That is how Pete speaks. bonafide scottish. its really cool! Allow me to introduce you to Pete and Liz. I can't really explain the link past that Liz and Mike are related on Mikes mothers side. Past that and i just get confuddled. trust me. its messy. Liz is maried to Pete. a scotsman. They live in Currie, a suburb of Edinburgh.
We arrived in Edinburgh this afternoon after catching the train from near Kates place. in saying near i mean a good 40 minutes away! The train carriages have half and half seating - in that half the airplane seating face one way and the other half face the other way. The only thing is it's never actually half and the majority are always facing backwards. So when you get on a train which is reasonably far up the line you invariably end up with a backwards facing seat. We managed to find a spare double so we could at least sit together but backwards we faced. not fun. not even on a train on which i can usually read quite happily without any negative consequences. unlike in a car. but facing backwards was pushing it. luckily someone got off the train out of a forward facing seat a few stops along and we bet the crowds to it. no not really but i was prepared to fight if necessary!
So we arrived in Edinburgh. I should mention its festival time. oh but not just one festival. there are six going on. all at the same time. Now i thought London was busy. Edinburgh was manic with a capital M. we emerged from the central train station -which is located funnily enough very centrally - into throngs of tourbuses and people and buskers and people and really cool looking old buildings and more people. There were lots and lots of people.
So we made for the gardens to eat our lunch, surrounded by people, and decided what we were going to do as Pete and Liz were not flying back into Edinburgh (from London) until an unknown time. So shouldering our packs - which my shoulders certainly baulked at! - we staggered up the slope to the forecourt of the National gallery of Scotland where there were street shows going on every half hour or so. It was very good. we sat on some concrete tiered seating and the acts came to us. We first had Piper from vancouver who did some crazy balancing/juggling fire/juggling knives act while perched on a rather precarious tower of various objects. Piper was quite good in our opinion so he got some coins in his hat.
Next we had a drumming and bagpipe band from Glasgow whose name i couldn't pronounce and now can't remember. they were dressed in very authentic black singlets and long tartan...well they weren't formal kilts as such more an informal kilt...lets just say the pleats weren't pressed! and they yelled as they played as the mood lead them. very driving beats, a tambourine played with much vigour - he even had a hand shield to protect his palm! - and a lone bagpiper who i kid you not, had a neck that inflated to the width of his head as he blew. no really. Mike and i spent have the performance just staring at this guy's neck. i've never seen a neck expand like that before! to cap it off one of the drummershad really long hair and loved really getting into it and i suppose, kind of moshed, in a scottish sort of way - his hair flying everywhere - as he drummed and yelled.
Oh and they had two guys that were circling to sell the cd's but honestly they were scary looking guys with lots of facial hair and far too much dye regrowth for anyone. Think a guy who is dark haired, the hair is dyed blonde, but done that orangey grown out blonde thing and his hair was past his shoulders and the regrowth past his ears. and dressed in a traditional pheasant sort of way. very intimidating.
But the heavies aside the crowd loved it - we are in scotland of course!
Following them we had Benny B from Aussie. He followed the same lines as Piper but unfortunately he was a bit of a complainer, shot down other competitors acts, told us what he expected us to pay and for a family show delved below the smut line to many times. So while he may have been geographically somewhat close to our hearts his show wasn't and we were quite happy to shoulder our packs and walk on.
At this point i decided we were getting on a hop on hop off tourist bus - they are open air double decker, about 8 different companies to choose from! The ticket is good for 24 hours and you get on and off when and where you want so we sat with our ear phones listening to the commentary for an hour, just chillin out, soaking up the atmosphere in the city - and there was plenty of it! - and getting our bearings around the city. Edinburgh Castle (where we head to the Military tatto tomorrow night - Yay!) is just amazing. it sits high above the city of the massive rock plug of an extinct volcano. It must have been a formidable sight to the marauding troops! It was a good way to see what we wanted to check out tomorrow.
After the tour had done it's loop it returned back to near the train station so we found the train to Currie, and found our way out there. Then we had an address to find. So we asked someone who looked local (he was walking his dog) but no, he'd never heard of the street. So we carried on. Another person we asked turned us out of the culdesac complex we were about to enter but they still didn't know the street name. The third person we asked hadn't heard of it either and we were starting to wonder if the street existed. So we gave her the address as it was written down and she said 'oh that's larnack not candrick' The moral of the story is make sure you write your L's and C's clearly people! and just give the address to the person to decipher. its a lot quicker.
Ok, i'd best be off to bed. it's goin to be a long day tomorrow.
tune in for 'tattoo tales' in 2 days time!
Toodle-oo!
KJ
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