Edinburgh; Dan and Charlotte's Wedding

Back in Scotland, at long last. After a 5 hour train ride from London to Edinburgh, we exited Waverly train station to the wonderful sound of bagpipes, the refreshing smell of the coast, and the titillating promise of haggis. Having been to Edinburgh before and unequivocally loved it (although it was quite some years ago), I was very excited to have another chance to travel the place. In fact, having finally arrived, I found that the city was barely familiar to me after all these years; I had the distinct feeling that I would only remember the place in a drunken stupor, but we later put that particular hypothesis to the test (a few times) and it didn't seem to hold true. I guess I'm just getting old.

We fled the train station and ate some shitty pub food at a shitty local pub before tracking down the apartment we rented for the duration of our stay. Well, I say "apartment" but it was more of a homestay... it wasn't exactly what I wanted but that's what I get for planning late. Actually it would have been fine had there not been an international tango festival in Edinburgh on the same weekend as Dan's wedding. Seriously? An international tango festival? In Scotland? That makes no sense at all. But that's the kind of place Edinburgh is, I suppose; its full of poets, authors and philosophers from all parts, searching for a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of enlightenment, and a whole lot of cheap booze. I hope the tangoers enjoyed themselves, even though the bastards stole all the good apartments. The one I eventually booked was a bit out of town, but very cozy (read - small) and included a breakfast of fruit, muesli, and home made multigrain bread. Well, at least we got bread when our hostess Daniela remembered to put the stirring stick into the breadmaker. And when she forgot, we got a little brown brick for breakfast. There was also a cat in the apartment, which worried me a bit until we met, sniffed each other, and agreed to a nonverbal pact of mutual respect and forbearance. But between you and me, I ate all his snack treats in a fit of feline posturing when he wasn't looking. Meow.

Our time in Edinburgh was all about Dan and Charlotte's wedding, and all the wonderful things that came along with it. We got to rent kilts, which were absolutely amazing (I've never felt so comfortable in formal dress in my life), and best of all I got to hang out with so many old friends I haven't seen in years. Grade-school memories came flooding back as we sat down for drinks with Dan, Gib, Simon, Kaley, Paul, Janet, Harrison, and an impressive array of significant others. We got a ton of face time while we were there, and had such a wonderful week leading up to Dan's wedding. We ordered cider on tap, drank beer from frosty mugs and we ate deep fried balls of haggis (and deep fried... everything else) while catching up on years of history, reminiscing on all the stupid things we did (and naturally continue to do), and marveling at the fact that we've all survived this long. By the middle of the week, we'd seen the national gallery, visited the outside of the Edinburgh castle (pictured left), walked down the royal mile and heard many earfuls of bagpipes, and eaten enough deep fried food to perfectly counteract all the beer we'd consumed (that's how it works, right?). One fine evening a bunch of us got together and did a ghost walk tour, which was, as expected, a bunch of bullshit, but very entertaining nonetheless. We made our way down into the depths of the city, stopping to ponder ghosts and ghouls, and we got the occasional horror film style scare from the tour guide (mostly just half-anticipated yelling). One of the random girls on the tour sharted herself about 5 minutes in when a church bell rang a block away. High strung.

The culmination of all of this was Dan's wedding, which was an incredible night. I don't really have any pictures because my camera just wouldn't fit into my sporran, but most of the people reading this were there anyway. Jason and I prepared for this wondrous event by donning our full kilts which we'd rented in town. To complete the experience I blasted some traditional bagpipes off of youtube as we donned our gear; enough culture to bring a tear to your eye. Charlotte looked absolutely stunning in her wedding dress (and I know you have to say that anyway, but at least it's true in this case), and Dan looked pretty decent in a kilt, although his skinny legs were not quite up to William Wallace standards, let's put it that way. And of course my Kelly looked superbly gorgeous, in a cute red dress with a fun little black fascinator. My tie even matched her dress; we were a fairly dashing couple. So were Jason and his date Sarah, whom we met in Ecuador; she joined us from Aberdeen. All in all a great time, complete with a live band and lots of ceilidh (group dancing). I know they were both pretty stressed about the whole thing beforehand, but they put in so much work that it went seamlessly, or at least appeared to. My speech at dinner was great fun; I just told old embarrassing stories (of which there were literally too many to choose from) and wished them a lifetime of love and happiness. Actually I didn't really have time for that last bit so I mostly just told stories... Near the end of the night, I remember standing on the balcony overlooking Edinburgh's night-scape with my old friend Gibson, and we agreed over one of many drinks that there are some truly great times in a person's life, and that Dan's wedding was one of them, and that it was rare to be conscious of such a thing while it was actually happening. And so we made a pact to enjoy it to the very fullest: Mission accomplished. Thank you Dan and Charlotte, for inviting us and making it such a wonderful experience. You two have years of awesomeness ahead of you, especially if Dan can get some muscle on those skinny legs.

