Hogmanay: Part 4!

Woo, last one! 

The last two days in Scotland weren't all that special. Mostly because of the whole out all night thing, and the hang over thing... Yeeep. I mean, there are a couple of good stories, or I would have ended this series with the last post. Like, for example how Mr. Crazy had some sort of minor psychotic break! 

Oh yes. He totally did. 

After the two girls left for a nicer hostel with heat and the sort of amenities you just sort of expect from a hostel in a developed country, they were replaced by two guys. Two guys who snored. Honestly, snoring is not a big deal for me for one night. My brother's snoring used to be so loud that I could hear him even though our bedrooms were located on different levels and on opposite sides of the house. It was like extreme snoring. Don't worry, he had surgery and got it fixed. 

This snoring wasn't that bad, but then again, my perspective is off. When I finally crawled into bed after 5 am I had a sort of moment of, "Seriously? Seriously? This hostel is the worst!" but what are you going to do? People snore. If you don't want to listen to it, put out the money for a hotel. Apparently, Mr. Crazy and I were not on the same wavelength on this subject. As I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, all of a sudden there was this loud clapping sound. 

CLAP!

I jolted awake and looked over to see Mr. Crazy laying there with his hands together, clapping, trying to wake up the other people so they would stop snoring [I'm assuming, anyway]. Really? Just, really? It happened at regular intervals during the five hours I slept in that room that night. I could sleep through the snoring fine, but every time Mr. Crazy started clapping like a madman he woke me up. HE was disturbing my sleep. But did he care? Of course not, he's the crazy guy who jumps out of top bunks and has psychotic breaks and who responds to everything with, "Oh, bless!"

Theeeen it got worse.

He jolted awake at some point and started cursing and generally acting like the little girl from The Exorcist. He shook his bunk bed, then reached out and started to shake the one I was on. Yeah, the rooms were that small. I pretended to be asleep because I didn't want to deal with it. The snoring stopped, so I assumed his fit woke up the snorers. He eventually got up and left the room, I got up to charge my electronics a little while later.

Of course, by the time my electronics were done charging, my key card no longer worked. But good luck trying to get them to reset it. The other guy who worked and slept at the hostel was all, "No, I can't do it, I need to go back to bed." Uhm, okay, well how am I supposed to get into my room again? "Oh, I'll let you back in if you ask me." Yeah, except you're going to bed. Not acceptable. There were three of us sitting in the lobby, discussing Mr. Crazy and his antics, trying to convince the other employee to reset our access cards. It was just ridiculous. Eventually he got Mr. Crazy to do it, and while he was setting up our cards he managed to sink to new depths of delusion.

The snorers went to check out, and Mr. Crazy acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The conversation was peppered with, "Oh bless, oh bless!" Then he actually had the nerve to ask them to go and get their dirty bed linens, to save him some time later. I am not even kidding. It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this when I say that the snorers scoffed at the very idea. Went back into the room, and presumably stood there for a couple seconds because they definitely didn't gather up their bedding, and then left the hostel for good.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get to Loony Dook, which is what Scottish people call their Polar Bear Dip. Everyone kept telling us that it was only a few minutes away, that it wasn't starting until 3. Yeah, no. We ended up getting a £30 cab ride to Queensferry. Everyone had already dipped and left, but one straggler had lost a bet so went into the water while we were there. It was a pretty little area, so we walked around and took lots of pictures. Unfortunately, it appeared a little less pretty when we ended up waiting one and a half hours for a bus that was supposed to arrive every 40 minutes. Yeeeep. I froze, towards the end I honestly didn't think I'd ever be warm again. It was awful.

On the second I gleefully checked out of the horrible hostel. Taking my luggage with me even though it meant carrying it around for five hours until my train departed. L asked me if I was going to leave my luggage at the hostel when she came down to get me, but because I'm twelve I just loudly went, "No, this hostel is shit, I don't trust them at all," and then let the door slam shut, with me, happily, on the outside. It sucked a bit, dragged a suitcase around, then having to check it at the Art Gallery when I decided to go look at the Monet paintings, but seriously, worth it in the end to not have to go back to the hostel ever again.

