Hogmaney NY

After a pretty big day wandering the streets of Edinburgh, we decided to pick up some pre-drinks and nibbles to have in the comfort of our room before heading out to see in the new year. We found a good little place near our hotel and picked up some aussie champagne and Swedish cider, some camembert and biscuits, and a few other little goodies. We had a great time with our feast of yummy stuff, though the camembert was a flop, and went in the bin. For Ali and I to throw out camembert, it must have been bad! We drank our champers out of coffee cups, put some music on and watched a slide show of photos of our trip so far. It is amazing how quickly you forget things, and we had many a ‘remember that!’ moment.

 With Kate’s warning of ‘the coldest I have ever been’, we got seriously layered up for Hogmaney. I wore:

Tights with feet

Thermal pants

Jeans

2 x long woolen socks

Singlet

Long sleeve thermal top

2 x woolen long sleeve high neck tops

Long woolen cardigan

Woolen jumper with big neck

Fleecy jacket

Woolen longer jacket

Gortex rain/wind coat

Fleecy headband over ears

Johns big furry ‘where the wild things are’ hat

Glove liners, gloves, and woolen mittens

Woolen scarf

I think that’s it! Needless to say, we looked and felt humongous, but were nice and toasty all night. In fact I ended up taking off my hat and all 3 layers of gloves, and felt a bit warm at times. It was a freezing cold night, but it didn’t rain or snow, and in the crowds their was plenty of body heat to go around!

We arrived at the entrance to Hogmaney just after it opened at 9 and walked straight in without having to wait at all. We weren’t really sure what to expect… The street party took up a large section of a couple of the main roads in central Edinburgh, which were obviously blocked off. At each of the ends of the street party there were big stages set up with either bands or DJ’s playing. There were strobe lights going everywhere, bars, food stands and lots of people standing around, dancing and checking out the scenery. We walked around for a while to check out what was on offer, and found a stage that had some cool sounding bands playing on it. The crowd was massive, but we of course like to be amongst it so got up pretty close to the stage. There were a few rough little patches, but mostly everyone was just having a great time! When the crowd moved, you moved with it, and don’t drop anything, because you will never find it again!

We decided to stay around this stage for the night, as we both much prefer bands to a DJ, and the music was awesome. One local band, the Frightened Rabbits, was particularly awesome, and I am on the hunt for their CD. I may have to get with the times and log onto iTunes though, as they are apparently up and coming but not yet big enough to have their music in the commercial places that a non-local like me is likely to come across.

As midnight crept around the crowd kept getting crazier, and as the clock striked everyone cheered and fireworks erupted over Edinburgh castle. We had been warned that everyone kisses everyone at midnight at Hogmaney, but we did not realize it was quite so literal! Ali practically had to run away from a few persistent guys, it seems that by returning the greeting of “happy new year”, you are giving any old stranger the ok to come in for the kiss!

We escaped the kiss fest un-scathed though, and were very happy to be again living in the same year as the rest of the world. A bit of music later and we happily walked home to our snug beds. It was a really fun night. Hello 2010! I have a good feeling about this year!

Scotland

Day 1 - Today, after spending hours waiting at the airport for our plane, we almost missed it! We had checked in and were waiting in departures, doing our own thing, when we realised that it was what we had been told was boarding time, or just after. We had not heard a call though, so Alice went to check the board. It said ‘final call’, but we were still not too worried, as according to what the check in lady told us, boarding should have just started, and there are always such long queues. So we packed up our stuff and walked up to the gate. Their was only one staff member standing at the gate though, and no passengers, so I went up to ask when we were boarding, only to be told that we better hurry up, as the gate was about to close! Apparently London City Airport is a ‘silent airport’, and there are no calls, you just have to watch the screen! They must have boarded early though, because we were there within 10 minutes of what they said boarding time was. The lady quickly checked our tickets, and down the stairs we went to go out to the plane. It seemed like they were about to shut the plane, and as though they were unaware that their were still passengers to come, so I’m not sure what would have happened if we had not shown up. Surely they would not just leave without calling us when they have our luggage! Anyway, we walked out to our plane, and realised how they had boarded everyone so quickly. The plane was tiny! There were only 12 rows of 3 seats, a real little country plane, taking us to Scotland!

