Edinburgh Hogmanay

31st December 2009 - 4th January 2010

This will be fairly brief as it is over 2 months later that I'm writing this and trying to remember what we got up to!

We were up at a decent hour on New Years Eve, considering how late we'd arrived the night before. We found Matt and Jodie and set off in search of a breakfast before heading up to the Royal Mile. We made our way right to the top near the castle and found the first pub of the day. We had to wait half an hour for them to be able to serve us beer (It was just before 11am). We managed to make our way down to another little cozy pub, where we celebrated the Australian New Year. From here, we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way down through various pubs on the Royal Mile, sampling food and beers along the way. We decided on a late afternoon rest (and to sober up a little), before heading out again that evening for the famous Street Party!

The street party was basically that, a street closed off at each ends, with numerous bars and food vans scattered up the sides. At each end (About a km long) there were big screens, showing various bits of footage. We'd paid extra to get tickets into one of the other events coming off the street party. We'd bought tickets to the Keilidh (traditional Scottish music and dancing). We joined in on the first of the barn type dances, and then decided to hang at the back to watch what was going on. After having a beer and then paying a ridiculous amount for a hamburger, we thought we'd attempt getting another beer, from the single, solitary bar that was set up inside the Keilidh area. Dan stood in a queue for about 25 minutes, and managed to move about 30cm's forward. The line wound around for at least 50m, so we decided that we were never going to be watered and gave up. We found Matt and Jodie and decided to leave the Keilidh and head back out to the street party bit to get a drink and use the toilets (The 3 public toilets that were in the Keilidh also had a mile long line too). Once we left the Keilidh, we were not allowed to re enter, and we all agreed that it was an extra 20 quid each that was pretty much a waste of money.

Once back on the street, the first bar we came to did not look promising. The stupid queue was also wound down and around through the street and would've also taken hours to get a drink. We all needed to go to the toilet, so we headed towards the big block of port-a-loos set up about halfway along the street. On our way we found another big bar, with not a single person queued up at it, so we got excited and bought a few drinks. The toilet situation was not as pleasant. Jodie spent about 20 minutes just trying to get into the area where all the loos were, but ended up deciding that it was almost midnight and didn't want to miss the fireworks. She came back to us and we all watched the midnight fireworks off the Edinburgh castle and rock face. They were pretty impressive fireworks, but by UK standards they didn't seem to last for very long. We then got to hear a tiny bit of the band Madness playing Auld Lang Syne(or as Dan thought 'Old Enzymes'!) We were all very tired, cold and grumpy and all busting for the toilets so we were planning to just get out the street party straight after the fireworks and go back to our hotel to use the toilet as it was only about 30 seconds walk from the end of the street party. Problem was actually getting out of the damn enclosure. It took us almost 30 minutes to make our way out through the crowds of people.

Once back at the hotel, I jumped on the toilet before Dan could have a chance. But after waiting all that time to go to the toilet, he couldn't hold on the extra 30 seconds I was on the loo, and he ended up peeing in his pants. He did try to make it to the shower to relieve himself, but, in his haste, he stood on my foot, which made me howl, which Dan claims is the reason why he couldn't hold on! This is something that I will never let Dan forget!

Late the next morning we met up with Matt and Jodie again and decided that we'd spend the first day of the New Year doing some touristy things. We decided to shell out and go on the open topped bus tour of Edinburgh. It was bloody cold, but a nice way to spend an hour or so looking at the city. That evening we decided on a traditional Scottish feed of deep friable food. Matt and Jodie had black pudding and haggis suppers, while Dan and I had sausage suppers. We also decided that we needed to try a deep fried pizza - wasn't the greatest, just a really oily pizza that tastes like its been cooked in the microwave - and Dan insisted on having a deep fried Mars Bar. We all felt disgusting afterwards and sat for the rest of the evening watching TV in Matt and Jodie's room.

Saturday was spent by Dan and I just doing some shopping along the Princes St, while Matt and Jodie played in the castle and climbing Arthur's seat in stupidly cold and wet weather (We weren't that keen!).We also went around for another loop on our 24-hour open topped bus ticket. This time we chose to listen to the audio commentary designed for kids called "Horrible Histories" - it was pretty s***ful.

Later that afternoon, Dan and I managed to get ourselves well and truly confused and lost while trying to find a pub where we were meeting up with my cousin Natalie, and her husband Mal. After plenty of confusion and a few calls to Nat, she managed to come find us and drive us back to the pub where they'd been patiently waiting for us. We enjoyed a few pints in a really cosy little pub, before Matt and Jodie joined us.We said good night to Nat and Mal, and then went in search of some dinner. We headed back into the centre of the city and ended up wandering around a stack of different pubs. All the nice ones were full and impossible to get a table in, so we decided that we'd head back up to the pub where we started the NYE festivities a few days earlier. After dinner, it was a short walk through the snow back to the hotel.

The next morning we said an early goodbye to Matt and Jodie who were making their way back to London; partly on the train and then catching a lift with a mate. We checked out of the hotel, and this time were much more successful in catching the bus out to where Nat lives. We decided to take advantage of cheaper flights on the Monday, and stay an extra night with my cousin! Nat and Mal were heading off to a Scottish Premier League match that day (I wasn't interested in going, but I think Dan would've liked to go!), so we pretty much just dropped our bags off there, checked out their new place then were off again.

We wandered down to a small shopping centre for a quick look around, before catching another bus back into the city, for some necessary shopping. We made our way back to Nat and Mal's late afternoon and lounged around until they returned from the football. We ate a delicious stir fry that Nat cooked up - we were both craving mountains of veggies and this certainly delivered!. After dinner we played a game of Taboo; a game in which you need to get your partner to say a certain word by describing it without using selected 'taboo' words. Dan's not the best with words, but we put up a good effort and were only closely beaten!!! It was an early night for all of us, Nat and Mal had to both return to work the next day, so we said our goodbyes and all headed off to sleep!

Monday morning, our final morning in Edinburgh, we wandered down to the small shopping centre and filled in a few hours watching a movie. We did a little more shopping before heading back to Nat's and packing up and collecting all our things. We'd decided that instead of catching a local bus into Edinburgh and then on the airport express for 20 minutes out to the airport, that we'd catch a local bus all the way from the shopping centre to the airport (Completely opposite sides of the city). We'd done a bit of a research on the net the previous night and the journey should've taken a bit over a hour. After allowing us plenty of time we got on the local bus, with a very rude bus driver, and sat a very long time, waiting for the bus to finally reach the airport. It ended up taking almost 2 hours. We were really lucky we'd allowed ourselves the extra time; as we only had time to check in, walk through security and straight onto the plane.If it had have been much longer, we may not have made our flight!!!

All in all it was a very enjoyable, but cold, festive season for us.

Ahhh finally finished!