Roommate agreement, the Dodson Curse, Parking issues, and the Scottish Capital

Editor’s note: I started yesterday’s blog post, the one you are about to read, yesterday, so I am going to write like it is today.  If you think this is confusing, you should be living it.  But first, the opening comments from this morning:  Scatological discussion # like 1,000 on this trip this morning included me saying, “I saw what you all did yesterday; garbage in, garbage out.”  It ain’t pretty.  JP comes in from the backyard from his morning death-stick, looks at his phone and says “there’s 3 mph of wind, but out there, I could hear more.”  Yes, the wind whisperer is now hearing the wind.  He does NOT think this is funny. :). And, finally, Mike speaks.  We are all up and in or near the kitchen and you can hear the battery-operated clock (Mike has changed the batteries) ticking.  I say “Has that clock always ticked like that?” And he says “yes but we haven’t always been this quiet.”  Zing!

Today, we went to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. A city of 100,000, which one website JP read to us last night in preparation (you will see the kind of preparation that was made), has 700 pubs – the highest per capita number in Scotland.  Modest brag.

For those hoping for something to have happened today, it was a pretty dull day.  Although the three bros were acting tired at the end of the day (lifting pint glasses must be hard work), I told them my Fitbit had us at about 2/3rds the walking of our first two days.  John checked his app and said “I’m 6,000 steps short of the last two days; I don’t believe it.”  No one got sick, got arrested, got in a fight, and you will see the most embarrassing moment – it was mine, early.

For context, this was my third significant visit to the city (I’m not counting Ian and I flying in there to go to Carnoustie in 2006).  My first was with my best friend from Aberdeen, Luke, over the New Year in ‘77/’78.  I was there about a week.  In ca. 1998 (someone will correct me), Megan, Karen and I went for a night via train from London – I was there doing research for a faculty professional development grant at the British Library.  And, as per necessary with drunken tourists, in the first trip Luke took me to the castle and to Rose Street.

More context: at Aberdeen (if you don’t know, and I recognize much of my audience might not, I went to the University of Aberdeen for my junior year from Wabash.  Hoosier in a strange land.  Another day, another blog post [or memoir]), the University at Edinburgh was not respected.  As in “a bunch of English wankers.”  If your Scottish geography is shaky, and you don’t google everything, Edinburgh is on the south side of the Firth of Forth (a firth is an estuary – this one separates “English Scotland” from the part the English rarely entered.  Saint Andrews is on the northeast corner of the county, Fife, that goes north and juts to a point from Edinburgh; this portion of Scotland is separated from the next one by the Firth of Tay (from which niece Taylor is named).  Aberdeen is on the point made by the this land out to the east, so is three hours by car north and east of Edinburgh.

Aberdeen was “the Scottish university.”  Edinburgh was for poofs.

But Edinburgh, as you see in the pics, is a lovely and grand city.

But first, our morning scatological story:  JP was having “gastinal issues” and went outside and Butch said “is he going out to wipe his butt in the grass.”  Hilarity followed.  To JP’s expense.

We only have one bathroom.  This leads to knowing WAAAAAAAAAAY too much about our bodily functions.  Which lead to this from me, “Butch, I can confidently say that at age sixty I have never loved anyone enough where I want to know how often they go to the bathroom.”  His reply was good to know, but he thought there was an app for that, so he could all make sure we knew.  OMG.

Before leaving I had the brothers sign a “roommate agreement for May 11”…it is attached.  Yes, they all signed it.  But my first literal LOL of the day was Butch’s wife response was “he’s a puker! I can’t believe he signed it!” :)

It was an hour plus drive – JP wanted to what we didn’t do Sunday and drive by Crail.

Golf stuff…stop reading if you are an anti-golf dork: Crail sits out on the eastern point of this section of Scotland – Fife.  The course goes back to 1786 and is famed for its vistas, the severity and beauty of a few holes that have long carries over the water, and its standing as the main place for years for qualifying if the Open is at St. Andrews (15 miles away).

As I told Karen on the phone, the wind was so strong, walking from the car park we had to lean into it. :) The guy we pass going to the driving range is wearing, I’m NOT making this up, a navy blue puffy coat. :)

So, we get in the pro shop (a sign told us to pay a pound [by now you should hear the chant “pound it” from Butch whenever this is said] to park), and chat with the pro.  One of us asks about the wind today.  He says, drily as a desert, “it’s nae worth mentioning.”  That phrase was much used the rest of the days.  I’m not sure the pictures in today’s link do the place justice.  There’s talk of taking in on in a final day second round (the Castle course is on the road to there).

