Scott in Scotland

Day 16

We had an early morning flight out of Antalya, so the morning saw us getting up at 4am to get out to the airport in time.
Bleary eyed we staggered out of bed, had a shower and stumbled downstairs.
We had organized our airport transfer through the White Garden, and it was the husband of the lady that we spoke with yesterday that was going to take us in his car.

He was extremely chirpy for this time of the morning, but this was probably a good thing as there was someone that was staying in the White Garden that was also heading out to the airport, and he did nothing but whinge and moan the whole way out.

We arrived at the airport and took our bags out of the car. Like at the Antalya Otogar security was very tight, and we had to go through the metal detectors and security screening. The good thing was the guards there didn’t have machine guns. The bad thing was they were all wearing white gloves.
I’m not sure which terrified me more.

Sparkles was puckish so she popped over to Burger King and picked up a tactical snack to tide her over.
We then headed upstairs and went through another 2 sets of metal detectors before we were allowed to board the plane.
Given our early start, I slept most of the way to Istanbul, so it was a quick flight (well, it was only about 50 minutes anyway, like a flight from Melbourne to Sydney).

Getting off the plane, there was major confusion about where we needed to head to. There were two signs with arrows pointing in different directions telling onward international travellers to go that way. There was a massive crowd gathered around 3 Air Turkey staff, who were frantically waving their arms and trying to answer everybody at once. It was mayhem… until I saw the sign that we needed to follow, and I led the charge… well, I told the girls to start walking and a lot of other people followed.
Fortunately I got it right.

We had to go through another metal detector, up a flight of stairs, across the area that you check in your luggage, through passport control, and then through another metal detector. These Turks don’t want anything metal and unapproved getting through their security.

There was one amusing thing that happened (aside from all of the metal detectors) while we were standing in the queue for the passport control area.
Sparkles jumped in one queue, and Shakira and I jumped in another one. Sparkles’ queue started to move forward, so I jumped across (as we were at the back of the queue) and I poked out my tongue at Shakira.
Standing in front of her was a mother with her teenage son who had down-syndrome. He saw me poke out my tongue, and he had a bit of a chuckle to himself. I smiled and gave him a wink.
The line I was in took another step forward. I poked out my tongue again. The kid had another chuckle. Sparkles stepped up to the booth and got her passport checked. The kid turned around and poked his tongue out at Shakira. I chuckled.
I was then called up to have my passport checked.
And go through another metal detector.
It took Shakira 15 minutes to get through passport control, because the family that was at the front of the queue when we arrived seemed to be having major issues, and something major needed to be sorted out.

Once Shakira had made it through and joined us, we went for a wander through duty free, looking at what was on offer. We didn’t end up buying anything, because we figured we would just be able to get it at the Edinburgh airport before going through customs there.

Shakira and Sparkles headed off to get a coffee, and I had a case of order envy, so I went in search of a Burger King outlet myself. It was rather tasty, and filled a craving for Western burgers that I had been having for a little while now.

I went back to rejoin the girls, as time was rapidly approaching when we would need to get on the plane to Edinburgh. Shakira decided to go and have a tactical before getting on the plane, and Sparkles and I proceeded to the gate.
We were waiting… waiting… waiting there for her to arrive, and the last people to go through the gate before us was a family. Shakira finally arrived, and we headed onto the plane. One of the members of the family, though, had a bung leg and a walking stick, so the plane staff were checking it out.
Once again, I had one of the last person to have my ticket checked, but still manage to not be the last person to board the plane departing Turkey.

I fell asleep fairly early on into the flight again, and managed to doze through most of the travel. Which was a good thing, as I was sitting in the emergency door aisle and couldn’t keep my bag at my feet. Therefore I only had my notebook and a pen to keep me occupied. Needless to say, I didn’t get any more journal notes put down, just sleep.

I woke up as the plane started to fly over the Scottish coast. Right from the moment that I laid eyes on Scotland, I found it beautiful. Rolling green hills and mountains rearing up from nowhere.
I had loved my time in Turkey, and can see myself going back there many more times, although I was keen to try out a brand new country.

We think that the trainee pilot must have been flying, because as the plane was landing they had to slam on the breaks really hard at the end so that we wouldn’t run off the end of the runway. They also played a Turkish music track, just to get that last little bit of Turkey in for us.
I looked out the window and saw that it was sunny. Sunny? We thought we had landed in the wrong country, as the forecast had been 18 and raining.
Oh well. Not complaining.
We got off the plane, and went through customs almost straight away. Oh oh – no duty free before getting out of the airport.
Our bags took about 20 minutes to come through on the conveyor belt, and the three of us were debating whether we would need to declare the apple tea and Turkish delights that we had brought with us.

After collecting our bags, I decided to head over to the “Got something to declare?” booth… to find it empty. Right – so this was the day that I should have been a drug mule.
We all shrugged our shoulders and went to head out of the international arrival area.
As we were about to walk out, the doors were closed. And an announcement kept telling us “The doors are closed. The doors are closed. They will open shortly. The doors are closed. The doors are closed…..”
Well, you get the idea.

It was 11.40am at this stage, UK time. Turkey was 2 hours ahead, so local time we had been up since 2am. Urgh.

We walked out of the airport and headed to the bus stop. One of the first things that I saw was a massive banner saying “Welcome to Scotland. This is home.”
Sure, it was an advertisement for a bank, but that was a nice touch.
The bus arrived, and it had a storage area for luggage. Unfortunately, it was full by the time that we jumped on, so I carried my bag upstairs in the hope that there would be more luggage storage space up there. Unfortunately not.

