Last gasp of Edinburgh

Day 24

Urgh. After a dismal night’s sleep I awoke definitely the worse for wear at about 7am. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and had a shower while the girls still slumbered in their double bed. I had trialed it the evening before and it was definitely uncomfortable, but a damn sight better than sleeping on the hardwood floor.

About 100 metres up the road was a Tescos with a coffee shop in it. I had aspirations of grabbing a coffee and attempting to sort myself out, so I took one of the door swipey dongles and let myself out of the complex.

Unfortunately it was a Sunday, and Tesco doesn’t open until 9am on a Sunday.

For a brief fleeting moment I considered telling Edinburgh where to go and cracking the poos, but I had loved this city over the last couple of days and was willing to put my grumpyness down to a poor night’s sleep, lack of coffee and the nuffy-induced ridiculously high-pitched smoke alarm.

I faffed around on the free wifi for the student accommodation for a little bit, before heading back upstairs to join the girls shortly after 9am.

Sparkles had already showered, and Shakira was just about to take care of her morning ablutions when I returned. Sparkles fixed me a bowl of cereal, because I was quite obviously not able to take care of myself. J

Post breakfast I packed my bags and prepared myself for the arduous walk back across the city – this time uphill – to the Caledonian backpackers hostel that I had stayed at two nights earlier. The girls had to ‘check out’ by 10, as they were required to change rooms. They offered for me to stay another night with them, again on the floor, but I declined and allowed them their privacy.

Plus, I was looking forward to sleeping in a bed again.

Sparkles declared that she wanted to go to the Foodies festival again, and despite having the conversation twice I declined the opportunity.

We agreed to meet up later that afternoon to grab a bite to eat, as this was to be my final night in Edinburgh, and maybe go and see a show at the Edinburgh festival.

So, bag in hand (well, handle for dragging said bag at least) I headed back to the Caledonia.

Edinburgh has a magnificent skyline, both because it is built along a ridgeline, and also because those buildings along the ridgeline are exquisite. Walking past Queen’s park I could look south down one street and see a massive cathedral, then along the next street see several statues, then along another seeing Edinburgh castle. It is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I have been to.

I arrived back at the Caledonia about 10.45, and since I wasn’t able to check in until midday, I dropped my bag off in the bag-room and headed out to find a coffee.

There was a café across the street, which had a phenomenal view of Edinburgh castle and a couple of cathedrals as well. This part of the road was shaped like a horseshoe – I believe it used to be a 5 ways, but a large portion of the intersection was blocked off due to tram-works for the light rail system they are putting in (which has apparently been on the go for at least 3 years) and also for the excess foot traffic due to the multitude of events going on during the Edinburgh festival.

After placing my coffee order I sat on an outside table and watched life pass me by as I updated my journal notes. After 10 minutes my coffee hadn’t arrived. 20 minutes went past, and still no coffee. 25 minutes passed, and I thought to myself “this had better be the best damn coffee ever!”

It hit 30 minutes since ordering my coffee when I politely asked one of the waitresses that came out to clean up the table next to me about my caffeine-delivery-system beverage. She apologized profusely about the drink not coming out, and sought to rectify it straight away.

2 minutes later my coffee came out. And it was a pretty bloody good coffee, I must say.

I leisurely finished my latte (no, not sitting there like a wanker with my little finger extended) and trundled over to the Caledonian to have a cigarette and check in.

And who should I spy out the front of the hostel? Jes.

She had obviously returned home safely the night before. Apparently she had bought so much salami at the Foodies festival that she ended up giving some to the taxi driver.

No, that’s not a euphemism.

Jes had to move rooms in the hostel (as accommodation in Edinburgh is extremely hard to get) and also had to go through the check-in process, and since the sun had come out, we opted to go and grab a drink since it had hit midday.

We headed back to the café I had just left, but unfortunately they don’t start serving alcohol until 12.30. The girl behind the bar apologized for the liquor licensing laws in Edinburgh and blamed religion.

Jes and I grabbed an orange juice and discussed these laws. We came to the conclusion that church would start at 9 and finish at 12 on Sundays, so that would allow people half an hour to say their goodbyes to the congregation and make their way to the pub.

Another good thing about Sundays in Edinburgh pubs is that they all do Sunday Roast meals.

Jes and I checked into our rooms and spent a bit of time on the computers – me to book my onwards train ticket for tomorrow, and Jes… well, I didn’t enquire.

I was too busy trying to make the Westpac online credit card verification system work, and then swearing profusely at inanimate objects when there was no action.

Jes and I went for a wander with the intention of me picking up my train ticket in person, but got waylaid when she declared that Sparkles’ hunt for pork crackling the previous day had inspired her. We hit up several venues, but none of them were serving pork roast or crackling. Eventually a restaurant was decided upon, where she ordered lamb shanks and I ordered a massive burger with all of the extras. It was fantastic!

Jes and I had a great chat over lunch, talking about where we came from and the events that made us the people that we are today.

It was starting to get rather nippy, so I walked Jes back to the hostel and prepared myself for my final evening in Edinburgh.

