The rest of Scotland and MCFLY!!

May. 6th, 2009 at 10:52 pm

Friday, 1 May

Kevin and I got up at seven in the morning to get ready, grab food, and get to Haggis Adventure Tours for our day trip. On the way out of the city, we passed a school that had been sold and was being done over into apartments. It used to be a school for deaf and blind children, and their big charity event was an annual football match where the blind kids would play the deaf. This obviously put the blind kids at a bit of a disadvantage, so it was decided to put a bell in the football for them to hear the ball to kick at it and not lose as badly. Three years ago, they cancelled the match, though, as a cat had cut across the pitch the blind children were practicing on; wearing a collar with a bell on it, it attracted the attention of the blind children, who kicked it to death. Whoops.

We drove through the countryside a little bit, passing Sterling and Scone castles (we couldn’t see them too well) and made a pit stop at a place that had a woolly coo, Hamish. He looked like a baby woolly mammoth, without a trunk, and was adorable. He thought my camera was a snack, which was almost bad. I guess a tour guide got bovine herpes from “kissing” Hamish by having him eat a Digestive out of his mouth. Teehee!

We drove through the Highlands for another couple hours, occasionally stopping to take pretty pictures. We saw the lake where Sean Connery has a house, and also a certain chunk of mountains that is used in a lot of movies, such as Braveheart and Harry Potter. We also passed a little glen where the MacDonalds live; they don’t like the Campbells and won’t let any one by the name of Campbell stay in their town because hundreds of years ago, the Campbells took advantage of Highland hospitality and stayed in the MacDonald’s homes for a couple weeks, until they killed them all in the morning. We also passed the tallest mountain in Scotland (Nevis, I think). The name of North Face originates from the treacherous North Face of the mountain, which is kinda cool.

We eventually ended up at Loch Ness. I forget the name of the town we were in, but it was very cute, and they had a manmade canal for little boats to go through. Kev and I watched those for a few, and also walked down to the lake to eat our bagged lunch. The view was very pretty; it probably would have been nice had we done the boat tour as well, but what we did was more relaxing. A swan tried to eat some of our food; I think Nessie was really a giant black swan. How terrifying would that be?

Before getting back on the bus, we tried to go see this old abbey that’s being redone into flats, but it was private property so we got scared and ran away. We slept for a lot of the drive back, in between watching the Highlands and rainbows (Scotland had lots of rainbows, man) out the window.

We got back a bit early from our trip, which was good, so Kev and I went on a seach for some dinner. We ended up at Maggie Dickson’s Pub- the woman who was hanged, pronounced dead, and then woke up going “jk! And you can’t retry me because I’ve been punished for that crime (hiding a pregnancy) once already! LOL.” They had a decent deal of 2 dinners for eight quid, so I got some fish and chips and a soda, and then when we were eating, some woman came by our table and asked if we wanted a sample of Jack and coke. So we got a couple free samples of Jack and coke, which was fab.

After dinner, we went to do a ghost tour. Rhiannon, Er’s friend, came to meet up with us, so that was cool. We got free wind-up flashlights; mine ended up being extremely bright for a while, but then died. I think I over wound it, which I didn’t think possible. Oops. The tour was pretty cool. It started at Waverly Bridge, where lots of people go to commit suicide- they were going to put nets as a preventative measure, but decided drunk people would think it a fun game to jump into the nets. They’re so right. Then we went to Calton Cemetery and heard the story about the woman who was buried alive and awoken from her coma due to the pain of graverobbers cutting off her fingers to remove her rings; they tried to argue that she would’ve died if they hadn’t dug her up, so they saved her life, but they still got hanged for it. We also went up Calton Hill, which is supposedly the portal to the faerie world, but that wasn’t explained too well. We did relearn a bit about changelings and redcaps and grindylows, though. Redcaps like to eat your intestines, and grindylows turn into pretty horses that, when you try to catch them, you get stuck to the horse and it runs back into the water and you drown. Our tour guide was really fun and entertaining, Kev tried to be his biffle, and I don’t blame him a bit.

We went to the Bank Hotel to enjoy our complimentary pint, and chat a little bit longer, until Rhiannon had to go and Kev and I decided to crash.

Saturday, 2 May

We went and wandered around Edinburgh castle for a while; we went into the War Museum, where I was distracted by a video about bagpipers and dancing in kilts, as well as the information about how when a sailor first crossed the equator, there would be a ceremony where people dress up as mermaids and Neptune and throw the sailor in a tub of water and give him a certificate. Scots are fun. We also saw the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny (you can barely see where it was broken; I was too short to notice it, and had to stand on tiptoe when Kev pointed it out) before rushing outside to see the one o’clock gun go off (since it’s cheaper for one cannon blast than the twelve necessary to mark noon). The war memorial was also pretty cool, and had books with all of the soldiers’ names who died in action- I found Kev some Mc and MacQueens. There was also a really cute, tragic dog cemetery.

