Scottish Whisky

We were planning to go to the Castle right away, but it was really crowded and late in the afternoon so we opted for the Whisky Tour instead. It's right outside the Castle on the right. I've been trying to get everyone I know who goes to Edinburgh to get on this thing, but no one ever listens to me. It's been renovated, sadly, so is less surreal. When I stumbled in years ago, sodden wet and by myself, it just freaked me out. It started out all normal, with a miniature reconstruction of a whisky distillery and someone explaining how they make the whisky while pouring out small amounts into your souvenir glass, they there was a room with a ghost projected onto a screen to tell you about the history, and by the time I stepped into a wine cask and went on this 'It's a Small World After All' tour with animatronics making illegal whisky in the woods, I was just absolutely boggled.

Now you get into the cask right off the bat, it's well done, but without the freaky moving mannequins. They do have the largest collection of Whisky in the world, something like 37,o00 bottles, from a Brazilian collector.

They really like their whisky.


That's a condom dispenser full of Scotch Whiskey flavoured condoms. Now, I don't know if you've ever had Scotch Whisky, but it's kind of like getting a kick in the face. It's not something you slowly savour, if you get what I'm saying. I can understand these being a gag gift, but this was in a bathroom beside the tampon machine.

Those bastards stole my idea!!

Hermit crabs in glass shells video.

Edinburgh

I love Edinburgh. It's becoming really popular as a tourist destination apparently, I hope all the visitors don't ruin what is so good about it. One thing I'm really sensitive about now, after so much travelling, is how you are treated by the locals. If there are a lot of tourists, people get sick of it. I can't fault anyone for that, so now I try to go to places no one wants to go to. It turns out that places people avoid aren't necessarily the poor travel choices, if anything it's the really popular places that suck. Colombia was amazing, and no one goes there. The occasional kidnapping might have something to do with that.

We stayed at a small B&B a 30 minute walk from the downtown area. There are about a billion festivals going on all at the same time and it was the only one I could find that had space for us. It was nice enough, but we had to share a bathroom with 8 other people, and that never works. On the plus side, their logo was a tyrannosaurus holding a heart, so that kind of evened things out. Plus after all that uphill walking and trekking up four flights of stairs to get anywhere, we are vaguely less out of shape!

York

I spent a week in York in 2003 when I was supposed to be staying with a friend in London who apparently forgot this fact and left for France. It was a confusing few weeks. My Dad's cousin was kind enough to put me up, especially considering we'd never met, and also her son almost died of pneumonia a few days before I got there. I had a great time back then, and will probably never be able to repay her. It's a lovely city, so Mom and I decided to spend a night there instead of going all the way up to Edinburgh in one day.

Most places won't book for only one night, so we ended up at Crook's Lodge, which was lovely, but whenever I tried to figure out exactly where it was on Google Maps, it appeared to be situated in the middle of an empty field. Considering the name of the place, I was a little concerned, but thankfully it's just a programming glitch.

We wandered about and I made Mom climb to the top of the York Ministry, and then we spent the rest of the day with jelly legs and a surly Mom. We also got to listen to Don McClean's doppleganger. We're not entirely convinced it wasn't Don McClean. We took another Ghost Tour, only this time instead of a small group and mostly historical facts, it was an enormous group and a man in costume playing the part of a surly ghost hunter. It was really funny, the best part being the little kids who probably didn't get to sleep until 3am after all that hysterical giggling.

Graduation

Mom and I spent 5 nights in Oxford. Derek and I had been there for a few days back in November, it felt a little odd being back so soon. It's such a great city though, beautiful parks, lots to do. There's a great Ye Olde Print shop that sells old prints, most from books, and I picked up one of a giraffe from the 1800's that was clearly drawn by someone who had never seen a giraffe. It looks like a mutant polka dotted camel. We also took a ghost walk, which, much to my Mother's great disappointment, didn't involve any ghosts. I suspect this might be because they don't actually exist, but that's because I am boring.

Matt graduated with a Masters in Law, with a class prize in one course. You thought he was smug and arrogant before, that was just practice. I got to spend the ceremony in his dorm room surfing the internet, as there was a limited amount of tickets, which ended up me being the lucky one. Apparently some people go to these things without bathing, and they sit jammed up against my Mom and might occasionally pass wind. Also it poured rain as soon as they stepped outside, and didn't stop until I was to join them. So everyone was very proud, but also had really big hair.

(Matt had to wear that outfit, minus the blue part, to sit his exams, which is one of those traditions in Britain that just cracks me up. Like the lawyers in the British Law and Order in their silly wigs.)

Oxford

So we flew business class, which I'm just going to casually throw out there. Travelling with my Mother is a very different story then backpacking with Derek was, starting with the lounge area, that had a free self serve bar (we tried to smuggle out a ziploc bag of wine, but were thwarted by the fact that I had checked my ziplocs with my luggage), and ending with The Pod.


I am in love with The Pod. Really, there's no reason why a flight shouldn't take 12 hours when you are cocooned within your multimedia and constant supply of free roasted nuts sanctuary. The only snag came when we received our gluten free meals, which was, wait for it... boiled chicken with nothing on it. No salt. No butter. What do these people think gluten is?! We're not allergic to flavour. The strangest part was that all the meals in the menu (yes, you get a menu in business class) were gluten free. So we switched our plain boiled chicken for scallops and veal, and snorted at such poor service rendered to us by the flea ridden masses.

We took the bus up to Oxford (they have free wifi on the buses in the UK. We're such savages in Canada) and checked into the Burlington House B&B, which is just darling. I can't recommend it enough. The manager is totally sweet, the breakfast was delicious, and the rooms very comfortable.

Tired

So I was planning to post today, but I am too tired. We just left Oxford this morning and spent the day in York, walking up the Ministry tower and joining a Ghostwalk.

We leave for Edinburgh tomorrow.

I did get up at 6:30am, this isn't completely pathetic. Only mostly pathetic.