I received a message from the girls, and told them where we should meet later on in the evening. Which could have ended in disaster – I will explain shortly.

Given that I was heading to Nottingham the next day, when I left the hostel to meet up with Sparkles and Shakira, I stopped off at the train station to purchase my ticket. It was a bit of a rabbit warren, as they were doing construction works at the station. I managed to find the ticket office and purchased my ticket, fortunately able to get the pre-book discount as a normal ticket would have cost me twice as much. Urk.

I departed the train station to meet up with the girls. From the map I had, I had chosen an intersection that was on the way to where a number of the Edinburgh Comedy festival shows were on. What the map did not show was that one of the roads crossed over the other… 100 metres up in the air. The main north-south road was elevated above the other, and when I arrived I was unsure whether the girls would meet me up top, or if they would be waiting down below.

Fortunately I didn’t have long to wait, as the girls were already there about 20 metres up the road (on the other side of the ‘intersection’) and we headed onwards to find somewhere to eat dinner.

We found a restaurant, somewhat akin to a Hard Rock café, and the girls got mighty excited when they saw that there were 2 for 1 cocktails. They leaped into the drinks with gusto, but we had to wait a while until our food orders were taken. It got mighty hot and stuffy  in the corner of the room that we were in, and when our orders came the table behind us claimed two of the meals, as they had ordered the same as us… although after us.

We ate our meals while looking over what the Edinburgh festival had on offer for us. I had lined up the Chopper Read show for myself, but the girls were unsure what show they wanted to see. We wandered down to the ticket office and all got our tickets – the girls went and saw the Rembrandts (who sang the theme song for Friends), while I got my ticket for Chopper.

There was a drinking area nearby set up for the Festival attendees, marked by a large (very large) blow-up cow. I took a photo of the two girls in front of the cow, and showed them the photo, making the comment “Look – three cows”.

I almost got slapped for that one.

The time for my show to begin came around all too quickly, and the three of us realized that this was the last time we would see each other before arriving back home. We had a group hug, and I apologized for my cow comment, and headed off to see Uncle Chop-Chop.

I waited in the queue for a couple of minutes before we were let into the auditorium. The show was being held at one of the Edinburgh universities, in a lecture theatre, which was kind of cool.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Chopper character, there is an Aussie comedian called Heath Franklin who does an impersonation of the infamous Australian vigilante, Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read. It is more of a caricature, but it is bloody hilarious. Now, I had been to a Chopper show before, but as I was the only Aussie in the audience I was also the only one who knew what to expect.

Well, the title of the show was “A Hard Bastard’s Guide to Life” so people should have had a bit of an idea of what was coming.

At the start of the show, Chopper’s little helper announced that Chopper was on his way, and asked people to not walk across the stage if they had to leave mid-show.

Fortunately, nobody walked across the stage to leave the auditorium, but there was a couple that arrived late who had not heard this announcement.

The fella walked in first and headed up the stairs to walk around the stage, but his lady friend decided to walk across the stage while Chopper was in mid joke.

I think he was about as stunned as everybody else when the lady shook his hand and introduced herself as she passed him, but I learned a very important lesson that night. A) never walk across a comedian’s stage mid-show, and b) never walk across CHOPPER’S stage while he is in mid-performance.

For the rest of the show, he made as much fun of the lady as he could, subtly at first then becoming more and more blatant. I hope that everybody took as much enjoyment out of it as I did.

One of the things that Heath Franklin does at the end of his Chopper shows is a read through of a script from the tv show that he would like to make – Chopper Towers.

This was fantastic. He pulled up a German guy to be an Aussie, and make motor cycle noises, which sounded more like what a child would make. Hehe.

He also pulled up a New Zealand girl to be the Aussie girlfriend of the Deadshit Aussie (played by the German guy). He also got the lady up that walked across his stage to play Tanya – his girlfriend who is (in his own words) a bit of an alright, but let’s face it, at the end of the day she’s still a prostitute.

After the show I grabbed a beer and hung around outside the auditorium. Heath headed out, looking about rather nervously. As he passed me, I said “Good show tonight mate.” He thanked me, then stopped, and turned back and said “Ah, you’re the Aussie that was in the crowd.”

We chatted for a couple of minutes, where he told me about how pissed off he was at the lady walking across his stage. I informed him that the lady was sitting about 10 metres behind him, which did cut the conversation short, although I had the chance to tell him about a little gem that I had heard.

In his show, Chopper spoke about removing the warning labels from things and letting nature sort itself out.

I told him about the warnings on chainsaws in the US. “Do not attempt to stop blades with hands or genitals.”

He thanked me and told me that I should receive a writing credit for that little piece of wisdom.

Unfortunately, I have no idea about whether he used that in his shows from that night onwards.

After having a quick chat with Heath, I trundled back to the hostel, where I found Jes at the bar. She had had a couple by that stage, and was talking with a random girl that was friends with one of the bar staff.

We had a few drinks together, and then I called it a night and made sure that she got off to bed safely before I made my way to bed myself.

Such a fantastic final day in Edinburgh.