Woke up late on Monday and felt surprisingly fresh, given my previous night of partying. Ed and I decided to go into the city center and walk through the town. We hopped on a bus (my favorite bus line, the 44) and took off for the city center. It only took about 10 minutes, and the bus took us directly into downtown Edinburgh.

Downtown Edinburgh is a great place, and is relatively easy to navigate on foot. We went through two distinct parts of the city center; New town and Old town. These are two parts of town that are separated by a large park. We started out on Princes street, which is the “main drag” in New town.

There are all kinds of shops and eateries in New town, and most of them are very unique in name. It’s cool to see all of the different stores on Princes street, but it also became fairly annoying, because the street is a large scale tourist trap! I guess that may sound like an ironic statement coming from a tourist such as myself, but I think it’s justified given the fact that my tourguide (Krime Dogg) has spent several years in Scotland in the past.

We mosied through new town and saw several of the sights that the area had to offer. We then decided to get a bite to eat. We picked up some food at a sandwich shop/bakery on a side street, and it was very good! We each got a Tuna hoagie and a Scotch pie (FYI, a Scotch pie is a minced meat/sausage creation that is wrapped in a flaky crust. It’s like an extremely small version of an American pot pie, only better presentation.).

The Scotch pie was pretty darn good, and I’d definitely eat it again (well, I would eat it as long as I can determine that it’s not the source of my rash… More on this later).

Rather than eat on the run, we decided to go to the park and eat our food. The park was very nice and open, and had plenty of places to sit. It also offered great views of Old town, and Edinburgh castle. We ate the pies and half the hoagies and went about our way.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I actually broke out into a rash shortly after eating lunch! I think it may have been due to the Scotch pie, so I am imposing a self-ban on sausage products for the present time.

Ed showed me the rest of the park, which happened to be very large, and also gave me the backstory to the park itself. Apparently, in earlier times, the park we were in was actually the moat around the castle. Rather than being a point of trees and vegetation (as it is now), it was used to dump waste products and other refuse. I think that the current setup is working a little better!

I saw many cool sites as we walked along the park, and I took some cool photos as well. I think a lot of the photos I took would make an excellent photo gallery, so I plan on posting them some time soon.

From the park, Ed and I walked through a “close” into Old town. A close is a type of corridor that runs through the middle of a city blog. It is called a close simply because it is close quarters and there is not much room for movement. This particular close had a long bank of stairs that seemed to go forever, and was painful to walk up!

Once we were up in Old town, we found a road called the Royal Mile. This is one of the most famous streets in Edinburgh, and I’d assume it’s called the royal mile because this is where Edinburgh castle is located, as well as many other historical landmarks.

On this particular day, the streets were absolutely packed with street performers, as part of the Edinburgh fringe festival that was taking place. Rather than walk right into the crowds, Krime and I decided to take a few backroads and attempt to find some places off the beaten path.

Almost immediately, we saw some fun sites. One was an actor with blue face paint pretending to be William Wallace. It was like some sort of low budget Braveheart wannabe. I’m pretty sure I could have put together a better costume than this guy… but I’m sure he fooled at least a few tourists into thinking he was “authentic” (if you enlarge this picture, you will see someone giving “fake Wallace” some money).

As we walked past wannabe Williace, we noticed that we were coming upon Edinburgh castle. We didn’t go into the castle, though, because the line was looonngg! Also, it apparently costs 17 pound to enter the castle (around $30 American). I wasn’t really interested in paying that much to see the castle, especially since we were told that we may be able to get tickets for a reduced rate, or even free, from Vivienne (the midgie bites girl).

I also learned of a trick for visiting Edinburgh castle for free that seemed like common knowledge to my Scottish friends. Inside the castle there is also the Scottish war memorial, which was built after WWI and contains records of those who perished from the first World War up through the Gulf War. If your ancestor perished during any of these wars, you are permitted to visit their memorial inside the castle, free of charge. So, apparently if we say that we have a relative on the memorial, we can get in for free. I’m not sure that I want to go that route in order to gain access to the castle, but if I keep spending money like I have been (everything is about 1.5x more expensive here than in the states), I may be forced to do so.

On the way back from the castle, we passed “the Scotch Whiskey Experience,” which was a surprisingly swanky store in the middle of old town. I’m starting to find that I have an appreciation for Scotch whiskey, so this was a cool store to visit.

I especially wanted to visit the store because both my dad and grandpa love to drink Scotch, so I wanted to have some pictures to show them when I got back. I’m sure that they would both love to have the opportunity to see a store devoted entirely to their favorite libation, so I’m hoping that a few photos of “the Scotch Whiskey Experience” will tide them over until they have an opportunity to visit themselves.
I also was looking for an excuse to quote the movie Anchorman, so this store afforded me the opportunity to belt out “I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly…”

All in all, I only spent about 5 minutes in the Scotch store, mainly because it was completely packed, and I couldn’t move around much. Also, the prices were very expensive, so I didn’t have any intentions of buying anything.

At some point during our walk around town, I had an epiphany. I realized that even though I broke my router, there’s probably a good chance that I can still get the Internet if I were to use a wireless router. I figured that I know enough about computers and networking that I could easily set up a wireless network in the flat, as long as I was given the proper equipment. Now the next step was finding the proper equipment.

