Volume 14: Pete back in Europe Part 5
Day 9 - Edinburgh
I kicked off the day heading down to Holyrood park mostly because it sounds like an Asian trying say to “Hollywood” so was wondering if there might be some “Mind your language” TV show type racism going on down there, but judging by the age of the Palace of Holyrood (finished up construction in 1678) the name of the area pre dates the TV show.
Outside of the palace walls is the giant Holyrood Park with its stand out feature being Arthur’s seat towering over the park, the remains of a Volcano. Its probably technically designated a hill, but is bigger than some mountains I’ve seen, so I imagine the Arthur it’s named after must have been a fat bastard for people to say he needs a seat that big. I only scaled the seat half way, and without the aid of a Sherpa decided it would be less taxing to head into the New Town and check out Calton Hill.
Calton Hill does catch your eye from most parts of the city with the Nelson Monument, a largish tower, and National Monument visible from most places. The National Monument is a great testament to when ambition outstrips ability. They originally wanted to build a grand Greek neo classical building based on the Parthenon, but that all seemed rather expensive so essentially gave up once they had about 12 columns up. If this is a national monument, then the national slogan must be “rough, rough, near enough”.
Down the hill I found myself attracted by the sounds of a siren singing in St Andrews Square. In the square was a young lass with what you’d call an advanced karaoke machine banging out requests for what appeared to be a planned event judging by the stalls for various Scottish military groups in the square. She was singing under the Henry Dundas monument. The 1st Viscount Lord Melville is said to be instrumental in abolishing slavery. Sure, the morally correct thing to do, but think of inflation due to wage raises that are now impacting us in the 21st century.
From there I had a pint in the beer garden at Princess street gardens. As I entered there was some band playing called Kryptonite, which sounded like Christian rock as it just sounded like when they sung “I need your love” you knew they just meant Jesus’ love. Apparently Superman’s weakness is Christian rock.
Later in the day after dinner I had a couple of pints watching hurling (the Irish sport with sticks, not vomiting) at Biddy Mulligans and couldn’t believe my luck when a couple of likely lasses sat at table beside me. That stroke of good luck was then followed by the bad luck of needing an emergency crisis poo. In good luck for me I was only 5 minutes from the hotel so held the emergency crisis meeting there.
After the emergency crisis meeting I ventured to Cowshed pub, but that had nothing going for it so placed my faith in the good luck of touching the Greyfriars Bobby nose, and headed to the pub that shared that name. The luck was not with me there either (queue angry letter being written to appropriate Scottish tourism department) so signed up for a pub crawl on my phone that was kicking off within the hour.
The pub crawl was quite a lot of fun, led by 2 Scottish lads in kilts, venturing into many venues which may have been bomb shelters or rape dungeons at one time in their past. I just knew they were hard to find during daylight as I walked past them and didn’t know they existed. The first bloke I talked to was a German bloke named Markus in his mid 20s, in Edinburgh for a few days before heading off for work in Manchester. As we introduced ourselves to other punters on the pub crawl I kept introducing him as my son, something that seemed to make sense with the age difference and after 6 shots and countless beers.
Don’t know how or when I got home. Good night that.
Day 10 - Edinburgh
I woke up at 11am still drunk, and in a daze had breakfast and shower that took so long it wasn’t until 2pm when I left the hotel.
I was in no mood for walking, so made the short journey to the National museum of Scotland to let my remaining brain cells get some education.
Inside the museum are lots of interactive displays to encourage learning and the spread of COVID, including a F1 simulator. I watched some kid do a lap in it and he bounced off pretty much every wall on the track. He was driving how I felt; still drunk.
There was a part of the museum dedicated to the technology rise which included old computers, phones and a synthesizer you could type words into and it would speak the words. You should live a life of no regrets, but I do regret not typing boobs into that machine to get it say boobs.
Other parts of the museum highlight other continents, which is always highlighted by the trademark British theft of things from Egypt.
I managed to see every room and every floor of the museum (which didn’t seem to believe in even numbers as there was only floors 1, 3, and 5. Probably some dodgy Trump type property thing to make it sound taller by missing floor numbers).
Education is tiring, much like a pub crawl, so retired back to the hotel afterwards to relax for the night.
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