After returning our beloved rental kilts and saying many goodbyes, we made our way back to the train station, where I made one last goodbye and sent Kelly on her way back to London to catch her flight the next day. Jason and I headed out the next day, leaving beautiful Edinburgh behind to inspire the newest generation of poets and philosophers, and made our way into the highlands for some solid bro-time. With only a week or so left in our trip, and so much to see, we set out to Loch Lomond to get a taste of rural Scotland, which did not disappoint. More on that in my next and final post, stay tuned!

C

London

Kelly!!! My lovely girlfriend came to meet us at the train station, and so one of the first faces I got to see in worldly London was the most familiar one, and beautiful as ever. Don't worry; that's all the sappy stuff for this post, in case you're already gagging. Dan also met us at the station, and assumed the role of patient tour guide right from the start, helping us buy our oyster cards (the girls almost shat with delight when they saw the special edition royal wedding oyster cards they'd received) and accompanying us for some fish and chips later in the day. This is my second time in Britain, and I learned a lot the first time I was here: The beer is cheap, pubs are ubiquitous and everyone has a lovely accent. I love this place. The flat that we rented turned out to be nice enough, although a bit far out of town (which is not unusual in London since it's so big), and it was only after the landlord had already left that we discovered that it was missing one rather important piece of equipment: A shower! It didn't even occur to me to ask if there was a shower in the flat. It would have been just as likely, in my mind, that there was no front door, so when Kelly went into the bathroom and said "Oh... where's the shower?", I assumed that either she was making a joke or she hadn't looked very hard. In the end, Kelly was right (as usual), and after a long look through the house we could find no shower whatsoever (I would have settled for a hose and some duct tape), so we ended up taking a lot of baths in London. Crap.

We were very busy during our stay in London, and we didn't have consistent access to the internet either, so I really didn't have any chance to blog (or at least I'm using that as an excuse for not keeping up). I can't remember exactly when things happened, so I'll just give a general sort of summary of our trip and hope to both not forget anything important and not fabricate anything too extravagant. We got over to Dan and Charlotte's house for a wonderful stir fry dinner, and Dan was a gracious enough host to meet us almost every single day to show us a new part of London. The only day that he failed us (and even then it was not an epic failure) was the day he took us to the normally bustling markets in the trendy part of town only to find that they'd inexplicably shut for the day (picture of disappointment left). It was so great to see Dan again, neither of us could believe that it had been over two years since we last saw each other... how time flies.

When we weren't following Dan around London, we were exploring on our own, blazing a trail through the sights until we were tired enough to go home and have a... bath. The girls got up early one morning and went out on a bus tour which covered most of the major sites, including Westminster Abby, St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, etc., while Jason and I stayed home and chilled out for a bit. One day we all got out to the tower of London, which was an interesting site with various attractions inside, and a great view of London bridge. We saw a medieval torture chamber, the crown jewels of England (sparkle much?), suits of armor (such as these two up and left; the biggest on record and one of the smallest), watched the whole while by the gargantuan ravens which prowl the grounds in search of small fingers to munch on. It was totally worthwhile, though exorbitantly priced, and we left feeling satisfied and full of useless facts, not having losing a single finger to the ravens. Although as you can see Jason was killed by an inanimate object (if anyone could do it, Jason would be the one). We left him for the ravens but they didn't seem interested in Canadian.

We also made our way to the British Museum, where we saw a whole shitload of other old things, collected (pillaged/stolen) during colonial times from friendly foreign cultures (scared victims) and forgotten archaeological sites (foreign museums). In my opinion, the most interesting piece they had on exhibit there, although I must say that there was a lot of fascinating items, was the Rosetta Stone, which was in remarkably good condition considering its age and history.

Basically, our time in London was spent eating a lot of terribly fatty food (forget the queen, god save fish and chips!), drinking a lot of cheap cider, having lengthy stare-downs with pigeons (pic right), sitting on the metro for way too long, and taking way too many baths. Oh, and tie shopping with Dan. I was feeling a bit traveled out after the tourist blitzkrieg that was Paris and Barcelona, so it was nice to just relax for a while. On the 25th we left our flat, Lana heading to the airport and Kelly, Jason and I heading to Edinburgh. If I never have another bath in my life, I will be a happy man. You just can't get clean in there, damnit!

C