We arrived in Edinburgh just over an hour later, and on exiting the plane, were immediately inundated with tartan! The shops were full of it, and all of the little kids seemed to be wearing it! We made our way through the airport, collected our bags, and caught a bus out to where we are staying. We managed to find the place ok, except we kept ringing the bell and knocking, and no one seemed to be home! Someone did eventually come to the door after about 10 minutes, I think they must have been asleep, though it was only 6ish! It seems like a really nice little place, where we will get a cooked breaky tomorrow morning, and though we share a bathroom, we get our very own basin in the room, what a luxury!

After unloading our stuff, we set off again out into the cold to find some food and some action. We just followed the signs to the city centre, though it did seem to be taking a long time to find the crowds. I was expecting everywhere to be absolutely packed and for their to be things going on everywhere, but from what we could see, there really isn’t. We did eventually find what we later realised to be Princess Street, and the Hogmaney Market, which is basically just like a town show with lots of rides and food stalls. We also spotted the Edinburgh Castle up on the hill overlooking the city centre.

We decided to keep walking, as I had heard that tonight there was some special fire display on as part of the Hogmaney Festival, on Royal Lane. After climbing the longest staircase ever, we found Royal Mile and the crowds of people. The fire display was pretty cool, and it was not just one display but integrated into the whole street. They also had a cool techno music guy performing amongst it all. It got a little scary when the wind picked up and there were ashes flying everywhere, but really it just added to the show!

Having had enough of that, and with the rain/hail/snow starting to come down, we went in search of some food, and found a very full and popular looking pub, so gave it a go. We had to wait a little while to get a table, bit it was worth the wait, as the food was awesome. We both had roast lamb, just what the doctor ordered! Lots of veggies, carrots, beans, potato, cabbage, yum! I tried to order a drink to go with it, but for the first time on the trip, was asked for ID. And in an annoying coincidence, it was also the first time on the trip that we had left out passports in the hotel room. We thought it might be safer considering the time of year. Turns out that Scotland has a new law though, which dictates that the only acceptable forms of ID are a British drivers license or a passport. So it was on to the Irn Bru for me, and we were just glad that we found out about the passport rule tonight and not tomorrow, NYE!

Day 2 – We were up in time for our first cooked breakfast in awhile, which I admit was really nothing special, but exciting all the same! Our hotel was a lovely little place with a dining room for breakfast where a very friendly Scottish man comes to take your order and then cooks your food.

We planned to do the New Europe Edinburgh walking tour this morning, and on our way passed a clothes shop that we had been into in Bath, and which had a dress that Ali loved. They didn’t have her size in the colour she liked though. But they did have it in Edinbugh, and we hence made our first Scottish purchase! It is a very pretty navy blue little lacey number!

Their was a massive crowd for the tour, as would be expected on NYE in Edinburgh, and we were split off into smaller groups of about 40. Really we were closer to around 50, but we stopped counting after 40, as apparently anything over 40 is considered a ‘parade’ and requires a permit! With good timing, during our tour break the snow started to really come down, as heavy as I have seen it, and I think our group size halved. The weather improved for us though as we got back on the road! The tour was again really good, though I’m not sure if it is because we have done a few now or the guide just didn’t know his stuff as well, but it didn’t keep me quite as entranced as past ones have. Still well worth it though, as how else would you get such a good overview of the city and its history?

A few good stories came out of the tour. We spent a bit of time in a graveyard, and actually saw the headstone for Tom Riddle (hello Harry Potter fans!). We also saw the café, just nearby, that JK Rowling sat in and thought up the idea of Harry Potter. She evidently spent some time wandering the surrounding areas as well! Apparently there are a fair few names from the books throughout the graveyard.

We heard about the grave robbers from back in the old days, and two men in particular who took it a step further and sped up the process, killing the people as well. Their incentive was the local medical schools lack of bodies to use for anatomy class. They only received one body per year, but extra bodies were pretty sought after on the black market.

With all of this grave robbing going on, people used to have cage like things built over their graves to protect themselves. Poorer people who could not afford this would have family guard their grave for a good few weeks to protect it. Hence the term ‘graveyard shift’.

Another story was that of a lady who was sentenced to death by hanging for giving birth to a baby by a man other than her husband. She was hung, but as her body was been carted off to be buried, she woke up! She had survived the hanging, and it was determined she could not be hung again for the same crime. As a result she lived happily every after with the real love of her life.

