats not-together on the next leg. This can get very stressful, not knowing if you can keep your seats or if you’ll get booted. Donna handled this with seeming ease considering it was her first experience with the free-for-all world of British Rail. A few seat
Castle Portcullis Gate
Just this looked all castley and stuff! hops over the next 4 hours found us in Edinburgh a bit tired and not really relaxed from all the worry about losing our seats.
Since all the main hotels in Edinburgh were sold out due to the Tattoo and the Edinburgh Festival we had booked a room about 15 minutes out of town at a B&B. But with the crowds in town the taxi line was massive! We couldn’t get a cab for the first 40 minutes and decided to start walking and grab one along the way. So we walked for about a mile along the main street and some side roads in a drab light rain waiting in vain for a Taxi. We were both tired and feeling a bit cranky at this point. Eventually we ran into a taxi and got a ride to our hotel but it was almost two hours after arriving in town … a really frustrating first day. After checking in and relaxing we decided the best thing to do was learn the bus system to and from town. We hopped the bus and first thing we found a restaurant for some food. Really bad food as it turned out; over
Edinburgh & Random Scottish Guy
Donna took this pic and I thought it was funny. cooked fish & chips that sat in our stomach like a lead … I’m still not in my normal chipper Scottish mood. We wandered around the castle and surrounding festival for a few hours stopping for a beer or two. Met a Canadian hostel owner who bought us (and the whole bar) a Jagermeister and Red Bull. Edinburgh is a bit like walking around Europe 300 years ago, everything is old and the streets are cobbled up by the Castle; but on a rainy night it’s a bit gloomy (great setting for a jack the ripper movie). Donna and I called it a night.
Saturday we toured the castle and visited various sights to do with The Fringe (Edinburgh Festival), did some shopping. The day was very pleasant except the weather kept changing dramatically (sunny and hot, to cold and rainy several times an hour). Soon enough it was getting late and time for the Tattoo. So we made our way to the stands and found our seats … trouble! There is absolutely no legroom and no room on each side between seats. We were crammed in like Sardines. I’m a big guy and I felt bad for Donna
Scottish castle
Don't know what this building is; but we both thought it looked really cool. who was crushed between me and a lady who was hell bent to sit with legs spread wide and her elbows sprawled into the next seats. Small blessing the seat next to me was empty so I could twist my body at a really uncomfortable angle and try to give her some room. But every time I made space for Donna the woman next to her sprawled into that space … it was ‘really’ uncomfortable! Eventually I scooted over and sat between two seats which was less comfortable but gave a little more room. The show was excellent (as expected), a beautiful display of marching and music set along the backdrop of Edinburgh castle (gorgeous) but the seating made the experience less enjoyable. After the show it was past midnight so we made our way back to the hotel and crashed
Sunday morning we got up early and made it the train station in plenty of time, I had thought the train would be empty but to be frank … I could not have been more wrong! All the seats were reserved, we found two empty seats that were supposed to be booked all the way to London and
Looking down at Edinburgh
Neat city with all different types of architecture (Greek, Roman, Gothic ...) those folks didn’t show up, so I thought we were set …. Nope! … in Newcastle people showed up and I told Donna to hold her seat. I gave my seat to a guy and sat on the floor between two carriages (which strangely enough was really comfortable). Anyway, for some reason King’s Cross was closed and we had to get off the train at Finsbury Park (way North East London). To make a long story short, we didn’t want to wait for an underground (huge lines and crowds) so we went walking looking for a cab or a bus … as bad luck would have it there were no cars or busses in sight. Now over the years I’ve learned the signs when a woman is getting irritated, impatient, angry and frustrated … and I’m seeing the signs on Donna’s face at this point. I try to calm things down, but only seem to be making it worse. So we waited in relative silence until a bus showed up that put us back on track. We left Edinburgh at 10:00 a.m and didn’t get back to my flat until well after 6 (long day for both of us).
Tattoo Shot
Courtesy of Tattoo website ... but better than our pics :-) Sunday night got even worse, in an attempt to do our laundry we found out the washer/dryer (single unit) was not working properly and rather than drying the clothes it kept soaking them in water and shutting down. I realized the door wouldn’t open until the water was drained, but we couldn’t make it drain … Until I unscrewed the drain plug. I learned a valuable lesson that night … you can’t put 3 gallons of water into a 2 gallon bucket! Flood! So we reacted in a natural way and threw towels on the floor (all of our towels). So now all of our towels are wet, dirty and we can’t seem to make the dryer work … showers tomorrow are going to suck! After over an hour of attempts I managed to make the dryer start so I went to bed. Next morning instead of dry clean towels, they were all sitting soaking in hot water in the unit … I was freaking livid at that one! At this point I was getting desperate; it was a bank holiday in London so everything was closed including Laundromats. So I hatched a master plan, went to my gym down
Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps
These guys kicked ass with the drums! the street and relieved them of three fresh towels. I had to commit petty theft just to shower on Monday. The wet towels belong to the apartment, so Donna and I rigged a clothesline from some coax cable and hung stuff up to dry … it looked like the Clampetts move to London in there
Later that day we had tickets to go inside Buckingham palace and see the state rooms and a collection of the queen’s gowns and jewelry … the palace is really just the same as other European places (Versailles, Peterhoff etc.), and try as I may looking at dresses is not a favorite pastime of mine, but it wasn’t’ too bad. Except for the crowds of rude pushy people! Monday night was about packing and getting ready to depart.
So that’s it for this blog … I’m going to sent out my final blog right after this one. But I just found out I’m going back to Hamburg and London in three weeks so if anything interesting happens you’ll be hearing from me.
Thanks for sticking with me!
James
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Lara
non-member comment
cable company
Love all your blogs of course- but it surprised me most to see that the stoooopid cable company takes as long there as it does here! I know Florida isn't usually as interesting (except now- Tropical Storms are fun) but I promise if you come visit we can get into some trouble. AND I'll include all the sarcasm and nasty looks when i get irritated and tired of you.