Annnnd, that was my super fabulous Edinburgh trip. I've now been to every country on this island, so it's time to explore other islands and the mainland! First up: A whirlwind tour of Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary this weekend! Woo! Don't worry, I probably won't write about that trip in such detail. Uhm, especially considering my page views went down, so I'm assuming no one's interested. Oh well! A Royal Mail update will be the next post.

Hogmanay: Part 1!

Okay, first off I had a brilliant time at Hogmanay! It was absolutely fabulous. I'm definitely going to tell you all about it in excruciating detail, so I apologize in advance to those of you who want a Royal Fail update [there really isn't one, package still in transit]. Of course, it wasn't all good, and obviously I'm going to tell you those bits, too!

The Arrival

The train ride up was gorgeous and lots of fun. I arrived in Edinburgh in the early evening starving and ready for a fabulous weekend! The first thing you need to know about Edinburgh is there are stairs, everywhere. I had to take the Princes Street exit at Waverley Station and there are so, so many stairs for a weary traveller to drag her suitcase up. Luckily, my hostel was only a three minute walk from the station. It was called City Centre Hostel, and seriously if you can avoid it DO NOT stay there for reasons I will expand upon as I tell you about my trip. It's up about a million stairs. There's two hostels in the building, my friend L stayed in the other one. This other hostel painted the walls with some pretty awful art that helpfully told you how many stairs to go. It sort of smelled, and there were people hanging around outside because it was next to a pub. Basically, if I was a homeless person I'd probably sleep in this stairwell.

I got this off Google, but it actually sort
of looks like the street City Centre is on...

Anyway, I make it into the hostel and had a conversation with a couple of guys as the employee checked me in. The guys seemed to love the hostel, said it was awesome. Of course, as I found out later they thought it was awesome because they could do lines of cocaine in the kitchen [I wish I was joking]. The employee was actually pretty cute and really nice, so of course he would be the employee I got to interact with the least. Wouldn't want the guests to get too comfortable or anything, they might think they deserve something like heat or plugs in their rooms. I am informed that I have to re-program my key card every day before 10, which didn't seem unreasonable at the time but it quickly became more annoying as I slowly became more sleep deprived over the weekend.

The bed was pretty dirty, the room was small and absolutely freezing. I thought the window was open, but when I went to check it a little while later it was shut tight. Turned out the heat was just off for some bizarre reason. I made the bed and quickly discovered that 1. there were no plugs, and 2. the guy had given me three sheets instead of one. Awesome! I stuffed one in the extremely flat pillow, and put the other one down as an extra layer of protection between me and the filthy bed. At this point I should probably mention that they had already debited my credit card the full amount and informed me that I wouldn't be able to get a refund unless I asked for one two weeks before I arrived. So, yeah. It's almost like they know they're awful [/sarcasm].

I explored the small and filthy bathroom, and the shower area, and asked the guy where the plugs were located. Just in the hallways and in the kitchens. Why? Because they wanted to discourage people from leaving their cell phones in their rooms charging. Lies. The whole thing was set up to maximize their profits with as little output as possible. There were no plugs in the room for the same reason the heat was on a timer, and for the same reason they refused refunds even though 75% of the people who booked more than one night only stayed for one, if that. It was a scam, basically.

L's bus was running late, so I tried to nap a bit since I hadn't been sleeping well leading up to the trip. I chatted for a minute with the Australian couple I would be sharing the room with, and with this annoying old guy who worked at the hostel. I thought he was homeless at first, actually he still might be honestly. He read in the room the whole time I was trying to nap and he was so gross and loud. He kept shaking the bed, which I assumed was because the bunk beds were scary and old, but no one else was as loud as him. He ate crisps loudly and obnoxiously and generally made it so I couldn't really nap. Another annoyance was a different employee [the third so far] who kept coming into the room and asking us if we had extra sheets since he was missing one. As we all know, I totally had the extra sheets... But I wasn't about to give them up. Thankfully, L soon arrived and got settled in so we could leave for dinner!