The big finale story of the tour was that of the STONE OF DESTINY. Okay, I have no idea what the significance of the rock is, but it is Scottish, and somehow it made its way to England, and the English refused to give it back for many many years. Then some time in the 50’s, a couple of Scottish college students decided to steal it back! So on Christmas eve, they drove through the night, to Westminster Abbey, where the stone was kept, managed to break in, and dragged the stone out to their car. They also managed to break the stone in two in the process! They got away, but the missing stone was discovered pretty soon and all borders were closed. So they drove around England and found a bare hill to bury it in for the time being. They eventually did collect the stone and got it in to Scotland, leaving it on the steps of a church. Unfortunately, as soon as it was discovered, it was whisked straight back to England. Pretty impressive effort I thought though! It sure demonstrates how far security has come as well. A few years ago, in return for the promise of a political vote, the stone was returned to Scotland, and now resides in Edinburgh Castle. 

Carrie moment

We caught an early train to London on Wednesday in order to have plenty of time to catch a 3ish place to Edinburgh. The train trip was potentially exciting for Alice, as after we realised on the way to Bath that the train goes through and stops briefly at Reading, she conned Dheepan into getting up early (i.e. before lunch time) and coming to see her as we passed through. He was very obliging and was at the station at the same time as us, but unfortunately could not get through onto the platform. So close, yet so far!! I was pretty relieved I admit when, after the train pulled away from Reading, I got up and found that Alice was still on the train, and hadn’t run off into Reading in her excitement!

We made it to Paddington station around 9am, with plenty of time to get to London City Airport. We started off slowly, as just as we were getting off the train, I noticed my earrings on the train floor under my seat. I had put them, along with my new French ring, in the pocket of my handbag the night before and forgot to put them back on. I stupidly left the zip open after getting something else out, and the earrings fell out. I was so lucky to spot them, and for them not to have rolled down the carriage! I was not so lucky with my ring it seemed though. It was not in the pocket, and after a pretty thorough search, until the train man came and kicked us off (not before kindly helping us to search I should add!), it appeared to have rolled into unknown places of the train. I persisted though and was in the middle of Paddington unpacking my pack, emptying out my handbag, I really did not want to have lost that ring! Don’t worry Mum, it sounds bad, but I was been careful! Anyway, after much persistence, a thought came to me, and I had a true Sex and the City moment. I emptied out the pocket of my handbag, stuck my hand in, and low and behold, there was a hole in the lining! After a bit of tricky manipulation, out come another set of earrings, a pen lid, and my ring! Yes! Just like Carrie with her Carrie necklace, it gave me a new lease on life!

Crisis averted, we headed down to the underground and, while I guarded the bags, Ali spent close to an hour negotiating the mahem of the ticket line, and eventually got us some train tickets, which took us quickly and easily to the airport. We had quite a long wait at the airport, and a long time before we could even check in, but entertained ourselves with free wifi and food!

Bathing in Bath

We arrived in Bath Sunday lunchtime, and before we even left the train station we knew that we would love it! Bath is a beautiful scenic place, with the very English looking homes, a river through the middle and lots of cute little boutique shops.

We found our hostel and dropped our bags off in the pub that acts as reception, and then went out for a wander. The hostel was in a great location, right in the middle of everything, and as soon as we walked out the door we found ourselves in the middle of Bath.

First stop was an ‘award winning Cornish pasty’ shop, which we stopped at, not so much for the queue out the door, which surely indicated great pasties, but more for the free wi-fi advertised on the window! You do become quite dependent on the net when it is your main form of communication with home, and after a few days without it, we were both keen to reconnect with the world! So we had our Cornish pasties, which were, by the way, very nice, and sat in the warmth and went on the net for a little bit.

We then continued to meander up the main street of Bath and quickly came across the Roman Baths, the central tourist attraction of Bath and a prominent setting in Alice’s favourite Jane Austen books. We figured that there is no time like the present, so in we went for a look around the Baths. We had audio guides, but I admit that I tend to tune out of those things after the first few stops, and by the end tend to not even bother turning them on! I prefer to look…

The baths were very interesting though. There is one main outdoor bath, which was quite murky looking, but we were assured it was crystal clear in it’s hey day! The steam was rising off it and despite its murkiness, in the cold Bath air, it was very inviting. Nobody swims in these baths anymore though of course, in fact they do not like you to even touch the water. When we heard that the reason for this though was that the water is dirty, not because we, the people, are dirty, Ali and I snuck a feel, and it was lovely and warm. We walked all though the centre and saw tidbits of the remains of these baths and heard how people would come from far and wide to be ‘cured’ by these healing waters. At the end of the tour we were able to drink a glass of the bath water, and I tell you, it was not how you imagine such nutrient rich water to taste. It was warm and yucky.

