Look, I've been totally honest with this blog thing. I'm crazy homesick, and sometimes [a lot of time] it makes me sort of awful. You've read it, the bitching and whining and everything else that makes this thing a lot less funny than I'd like it to be. Christmas sucked, it really did. I have been looking forward to Hogmanay for months now. It's been like this lighthouse, and I'm the icebreaker getting steadily closer and it's getting brighter and I know that everything's going to be okay if I can just make it to Hogmanay. It's an awful lot of pressure to put on a trip, it really is. I don't know what would have happened had it not lived up to the hype. Would I have packed it in to go home? Probably not. But I would have been even more miserable than I was before I left, which was pretty miserable. Anyway, enough about that. Here's day 3.
DECEMBER 31
And here it is, the day and night I've been waiting for. I awakened to the dulcet tones of birds singing and woodland creatures making me breakfast... Wait, slipped into a Snow White fantasy there. I actually woke up to the sounds of the crazy old man in my room JUMPING OUT OF THE TOP BUNK. Why? I do not know because I am neither a mind reader nor a crazy. I got up because I needed to finish charging my phone and camera, anyway. Luckily, the people with the cocaine were gone, sleeping, whatever.
The poor girl under me had sounded seriously ill all night. I don't know, if you've had significant lung infection experience you just know it in other people. She coughed all night, and she couldn't stop herself once she started. She must have rolled over onto her back at some point because she started the death rattle breathing that is usually the point I need to go to the hospital and get some antibiotics and a nebulizer treatment.
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| Clearly this child's parents didn't put Babar on for him. |
She was a trooper though. When I came back from charging up my electronics both girls were up and furious. Apparently Mr. Crazy had been equally loud getting into bed last night [though they hadn't heard me at all, so point for the ungraceful elephant that is me!], and they couldn't understand why he jumped out of bed this morning. Once again the room was freezing, and they couldn't imagine staying another night, especially with the one girl and her dying lungs. I was extremely sad to lose them as roommates because they seemed so nice. They even offered to take me with them! But, it was the 31st and I had an Australian new year to get to! Plus, they wouldn't refund my money and I couldn't justify paying double for accommodations.
My second shower was better, someone was nice enough to explain the showers to me. The first one was cold, the second one was dirty, the third and fourth showers had ledges and hot water. So, there was a line up. Then I had to wait for them to re-program my card, which ended up not happening because they hadn't turned on the machine [seriously, so frustrating. If you know you'll have to re-program the cards every day at 10 HAVE THE MACHINES TURNED ON BY 10].
Theeeeeen I got lost looking for the pub with the cheap drinks for anyone on Haggis Adventures, and anyone pretending to be on Haggis Adventures. We had taken a roundabout route to get there the night before. Since asking a random on the street had worked so well before when that random was A, we asked another random for directions and found the only socialist/Marxist/whatever in Edinburgh, pretty sure. He kept going on and on about how if the Queen died and the monarchy with her he'd do a jig [I kind of think happily wishing death on people that aren't Hitler or otherwise terrible human beings that terrorize people on a regular basis is kind of... awful. She has a family that loves her!], then he kept talking about all his socialist ideals and explaining the Scottish socialist party to us. He was nice enough to take us where we needed to go, even if it was a crazy route, but I definitely could have done without learning how he thought the government should give everyone a house. He held us up by this puppy statue for so long L pretended to get a phone call so we could leave. She was very convincing! I was sure she had actually received the call, haha. Okay, yeah, the point. I got lost on the way home, too, so needless to say I had no idea how to find the pub and got lost, and there you go.