Of course, we sort of immediately got lost... Er, it was a theme over the week because I tended to talk to her ear off while walking randomly and she thought I was leading... Luckily she's a very good sport! Anyway, we were staying just off Princes Street, but most of the pubs, restaurants and tourist stuff were on the other side of the bridges, near the castle. The Royal Mile was located there, and Georges Street and Cowgate and stuff. It was almost nine by this point, and a lot of the first restaurants we spotted were closed [this is a theme in the UK, nothing stays open all that late for some reason. I'm never complaining about NS and its malls that close at 9 again]. Desperate for food, I stopped a random in the street all, "Hey, we're hungry, can you recommend a place to eat?" The guy turned out to be a lovely kid from Brazil! It was fabulous! He was in Edinburgh for a few days, going home the next afternoon to spend New Year in Glasgow. He took us to his hostel, St. Christopher's where we ate the best nachos ever [they may not have been, I was just seriously starving].

Okay, so, I've never heard of St. Christopher's, but it's apparently this Australian chain of hostels that are brilliant. From what I saw over the weekend the one in Edinburgh seemed absolutely amazing. I'm going to start looking for them when I travel, definitely.

But, back to the story. L and I were both crazy exhausted, so we had dinner, had a drink, chatted with A and decided to meet the next morning to visit Edinburgh Castle before A headed to Glasgow. I took his number [this is important] and we headed back to our gross hostel... Where I immediately made friends by turning on the light in my room to three sleeping people. It was only eleven! In Edinburgh! How were they already sleeping? I felt awful, turned the light off, grabbed my bed stuff [including my phone so I could have light when I got back to the room], and went to the gross, tiny bathroom to change in my pyjamas.

It was a disaster. I put everything on the back of the toilet, then watched in horror as everything slid off the back of the toilet. Frantically I grabbed my pyjamas, grabbed the key to the room... and didn't grab my phone. My phone FELL INTO THE TOILET OF THE GROSS HOSTEL. I was mortified, and stood there staring at it for a good ten seconds before I cleared my mind, took a deep breath and hauled it out. I quickly changed and then made my way to the lobby where another girl and I tried to dry it. I managed to call L for 10 seconds to tell her what happened before it died completely. Dejected, I went to bed with the pieces out and drying. I set my ipod alarm and hoped for the best, since the thing never works properly...

And, okay. This is getting insanely long so I'm going to cut off here and start a new post! (: Okay, so maybe I'm milking this for a couple of posts... Can you blame me? I haven't had a whole lot to talk about except Royal Fail and how homesick I am... I feel like we both can appreciate how awesome it is to not write/read about that for a couple of days!

<3 Jade

Get ready, Scotland!

In twenty-four hours I will be sitting comfortably on a train to Edinburgh for Hogmanay! I'm pretty excited, though also crazy nervous. I've never stayed in a hostel before, and I don't really know what to expect. The place I booked didn't really have any negative reviews before I booked it, but now they've got all these really negative reviews. People talking about rooms that don't lock, no plugs in the rooms [how am I going to charge my camera?!], really filthy accommodations. One person wrote about homeless people, another wrote about not having any water during their entire stay and not even getting a bit of money back for that... I'm pretty freaked out, and terrified that this place is going to be absolutely disgusting and awful and I won't be able to find another place to stay because Hogmanay is kind of a big deal. 

I'm trying really hard not to freak out, while at the same time preparing for the worst. I've got a suitcase lock, and one of those things that you can use to tie suitcases down. I fully intend to chain the thing to a bunk bed if there's no lockers, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any lockers. I think I'll ask my friend in another hostel to charge my camera battery if it becomes necessary, but I'm hoping it won't. 

I'm hoping the negative reviews are exaggerations because I've been seriously ripped off in the New Year's department. Try snow storms every year, and then the one year I give up and don't even try to get out of Small Town, Nova Scotia it was perfectly clear and didn't storm at all. I've racked up some serious bad karma I guess. I'm especially hoping for a good time because Christmas was sort of awful. I had to socialize with my roommate, NZ, and he's always just so much fun [/sarcasm]. 

Obviously I'll write up a full review upon my return in the new year! I'm sure you'll all be over the hangovers and perfectly capable of reading it then. (:

***

In Royal Fail news, the parcel still hasn't arrived. It's still en route to Canada, so that's lovely. I popped down to the post office to send off a card to the other side of London, and while I was there I thought I'd ask for a ParcelForce claims form. The employee was hilariously condescending and ridiculous, par the course I guess. 