By the time we finished at the Baths, we had worked up a bit of an appetite, so we decided to check out the local Waitrose, which is the English supermarket chain that Jo and Phil use. We got ourselves a few snacks for whilst in Bath, and also managed to find some of the yummy custard that Jo and Phil had had for with our chrissy pudding, and thoroughly enjoyed a little too much of that for afternoon tea!

We then checked into our hostel, which was just across the road. We claimed our beds etc, retrieved our bathers from the very bottom of our bags and headed off to the modern day baths, where people do get to get into the water! These baths are called ‘Thermae Bath Spa’ and are pretty pricey, but we went on Gran (Thanks Gran!) and it was well worth the money. A nice change to endless days of walking, this was a two hour ticket into 3 separate rooms of luxury. Up the very top is the roof top open air pool, which is naturally warm, in fact it actually needs to be cooled down. The water in these pools fell to the ground 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, and has taken this long on its journey to make it back to the Earths surface. When it does come to the surface, it is a toasty 50 degrees. It is cooled down to around 35 degrees for the bathers.

By the time we got up there it was dark, so we had a lovely view of the Bath lights, in particular the lit up abbey in the centre of Bath. The water was nice and warm, though Alice and I did think that they could have turned it up a few degrees. You have to stay really low in the water, because the air is icy! They had lots of noodles in the water and everyone was just floating around.

Downstairs, on the middle level, are the steam rooms. There is one big room with hot pressure showers in the middle, around the outside of the room there are big stones to sit on with foots spas built into them, and then within the room there are four smaller steam rooms, each with a different scent (lavender, mint etc). Alice was a bit apprehensive about this initially, but it was really nice, and so warm! Just getting from the rooftop pool down to the steam rooms was enough to make you pretty cool, so it was a lovely warm relief.

On the bottom level was the Minerva pool, which is a big warm pool that they call a whirlpool, but which just has light pressures that will float you around the pool if you let it. It was again very nice, but like the rooftop pool, very coupley! I’m sure Ali and I weren’t they only ones not there with our partners, but it sure felt like everyone was floating around in pairs, as one! There was also a section of this pool that bubbled up like a spa intermittently which was nice.

We did all three levels twice, finishing in the Minerva pool, and though we had initially thought that two hours would be heaps, we certainly didn’t want to get out at the end! A number of times over the next few days as we wandered around in the cold, we wished we could go back. The warmth was such a treat in the cold weather.

By the time we were showered and dressed afterwards, it was 7.30 pm and we were definitely ready for dinner. We found a nice looking place, I had English fish and chips, served with mushy peas (and that is how it was described on the menu!), which was yum, and Ali went for a burger.

Monday morning, after a yummy breakfast of cornflakes and vegemite toast, we went for a walk to look around Bath, and in particular to see the Circus and the Royal Crescent. These are two of the biggest of a number of circular buildings located in Bath, which are made up of many 5 storey apartments, but are designed to look like one palace. Very wealthy people live here, and in fact we found out later that Nicholas Cage recently bought one of the apartments in the Circus for around 4 million pounds.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and we had heaps of fun strolling through parks, just as the Jane Austen characters did! There were lots of people out taking advantage of the sunshine, though it was still very cold and the grass white with frost.

Afterwards we headed back into central Bath to buy tickets to a Jane Austen walking tour. We did this, but around 15 minutes later they announced that the tour would not be running today. To make up for this, we instead visited the Pump Room, which is where the ladies of Jane Austen used to ‘stroll, arm in arm, discussing their confidences’! Today the Pump Room is a fancy tea house with a string quartet playing, so we had morning tea. Ali had apple juice, a bacon and tomato Bath roll and a pot of coffee. I had pear juice, buttered crumpets with jam and a hot chocolate, and we also sampled a Bath bun with cinnamon butter. All delicious and left us feeling very full!