From the castle, we went into a kilt shop that had actual looms and stuff working in it- it was a really cool shop, and huge.

We lunched in the Elephant House, which was a cafe covered in elephant trinkets and books, and served very delicious beef and mushroom pie with some of the best mashed potatoes and gravy ever, as well as awesome chocolate cake. But the food easily could have tasted so good simply because that was the place where JK wrote a large portion of Harry Potter, since they would let her sit there all day with a single cup of coffee. You could see “Hogwarts” as well as Greyfriars Kirk and the castle from the large windows, and it was so so cute. Kev and I decided that it was far too loud for any real work to be accomplished, but that was probably because of JK’s fame, and it must have been much quieter on the whole when she initially wrote there. (Several times we also passed the hotel in which she finished the last book, and engraved the date on the back of a bust in the room she was staying in).

After we were full, we moseyed over to Arthur’s Seat (nothing to do with the king- maybe I’ll look up the origin of the name someday). We apparently took the exceedingly difficult way up, starting on a remarkably steep path, then diverging to go up and down the rocky crags before that small path met up with the level large one we initially left. After hanging out on the top a bit and enjoying the stellar view of the city, the mountains and the water, we decided to take the easy route down. Somehow we missed that and ended up slipping and sliding down what must have been a waterfall in the rain, but was dry since it was a sunny day. Yeah, we rocked that mountain.

I got back in to campus around eleven, and sent in the last of my forms to confirm my employment for the summer, so I will definitely be working a full-time internship from Newton. Go team!

Sunday, 3 May

This was largely a recovery from travel type of day. I watched a couple of movies and discovered textsfromlastnight.com (bad news bears), and then went to see X-Men Origins at Genesis when I figured I needed to get out of the room. It was really good. I will say nothing else about it.

Monday, 4 May

I did some more chilling and catching up on photos and LJ early in the day. Vanessa and I took a little while to plan our birthday party- we’re going to have sombreros and a piñata, be jealous- and then I went to Boulevard Brasserie at Covent Garden for the BC farewell dinner. I got duck as a starter, and it came looking like lunch meat with two pieces of yummy bread, cranberry sauce, and lettuce, so I decided to make a sandwich- the kid next to me copied my idea, and all the flavours mixed deliciously. I had chicken kiev and mashed potatoes as the main course, and profiteroles (cream puffs!) smothered in chocolate sauce for dessert. And lots of free wine. I talked to Paul Wooten for most of the meal, and then Liz came and visited towards the end. I ended up going back to Mile End on my own since everyone else was going to get drinks after, but Liz and one of her friends walked to the underground with me before they went back to their campus.

I ended up going to Hayfields once I got back, and played some pool. I was completely terrible, and accidentally hit Damien in the face with the pool cue after one of my crap shots, and I felt really bad. We left pretty early since Hassan and Damien had a final the next day.

Tuesday, 5 May

OMG MCFLY! I had McDonalds for the first time in a long time and it was delicious, and then went to the concert. David Achuerleda opened, and he was really good- everyone got very excited when he sang “Angels,” by Elton John. After he finished and before McFly went on, they were playing random music (“Mihnomihna” and the like), which was really funny. And then McFly was there, and they were wonderful. All About You, Obviously, Star Girl, Five Colours, Do Ya?, Another Song for the Radio, and The Last Song were among the many played. As “break times,” Tom explained how they called to order a pizza at every city, and the one with the fastest delivery time would be their favourite city to go to, so then Dougie called Dominos from on stage. When the pizza arrived, he threw the pizza on the people down front. (I was so jealous- the girls behind us, at the very back, got asked if they wanted to move down front, probably because they were enthusiastic during the opener, but also because they were too close to the spotlight operator. I almost bought those tickets. I am so dumb.) At the end, they threw everything into the crowd- towels, water bottles, poured the coke from Dominos on everyone... it was really funny. SUCH A GOOD EXPERIENCE. I bought a show shirt and am very glad for it. I tried calling Erin when they were singing All About You, but I don’t think it came across the phone very well. I couldn’t even hear if it went to her voicemail or if she picked up or if it failed to dial. The only really sad thing about the concert was that it was a small venue (good for being close despite being up back) but that made it a bit hazy from the heat, so they were harder to see and my pictures are pretty blurry. A good portion of them will be posted anyways, though, because I was so excited. Love McFly.

I had to have Caitlin hold on to my room key so that Carly could let herself in when she got to my campus, but that worked out fine.