29 Dec 2013

Hangover day! We slept/watched Netflix until the late afternoon, finally rousing ourselves to meet some of Bertha’s friends at a brewpub called the Hanging Bat. The pub was cool, we took it easy and only had a few beers before heading home. We finally stopped by a chip shop, I got delicious chips and cheese. I guess you can only find chip shops while sober, which just seems cruel.

30 Dec 2013

Today is the beginning of New Years (a.k.a. Hogmanay) celebration! We were planning on going out and being productive but didn’t wake up until super late. Pro Tip: If you want to reduce jet lag try to get on the local schedule immediately, force yourself to be awake or sleep on the plane as necessary. DO NOT go out partying every night. You will end up nocturnal. Anyway, it was also raining. Yay, excuse to stay in! So we decide to just start drinking since neither of us was particularly hung over and we didn’t have anything else we needed to do. Also drinking didn’t require leaving the house. We were running low on vodka but we solved that problem. We started out with the typical beer pong but after a few games, including the 3d version, we got bored.

Side note: The 3D version was actually pretty easy. The only rule changes are that you had to clear an entire level before any balls you made in power levels counted. Also there were no re-racks allowed.

nyway then we decided to switch to BattleShots since we had played entirely too much beer pong the past 3 days. We had, sadly, run out of vodka. We did the only thing we could. We went to Betha’s bottle of baijiu from Olga. We had also run out of chaser at this point so we were using pink lemonade mix. It was a desperate time in our lives.

It was disgusting. Obviously we had to finish it because it was so small leaving it for another day would be pointless. We abandoned our game after we had each sunk a ship and just finished off the baijou like real men. Or something. We were running pretty late at that point. The torchlight procession started at 7. We figured we would be given flashlights since they call flashlights torches in the UK. And who would trust a bunch of drunken assholes with fire? Apparently Scotland, that’s who. We show up to a ridiculously long line of people with unlit fire swords. Literal swords of fire. We began to get a bit more excited. We had clearly made the right decision when we decided not to skip this. We got to the fire sword distribution center and had to convince the line guard that we had tickets. We had to say it numerous time I don’t know why he wouldn’t believe the drunken Americans. So we claimed a couple of the last fire swords. At this point they were out of paper hilts, which some people in line had warned us were critical. Pro Tip: Arrive before the exact start time if you do not want the dregs of the fire swords. We tried picking up some soggy ones from the ground but, being paper, they disintegrated immediately so we had to go without. But burning your hands is a small price to pay to play with a SWORD OF FIRE!

Rather than waiting in the giant queue we decided instead to go between some of the barriers and just start mid procession. Pro Tip: When involved in a giant clusterf of people never, ever wait in line. We sword fought a bit and then started attempting to blow them out. Mine went out easily but Bertha struggled with hers. Some guy with a big camera, we’re not convince he was a professional, found us struggling amusing and took some pictures. Eventually with some coordinated huffing and puffing hers went out. We doused them in a puddle for good measure. Now we are saving them for drunken fun when I come back.

We left the procession after about ten minutes to head to the train station. We had told one of Bertha’s friends in Dunfermlin that we’d go there for his birthday. The train station was easy enough and we arrived about five minutes early. Dunfermlin was nice. Kinda quaint small town feeling. We had to walk up a giant hill (of course) to get to bar. We had one drink and left after about 45 minutes. We were both fairly sober and hungry at this point so we headed to the “chippy” and grabbed delicious chips with cheese, jalapenos, and garlic sauce. I think I could live on chips. They were better than the ones in Edinburgh due to the excessive amount of toppings. We went back to the station and caught the earlier-than-intended train home.

31 Dec 2013

New Year’s Day! We did have some errands to run so we actually made it out if the house during the day. Granted I think it was still 2p when we left the house but the sun was up so it counts.

So anyway we got in the car and tried to plug in the gps. The car charger fell completely apart in the lighter socket. We tried to dig the piece out and it was sparking at us. Finally it stopped sparking and we got everything out. We managed to get the charger back together but think we blew a fuse in the car because the cigarette lighter stopped working entirely.

The main order of business was getting a Hogmanay ticket for Bertha’s friend Kenny. So we went to find that building. We also went New Years dress shopping for Bertha at the mall. We found the dress in the first five minutes which was totally odd. The jewelry went just as quickly and included a sweet snake ring that I’m totally jealous of. I managed to avoid buying unnecessary things.

We went through the Christmas market just a bit and got crepes. We didn’t really stay too long since the rest is touristy souvenir stuff and nobody has time for that. We also decided not to get hot toddies and wait until we were back for the New Year celebration since it happens in the same place. That never happened, I’m sure they weren’t worth it anyway.

So we went home, got ready, and did a bit of pre-gaming. Then we went to meet Phil (Kenny bailed so Phil was taking the ticket). All of us were packing flasks, like professionals, so we just bought sodas. As expected drinks were pretty expensive, suckas! Pro Tip: Pre-game and pack a flask to save money but still party like it 1999! Then we decided we weren’t drunk enough for the flasks to work so we went to a bar called Jekyll and Hyde which Bertha had been wanting to visit. The bar was super cool with nice gothic touches everywhere.

The street celebration was fine. We drank our flask beverages watched the fireworks and then headed back. I had brought my heels out and wanted to go dancing. The first place we stopped in we kinda lost Phil to some guy he knew. We tried to go in without him (I was under the impression we were intentionally ditching him) but it turned out the cover was 20 pounds not the 3 they had originally told us so we left. Phil was gone.

Anyway we hit a piano bar next because it had no cover. I got bored pretty quickly so we left soon. On the way home I remembered I had my blow up unicorn horns so I have nice pictures of Bertha sitting in the street to inflate one.