Me: Can I have a claims form for ParcelForce? That parcel I sent out on December 6th still hasn't arrived. 

Employee: How do you know it hasn't arrived? Did you check the tracker?

Me: .... [Thinking, "She can't be serious, how else would I know that it hasn't arrived?"]

Employee: Well, did you?

Me: Of course I checked the tracker! That's how I know it's still en route!

Then the employee asked questions, like did I pay to have it sent quickly, and all this other stuff. that made it clear she wasn't even listening to my responses at all. She asked me three times when I sent it, where I sent it, and then asked again if I sent it before the bad weather hit. I should have just gone in  with, 'December 6th, it was supposed to arrive in Canada within three days,' tattooed to my forehead or something. I, of course, answered while becoming really annoyed though I managed to be polite. I'm sure I had major bitchface going on though. At the end of the increasingly frustrating conversation she announces that they're out of forms and will be until the new year. Nice. ParcelForce still hasn't replied to my e-mail, but I did send it right before Christmas so I'm assuming that's the delay. 

Ugh, crazy frustrating. Just get the package there, Royal Fail! I'm not in the mood for this. 

Here's hoping it arrives by the time I get back from Scotland! I'm pretty sick of dealing with it, honestly. 

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! 

<3 Jade

Oooops...

Okay, so, this one time I started a blog and then didn't update it for almost a month even though [or maybe because] about a billion different things happened in that month.

I meant to, I really did. I'm just a little bit of a slacker. Or a lot of a slacker, I don't know. What's a word that means something a bit worse than slacker? Who knows.

...I thought about writing a bunch of posts and just changing the date back, pretending that I've been updating this entire time. According to Kaeli this is "lame". FINE THEN, KAELI.

Anyway, I will try to get you all up to speed with as much detail as I feel like putting in.

ONWARD.

The visa

Well, the visa drama is no more. Mere days after sending enough information that even the dumbest of identity thieves would have a field day, I got a lovely e-mail that said my visa was issued. I read it about 5 times, of course. You know, just in case the word 'not' magically found a place before 'issued'. A few days after that, so very quickly if you take into consideration how much effort went into gathering all the information for the thing, I had my passports back in my possession. The visa's on page eighteen. I'm not sure why.

You know what I didn't get back? My proof of funds that had my bank account information on it. I'm going to assume they shredded that, or locked it somewhere. Noooot that they're going to get much from me if they do decide to steal my identity.

The family trip

The weekend I was supposed to book my flight, I took a mini-family vacation to New Minas. They claim to be both "the soccer capital of Nova Scotia" and "the shopping capital of the valley". Let me assure you that they manage to suck hard at both of these labels. The soccer capital label is especially hilarious - mostly in a sad way. This year was the last year for their soccer tournament thing. My little brother's team won the tournament, played beautifully, etc. Too bad about the crappy hotel.

Picture it, if you please. A pale pink wall paper, the thick, textured kind that looks a bit like tweed. Everything in these rooms was wallpapered. There were some things on the wall that looked like they had been removed, wallpapered, and stuck back on. What were these mystery wall hangings, originally? I don't know, let's ask the 80's. The carpet was blue. The curtains were green and flower-y. Outlets by the ceiling, random ceiling hooks with nothing hanging on them. It was hilarious. Alas, no photos. I forgot my camera and once my mother found out I intended to steal photos from her camera to mock the place over Facebook, she refused to let me borrow her camera.

The worst part of the hotel was the crappy Internet. It didn't work. At all. So, I didn't get to book my flight and I ended up losing the one I wanted.

The flight

I originally, super badly, wanted this one flight that meant I could spend a whole day in Iceland. Too bad everyone else wanted it, too. Now I get to spend 5.5 hours in JFK, an hour in Iceland, and it, literally, takes me 24 hours to get from Halifax to London. This is going to be fannnnnntastic. On the huge, huge plus side, the flight was beyond cheap. Seriously, I recommend Icelandair's prices. I'll let you know about the rest of them, later.

The going away parties

Get their own post. Later. Sometime.


There you go, everyone. All up to date!

<3 Jade