Theeeeeen I got lost looking for the pub with the cheap drinks for anyone on Haggis Adventures, and anyone pretending to be on Haggis Adventures. We had taken a roundabout route to get there the night before. Since asking a random on the street had worked so well before when that random was A, we asked another random for directions and found the only socialist/Marxist/whatever in Edinburgh, pretty sure. He kept going on and on about how if the Queen died and the monarchy with her he'd do a jig [I kind of think happily wishing death on people that aren't Hitler or otherwise terrible human beings that terrorize people on a regular basis is kind of... awful. She has a family that loves her!], then he kept talking about all his socialist ideals and explaining the Scottish socialist party to us. He was nice enough to take us where we needed to go, even if it was a crazy route, but I definitely could have done without learning how he thought the government should give everyone a house. He held us up by this puppy statue for so long L pretended to get a phone call so we could leave. She was very convincing! I was sure she had actually received the call, haha. Okay, yeah, the point. I got lost on the way home, too, so needless to say I had no idea how to find the pub and got lost, and there you go.
Long story short, I missed Australian new year. I did get a lovely lunch though. And a nap while we waited for Hogmanay to start. Unfortunately it wasn't a nice nap because the two guys that replaced the girls moved in right in the middle of it, and Mr. Crazy came in at some point to act a bit creepy and loud.
I think if you've been to a street party, you've been to Hogmanay. Except Hogmanay was probably way larger, and definitely had a much more international feel. There were people from everywhere. It was really neat. Basically, we walked around as a group, drinking our copious amounts of alcohol out of our plastic bottles, chatting to people, going on the carnival rides. We did spend an awful lot of time split up because the bathroom lines were horrendous, but luckily we were all together for the count down and Auld Lang Syne.
I think if you've been to a street party, you've been to Hogmanay. Except Hogmanay was probably way larger, and definitely had a much more international feel. There were people from everywhere. It was really neat. Basically, we walked around as a group, drinking our copious amounts of alcohol out of our plastic bottles, chatting to people, going on the carnival rides. We did spend an awful lot of time split up because the bathroom lines were horrendous, but luckily we were all together for the count down and Auld Lang Syne.
Things got briefly annoying when I really had to pee and one of the girls, who was seriously making out with a different person every time I looked at her [which is not something I have a problem with, so trust that comment was made out of jealousy], just would not stop sucking face long enough for us to migrate to a bathroom. I ended up going alone, where I may or may not have drunkenly called at a door, "IT'S JUST PEEING, DO IT FASTER!" But seriously, in 10 minutes, TWO people went in and out. TWO. That's just unhealthy. It took so long for me to get a bathroom that everyone started worrying because a couple others had been in gone in the time it took me to get a stall. Ugh.
Then things got scary when we went to find a club and got held up by a street fight. Two girls were fighting for some reason, one started to hit cars with her boots and then all of a sudden the guys that owned the cars were out and stomping on the boyfriend's head. It was awful and unlike anything I've seen before. Ever. For me, head stomping is something that happens in American movies I don't watch because HEAD STOMPING IS AWFUL. One especially evil individual walked over, pretended he was going to help, stomped on the guys head, walked around around the car, and STOMPED ON HIS HEAD AGAIN! ON WHAT PLANET IS THAT EVEN AN ACCEPTABLE REACTION TO *ANYTHING*? The cops showed up, no ambulance. In Canada if the police show up, so do the fire department and emergency health services. That's just how it goes. Not in the UK, apparently. We walked off to look for the girl on a mission to make out with every boy in Scotland, and when we came back [because it all happened on the street the club was on], he was lying on the side of the road, with the cops, still no ambulance, and they weren't interested in a statement at all. Ridiculous. So, uhm, if you call 999 or whatever in the UK, don't expect someone to come and assess your brain damage quickly or anything. Terrifying.
The night didn't end there, I stayed out to celebrate Canada's new year. I tried to wait until 4 but I got crazy impatient and celebrated Newfoundland's at 3:30. (: I stumbled home by 5, with plans to go to Loony Dook [Scotland's version of the Polar Bear Dip] the next day.
Anddd that was my new year. It was fun for the most part, a little scary, but that's how it goes I guess...
<3 Jade
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