Later in the afternoon we met a group for a free walking tour, which took us all over Bath and gave us a bit of a history. It turns out that a lot of Bath is made up of facades. The Georgians were a little superficial and liked things to look nice, but didn’t really care what was behind the façade. For example, some important guy did not like the view from where he sat to have his cup of coffee, so he had a castle built up on a hill in his line of sight. This castle can still be seen from Bath, but if you were to actually go to the castle, you would find that it consists of only the front wall! This same man also had a particularly attractive bridge over the river in his view. This bridge also still exists and is nice to look at. If you walk over and view the bridge from the other side though, it is decidedly more ugly!

The architectural style of the Georgians is all about symmetry, so you will see buildings with a very neat spread of windows. If you look closely at one building, you notice that there is a chimney directly above the central window. If you then look closely at the window, you will realise that you actually can’t see through it, as it is just there to look like a window, with a frame and glass over the wall. In actual fact, behind it is the chimney pipe! The ‘window’ is just there to maintain the Georgian style.

In the old days, they also had a window tax, meaning that the more windows you had in your house, the more money you had to pay. Hence a lot of buildings have bricked out windows, done to save some money. Some important person eventually abolished the window tax when he wanted to have a palace or something with lots of windows built, and it was going to cost him a ton of money in window taxes.

After our walking tour, it was getting dark, but we walked back to the hostel via the old homes of Jane Austen. Ali knocked on all of the doors, but Jane was not home unfortunately.

Tonight it was Thai for dinner, the answer to Alice’s prayers! We had spied a busy looking place at lunch time so planned to head there, but then just as we were leaving, a guy in our room said he had been there and had not been impressed! That put a skew in our plans, but in then end we ended up going there anyway, it was a public holiday so the choice was a bit limited. It was good food too. The wait was a little bit ridiculous, but in the end it was really nice and a warm place to hang out for a few hours!

Their were a few of us hanging out in the room later on that night, so we ended up having a bit of a games night, 2 aussies, a Canadian, an Israeli and a Korean. It was really fun! First we played Trivial Pursuit due to limited choice, and Ali and I laughed our way through it, while a few of the guys took it a bit seriously. The funniest part was, that in the end, do not ask me how, Ali ended up winning! We helped each other out a bit, and the rules were altered a little, but she won none the less! We managed to find some cards after that and headed upstairs for some card games, one of which I managed to win, again I have no idea how, as I really wasn’t paying attention. It was funny that by the end of the night ,we had all managed to win a game except the Canadian, the most competitive of us all!

The following morning it was raining, but Ali and I went a walk across the bridge to the other side of the river regardless, and did manage to find a few cute little shops along the way! We personally compared the bridge from each side, and it definitely is much nicer to look at from one particular side! We went and had a look in the Bath Abbey afterwards, which had some lovely stained glass in it and also an Australian Flag for some NSW founding guy who died in Bath. I thought that best part of the abbey though was its decorations on the outside. On either side of the main entrance, there is a ladder going right up to the top of the church, with angels ‘climbing up to heaven.’ Very cute.

We visited Sally Lun’s house, which is the oldest house in Bath, and now famous for the ‘Sally Lun Bun,’ which is just a big sweet bun that you have with butter and jam. It was a cute place with lots of stories and a narrow little staircase.

Our ticket to the Roman Baths also included a ticket to the Fashion Museum, so we headed up there for the afternoon. It was pretty cool, with lots of fashions on display, from way back in the days of the corset, right up until this current year. The best part of the museum was the room in which we actually got to try on a corset and the skirt thing which gives shape to the big puffy dresses. I think it was a bit if a modern day version as the corsets had plastic clips on them, and really wouldn’t go on that tight, but it was novelty and we got some good pics out of it!

Next stop for the afternoon was the Jane Austen. We were first given an introduction spiel all about Jane Austen’s background and her family. She had quite a few brothers and only one sister. Neither of the sisters married or had any children, though her sister did go and help her brother out when his wife died, leaving him with 11 littlies! She wrote her books from when she was quite young, but many were not published until after she died at the young age of 41. No one is really sure what the cause of her death was. Jane used to come here for holidays, and then after her father retired, they moved to Bath and she lived here for 5 years. She apparently did very little of her quality writing whilst living here though, as she did not like the restrictions of town life, missing her country home.

The museum had replicas of the types of clothes she would have worn, excerpts from letters she wrote to her sister, and their was one actual original letter on display allowing us to see her handwriting. Alice also purchased another of her books, ‘The Watsons’, which is one that she did write while living in Bath, though never finished.