August 5, 2004

Day 3: Edinburgh

Graffiti: “Edinburgh city council and local government: drink piss.”

3:34 p.m. (local time)

Well, we’ve arrived in Edinburgh and I must say, compared to Glasgow this place is a palace. However, Lauren and I have decided to stop knocking the dingy city, as we did wind up having a good time during our visit yesterday. The day had started out with a brutal awakening. Apparently in Scotland the term “wake-up call” means excessive pounding on the door of your room until you’re wretched from your sleep and you create some noise resembling that of a coherent person. Lauren was the first to make it as I tried to figure out why a nuclear bomb had just gone off in the middle of my otherwise pleasant dream. We felt better after heading down to the dining room for a full Scottish breakfast of eggs, sausage, hash browns and beans. Lauren and I skipped out of the beans (for many obvious reasons) but did very much enjoy the rest.

After a quick shower we loaded up our backpacks with all the essentials and headed out to the Glasgow Science Centre. We managed to find the longest possible route there and got a most unwelcome tour of Glasgow’s seedier districts. We made it to the Centre in one piece though, and spent many hours exploring all it had to offer. Children ran amok everywhere since, as is the case in our own Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, the exhibits are geared mostly towards kids. It wasn’t at all lost on us though, and we ran from place to place almost as excited as the 6-year-olds around us! It was definitely one of those fun-for-all-ages type places.

Some exhibits were just fun and quite simple: things involving magnets, electricity, crazy mirrors and the like, but most things included some educational value, including several exhibits on the pollution in the River Clyde, the main body of water running through the city, and the effects of cigarette smoking. Obviously famous Scottish scientists were featured all over, and Lauren and I even took an automated quiz on the ethics of cloning.

After we’d had our fill of science, we meandered our way back to the B&B, stoping along the way to see the tall ship and the transport museum. We didn’t go into either, the outside was enough. When we got back to the B&B we prettied ourselves up and went on the hunt for some cute Glaswegian boys (only to look of course!). We had dinner (fajitas) as a Mexican place called Driftwood (a rather un-Mexican name but whatever). We stuck around until about 9:30, hoping it would turn into some kind of night club, but instead a bunch of TVs turned on and revealed what seems to be the latest and greatest in British reality television: Big Brother 5.

Lauren and I decided to leave and find some place that wasn’t playing crappy television, but after walking the streets for a few minutes we decided that the prospect of partying was futile and we went back to the B&B to switch on the TV ourselves. We watched a popular British comedian…Peter something, who was fairly humorous, succumbed and watch Big Brother 5’s second episode of the evening, and finally a healthy dose of American TV with Sex and the City.

We left early this morning for Queen St. Station. The 45 minute train ride to Edinburgh was smooth and scenic. Waverly Station was a great place to be dropped off, and after a small fiasco with a pay phone we found the shuttle bus that takes us right to the Globetrotter hostel, about a 15 minute ride outside the city.

We basically threw all our stuff into the room, met our rather sleepy roommate who had just come off from working the night shift (we have no others), and caught the next shuttle back to the city for some lunch and a tour up and down the Royal Mile, which is the hub of tourism in Edinburgh. It’s full of tourist shops, restaurants, pubs and other attractions, and Lauren and I were very entertained by the lively street. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival starts this week, so there were lots of buskers out of the streets.

We visited Edinburgh castle (the outside. We didn’t go in after being told by many tourists—including a bunch of Canadians we met at Waverly Station—that it just wasn’t worth the £9.50 admission fee to see the inside), St. Giles Cathedral, and a quick look at the outside of Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she’s in the city. It was closed by the time we got there, but we’ve vowed to go back tomorrow to see the inside as it looks much more worth it than anything else we’ve seen.

We had a small dinner at a sandwich shop on the way back to the bus stop, and we met a few girls from Thailand who were also staying at the hostel. Once we got back we took a quick tour of the hostel, locating all the essentials (bathroom, shower, bar) and headed down to the bar to meet a bunch of other tourists. We got to know a few Irish girls, and found that they feel the same way about the British as we do about Americans. We chatted for a bit until Lauren decided it was time to wash the city out of her hair. I can wait until morning.

Well, it seems like it’s time to get back downstairs as Lauren is showered, dressed and now waiting for me. I’ll write again soon.

Cheers!