Edinburgh: Where people perpetually recover from the night before

We got our train with no worries, as per usual.

The best part was that we were able to snag ourselves a seat at which there is table in the middle and two chairs on either end. Because of this (and the fact that no one else took the other seats) we were able to kick off our shoes and put our feet up. It was a 5 hour train ride afterall.

The ride up had to have been filled with some of the best scenery I've seen yet, especially once you enter Scottland. One the way I noticed not one, but two ill placed golf courses. One was right beside and I mean right smack-dab beside the train tracks we were on (I can imagine the golf balls either smashing through train windows or worse yet, ricocheting off the train and possible hurting another golfer?) The second ill-fated golf course was place right next to a drop off cliff into the ocean. Insert any and all jokes about water hazzards that you like in this section.

On the way up I was reading a backpacker magazine and happened to stumble across an article on a festival that was up and coming in London. It happened to start the day after we were due to head back down to the foggy city. I knew that this could spell trouble for trying to find accomodation, but we brushed it off in our usual manor of "we'll figure it out later." And figure it out later is what we'll do, so we wont' worry about it in this entry.

We disembarked off the train and found that the hostel we had booked was quite literally across the street. I was happy... no, I was Over joyed to see that this hostel had a bar built into it. It was everything that I ever wanted in a hostel. I was missing the days of bars in hostels since I had gotten home from australia and was kind of disappointed to see that not many hostels out here do that... until now.

We checked into our room and Jeff had about 30 minutes to find his way to the Shins concert. This would prove difficult as he had no idea where they were playing. I opted out and decided to explore the fringe festival instead. It was certainly a great time. So many street preformers and stalls set up to sell you crap you don't need, but at that moment you think you want it. Even all the pubs along the way were absolutly packed. I came across a sign advertising a tour of a place called 'the black mosoleum' which is home the mckenzie poltergeist. They had a tour leaving around 9pm that night so I figured I'd attend it. At this time I had some time to burn so I went back to the hostel to enjoy a drink or two.

I returned to the entrance of the church to find a group of people all crowded around a gentleman dressed up as, what I can only assume, a goth... or a half assed one. He was our tour guide of the night. He took us down side streets and to some buildings stopping to tell us the chilling tales of the plauge and the witch burnings that used to take place in Edinburgh. Finally we reach the cemetary. It's pitch black and he has only one small flashlight to guide us through. He tells us stories of many of the people burried around the area. The scary mood was broken when one of those bikeriding rickshaw guys came through the graveyard ringing his bell. Jerk.

We eventually got to the black mosoleum where we were given a warning that if we felt really cold, to move away from that spot and closer to the group, as apparently this is how the poltergeist hurts people. He told us that common injuries were scratches and bruises which we might potentially find in a day or so. Many people were skeptical, but I was kind of hoping for a souvineer of Edinburgh in the cheapest form possible. We all crowded into the small room which was the mosoleum and immediatly began to feel something tug at the back of my hoodie (i'm not kidding or exagerating) I thought it was someone behind me, but I realized I was at the very back of the place along with all the other tall people. This kind of creeped me out, but I kept my cool. Thats when the guide started to explain to us the different things you could encounter with the poltergeist, one of them being tugged at. Eeeeek. It sent a chill down my spine, but still I didn't do anything to draw attention to myself. After 10 minutes of being in the small room we had to leave as too many people were getting frightened and we aren't aloud to spend more then 15 in there anyways. The tour was great fun, but I have yet to see any scractches or bruising. I want my money back. I headed for the walk home and turned in early. Jeff returned from his concert about an hour after I turned in.

The next day Jeff and I had to switch up rooms if we wanted to stay any longer. We did so with no problems. The day started out with us checking out the street venues again and cruising up and down the main shopping strip as Jeff needed new shoes. We finally found a shop where the young girl in there was kind of rude to him. He paid for his shoes and left and we went for some food. Jeff wanted to put on his new shoes and ditch the old ones in our room so we headed up and he unpacked his new footwear. Upon trying on his new shoes he realized he was just sold two right foot shoes. I couldn't contain my laughter it was one of the funniest things I had seen, but he wasn't amused. So, we had to go all the way back to the shoe store and make sure he obtained a left shoe to match his right shoe. The clerk seemed embarassed and was a lot more polite this time around.

Our evening found us doing a tour of an area called Mary Kings Close. This is part of an area which was paved over when Edinburgh had new buildings put in. It's kind of tough to explain without visuals (of which i have none) so I guess you readers are just hooped. Just imagine an alleyway from years ago and then one day about 6 storeys up you have a street above you. That's kind of what happened in Edinburgh when they leveled off the town a bit. So now you can explore the old closes underground where plague victims used to live and so on. While it wasn't as scary as the city of the dead tour in the grave yard, this one had a lot of history to it and I learned a lot.

In the evening we returned to the hostel bar where we chatted with an american guy named Matt. I spent my evening continuing to flirt just a little with the very cute bartender. When you're drinking eventually nature calls so I headed to the bathroom (and No, i'm not giving a play by play of bodily functions!) When I got up there they had one of those machines which looked a lot like a condon machine so I disregarded it. On my way out I gave it a closer look (yeah, I don't know why either) but it turns out it sold all sorts of stupid things. one of them being blow-up sheep. I had to get one (No you sickos! just for hilarity of the situation that I'm in scottland and they sell blow up sheep in the bathrooms. Not because i'm that lonely). I made my purchase and blew her up in the bathroom. When i re-entered the bar I had a blow up sheep tucked under my arm and just about everyone wanted a piece of her. I named my sheep sybill and I think I want to take her everywhere around Europe now, but because of the lewdness of the bottom of the sheep I've decided she needs pants. At the time of writing this I still have yet to obtain any.

With the damage in Edinburgh being done we turned in and were going to embark on our last train journey back to London... for a thrid time.

And what a long journey it was going to be...