Sparkles, Shakira and I took up 6 seats between the three of us, and the bus started to fill up quickly. It was a half hour bus trip into the city, and we had an older American couple sitting on the opposite side of the aisle to us, making comments along the way.
As we pulled into Edinburgh city proper, he pointed out the Royal Mile to her.
She said “No, that’s not it, it’s over there.”
They went back and forth with each other, saying that the other one was wrong. He pointed out the buildings that were on the Royal Mile (he was correct) but she kept arguing. I laughed to myself when he turned down both of his hearing aids and gave up the argument.
The bus pulled up to Waverly train station, where the girls and I would be getting off the bus.
The American couple had another interesting conversation. He asked her if they should get some directions, and she said “No, I know where we’re going.”
“But it wouldn’t hurt to…”
“No, I know where we’re going!”
Back and forth again between the two of them.
She was wrong, again.

We walked up a hill (of course), and my trundle bag struggled with the uphill and the cobblestones. I opted to sling the hand straps over my shoulders and turned it into a back pack, which made it much easier to transport.
We very shortly arrived at our accommodation, the Castle Rock hostel.
Unfortunately, it was too early to check in. We placed our bags into the luggage room, and headed to a pub that was recommended to us, the Bee Hive.

Given that it was such a gloriously sunny day, we sat out in the beer garden, soaking up the accommodatingly temperate day.
We had a bite to eat, some tasty UK pub grub. I got a burger. A real burger. With bacon. Mmmmmm.

The table next to us contained a group of Irish folk. One of them turned around and asked us if we were Aussies, and we replied in the affirmative. He had worked in Australia a couple of years earlier, and we had a good chat. He then volunteered one of the other Irish guys to do a stand up comedy act for us, which was quite amusing, but only involved 3 jokes, so I reckon he would need to expand his repertoire if he wanted to have a stage show.
I offered to show them a magic trick. I asked if one of them had a 5 pound note. They were a bit skeptical (I am Australian, after all), but one of them provided me with a note.
I told them to watch very carefully.
First, I tore the note in half. They all gasped in disbelief.
Secondly, I tore the note in half again. They all started to giggle in amusement.
Finally, I tore the note in half once more.
And I said the magic words:
“I’m sorry.”

Fortunately, I had a spare 5 pound note in my wallet which I promptly handed over, but the rest of the table were all laughing and didn’t see this.
One of the girls then took the pieces of the note and declared that she was going to try and find some cellotape to stick the note back together.

The Irish comedian later came across to my table and challenged me to a drinking game called “To the pub and back.”
You lay out 5 cards, you flip a card onto the first one and need to guess whether it is higher or lower than the first card. If you get it right, you move onto the next card. If you get it wrong, you go back to the start.
Should you get to the end card successfully, you are “at the pub”. From that point, you go back to the pub if you make a mistake.
Every time you make a mistake and go back to your last point, you have to take a drink. Needless to say, I finished two beers getting to the pub and back.

By this stage, it was about 4pm, and our rooms were well and truly ready to be checked into. We bid farewell to the Irish and wandered up to the hostel. We took our bags up to our rooms, and the girls opted to have a tactical snooze.
I opted to head back to the pub.

I wandered back down to the pub and had another drink with the Irish folk. Some of their local friends were there, and I had a chat with them as well. I saw the time, and opted to head back to the hostel to join up with the girls again. The Irish crew told me that they were going to head to a pub just up the road later on to watch some Gaelic handball if I wanted to join them.

I toddled back up to the hostel, and ran into Sparkles. She told me that her and Shakira were going to snooze a bit longer, so I opted to go and join up with the Irish mob… once again.

I toddled down to the pub again and met up with the Irish crew, and got an introductory lesson in Gaelic handball. It is a lot like Aussie Rules Footy, only with less kicking.

I then boozily headed back up to the hostel and met up with the girls. We were meeting up with our Scottish friend, Jenny “the Highland Lass” MacDonald. We didn’t have the interwebs, so we couldn’t use maps to figure out where we were, but I had a rough idea after looking at a map.
Admittedly, we did get lost at one point, but I figured out we had gone one street too far, so after doing a blocky, we found the venue we were supposed to go to.
We walked in the door, and saw a very nice restaurant ahead of us. Unsure whether this was the correct venue, we spoke to the lady at the front and said that we were here to meet a friend. She asked whether there was a reservation under our friend’s name, to which we replied that we didn’t know.
The Highland Lass had informed us that there was going to be a gramophone there, and after mentioning this, the lady smiled and directed us downstairs to their cocktail bar and outdoor garden.

When we headed out to the garden area, we were greeted by the sound of folk music consisting of a guitarist and a violinist. Just around the corner from the door, the Highland Lass and several of her friends were sitting in the corner. There were many squeals of delight as we were reunited with our friend, and introductions were done with her friends.
They were an eccentric bunch, one of them in particular. James. He is a taxidermist by trade, rather camp and was wearing a top hat, had a cane and coat. And he was the gramophone DJ. When the folk music players took a break, James broke out the gramophone records and played a few tunes.

Many gin and tonics were drunk that night by the girls, and I tried a few Scottish beers and whiskeys. The alcohol was so much cheaper than in Australia that we probably had a few too many.
Given that it was a liquid dinner, we needed to find something substantial to eat.
We opted to go old school and have some Pizza Hut.

Sparkles, Shakira, the Highland Lass, two of her friends and myself all headed out and stuffed our drunken faces with pizza. It wasn’t good, but when you’re drunk, pizza is sooooo good.

We said our goodbyes at that point in time, letting the Highland Lass and her friends head off to their pertinent houses, while Shakira, Sparkles and I staggered through a very crowded Edinburgh, arriving back in the hostel about midnight after 20 hours with no sleep.

What a fantastic start to Scotland.