This is when I had my second epiphany. I realized that unlike my friends in America, nobody here probably had networking equipment sitting around the house. So, borrowing said equipment was likely out of the question. I also realized that if I were to buy a router and only use it for the 10 days I was here, I would be wasting money. But what if I were to give the router as a present to the person who is lending us his flat? I had planned on giving him a gift, to show my gratitude for giving me a place to stay, and this seemed to be an excellent gift to give. It was an all-around win-win situation.

I amaze myself sometimes at my resourcefulness.

Now the next issue we ran into was finding the necessary equipment, which proved to be more difficult than I had planned. Ed and I walked around town for a while and couldn’t find anything that even came close to resembling an electronics store. So, after walking a while and having no luck, we decided to meet up with some others who were already at the city center, and ask for their advice.

They were eating lunch when we met them, so we didn’t want to impose. So we asked them for some input on where to get the router, and went on our way. In the short period of time that we were talking to them, I managed to take a photo of a guy in a gorilla mask and a tuxedo walking down the street.

After my brief run-in with the gorilla mask folks, we started looking for the router. It seemed like no matter where we went, we couldn’t find an electronics store! We went to all of the places suggested to us by our Scottish friends, and none seemed to have what we were looking for. Then, luckily, we found an electronics store, and they had what we were looking for!

I bought a router for the flat, and we went back to work on our Internet connection shortly thereafter. I figured I’d be able to plug the thing in and get the Internet to work immediately, but this wasn’t the case. When I tried to install the router, it crashed the computer! I tried again; another crash! This was my worst nightmare! I figured that it was just a problem with the computer itself (which seemed to be infected with spyware), so I tried to install windows defender (an anti-spyware program). It wouldn’t let me install, because I didn’t have Windows XP service pack 2 installed on the computer I was using (the computer in the flat, not my personal laptop).

So, I did auto updates and installed service pack 2 (which took about 3 hours). When all was said and done, I was finally able to get the router installed. My laptop was connected shortly thereafter, and I finally had the Internet!

However, at the exact second I got the Internet working, we were told that we needed to leave in order to catch a bus back to the city center. Our Scottish friends had bought us tickets to see a Canadian comedian who was performing as part of Edinburgh festival.

We got to the comedian about 5 minutes late, and were able to enjoy his set. Unfortunately, since we were late, we didn’t have a place to sit, so we had to stand. I was stuck behind a big pillar, so I couldn’t really see the performer. He was still funny, though, and his set talked about religious hypocrasy, cultural oversensitivity and other funny topics. The worst (or best) part was at the end when he stripped his clothes off and was wearing a yellow bikini. He was NOT the type of person you want to see in a bikini! He was hairy, pale, and his ball was hanging out. Literally. He did his last 5 minutes of comedy with his one of his balls hanging out of his bikini.

After the comedy show, we went to a traditional Scottish pub. I had a few Tenents and tops (Tenents is a Scottish brewed beer from glasgow and tops means that the beers were “topped off” with lemon seltzer water… apparently Tenents tastes like crap normally, so you need the tops in order to make it taste decent. Not unlike Corona with lime.) and some Stella Artois (which I later learned was referred to as the “wife beater” throughout Europe, because the beer is known to make men angry and beat their wives).

I told them that we call something else a wife beater in the states, and they all knew exactly what I was talking about. That sparked a conversation about cultural differences, and what phrases have double meanings throughout our shared language. It’s always great to talk to people from different cultures and get a feel for the many nuances contained within not only that culture, but also those contained within my own culture.

The pub was a lot of fun, and allowed me to get to know some of my new Scottish friends a little better. I’m amazed at how gracious and accepting they are to newcomers; it seems very different from how things work in America. If you have never had a conversation about the cultural differences between America and the culture of another country, you’re really missing out.

Time seems to fly when you’re enjoying yourself in a pub, so it was quite surprising to me that when I looked down at my watch, it was 1:30 AM! What seemed like 15 minutes was actually 3 hours. It was time to go home and get some rest. But first, we had to make a stop.

We left the bar and walked around town looking for a Chippy (A chippy is a fish and chips store that sells various fried foods and other delicacies including Pizza and Gyros - only they aren’t called Gyros in Scotland, but rather Doner Kebabs) and is a common hangout for the after-bar crowd. It is also very good and certainly hits the spot after a night of drinking. The menu was vast, and spanned many artery clogging food genres. I had to take a picture just so that I could remember everything that was on the menu!

I ended up getting a piece of pizza with gyro meat on top. I asked for a “gyro pizza” and the guy looked at me like I was a tourist. I pointed to the piece that I wanted, and he said “oh, you mean lamb pizza”. Yes, I guess that’s what I meant! I also got onion rings, which weren’t very good.

Krime Dogg had the best food of the night. He ordered two sausage rolls and a piece of pizza. It looked great, but I was afraid to eat sausage after my two previous rash problems!

We took some cabs home, and that was the rest of the night. When I got home, I played around on the Internet a little, downloaded my photos, and went to sleep.