Here’s the link to today’s pictures.

Golf stuff over:  If you don’t understand this, there aren’t a lot of wide roads here.  We didn’t pay the 14GBP per day for the GPS, so we are using my phone (if you missed this, of the 4 of us only “the rich liberal” paid for data service here) with Google maps, with JP navigating and the voice on.  Well, “she” misses a turn – it was not really a right and left, but a jog, and I miss the turn.  So I go a quarter mile up, pull into the first driveway, which of course has a hedge and go to pull out.  Did I mention it was a hill, so a bit blind anyway? Someone in back says “you’re good” and I can see from the left is open, so a gun into, turn hard, throw it in drive and gun it.

I look into the rear view mirror to make sure no one is about to ass-end us.

But I’m IN THE WRONG  FECKING LANE & THERE’S A CAR COMING!!!!!!!!

An impromptu game of chicken.

Obviously (???), I cut it into the left lane in time – there are roars from the car (can you imagine?) but we go on, without driving incident the rest of the way.

Scatological discussion 1,001 followed.  Underwear ruination discussion.  Damage to Steve, who was thinking he had it all along.  LMAO

So, we go into Edinburgh and literally drive right up to the castle.  Like I own the place.  It’s a tiny road up to the front (the picture of Butch and Mike in foreground, castle above them, is almost exactly where we get here) and I come to a security person.  I roll down the window.  And open with “Hi, I’m a dumb American tourist.”  She may have smiled (her name, I think, was Ioanna) and then told me there was no parking here (duh), but if I went back down and did two rights there was a car park.  As we did this, I said “we don’t want to go right, down the hill and west, when we are going to walk east.”  So, here begins the day’s quest for parking.

We circle, cross the Royal Mile (the road that goes down the hill from the castle on the top to the palace at the bottom) and, after circling a roundabout (have I mentioned them? Fun from the wrong side of the car), and back and we turn down this road toward the Waverley station (the RR station) and someone says, there were 2 on the corner as I turned!  Then there’s another along the road.  I piss off the guy behind me by stopping rapidly, signaling (I guess) and whipping into the parallel park spot.  In one! Right against the curb!  Mike even says he’s impressed.

But the time limit on the kiosk is 3 hours.  WE mark the time and climb the .3 mile to the castle.

One of the photos shows the top of Waverley station and the road we parked on; you get a sense of the steepness of the climb.

After making the climb we toured.  They paid the 16.50 as the agreement said. :). And loved it.  You see the pics of the view and the castle is just plain effing awesome.

It was now 245 and Mike was feeling a bit off – the climb? Poor breakfast?

So we started down the Royal Mile.  There were 3 restaurants together in the second block from the castle – Thai, Middle Eastern and a pub.  Guess where we went?

The 3 brothers ordered the special: a burger with a pint for 9.99 (this app has no pound sign, so…#1stworldproblems).

But here’s the conversation worthy of note: Butch says something like “I just don’t have the time and all to write it all down” (about his wit and wisdom).  Since we just passed the sign that says “supposedly James Boswell met Dr. Samuel Johnson on this spot in…” I say “Oh, I got you – I’ll be your Boswell.  The blog memorializes the highlights.”  He just grins.  And, to keep the analogy going, after we are both dead they’ll probably find a version of the diary – the unedited version. :)

Wink.

We were down to 15 mins on the parking and I decided, as per the agreement, we would move the car and park by the palace.  We had wifi in the pub, stunningly [& there are things here that were damaging and I can’t unremember], and the palace site says “parking next to palace.”

So, we whip down the hill, around another roundabout right in front of the palace, take the right arm towards the stuff based on arrows on signs, and find an empty car park! It was closed!  May 11 and 12.

So, for the second time, we circle, looking for parking.  We find a place on the Royal Mile (I parallel parked facing the wrong way!) but as John and Mike are trying to come up with enough coin Butch and I discuss whether it was a legal spot and decide it’s not.  So, I send the 3 amigos off to the palace while I go find a garage.  The palace closed at 6 – it’s about 445 – and I said if I don’t catch you up, be at the roundabout at 6.

I follow the signs to the ST John’s Hill garage, almost get hit making the right turn (like a left in the states), take a minute to figure out there’s no paper, but a yellow plastic poker chip to take to enter.  I take it, easily park, and walk down the hill – I’m a block over from the Royal mile and maybe .4 up the hill.

AS I get to the roundabout I hear “Steve!” And there’s Butch sitting on a bench in front of the gate.  I cross and he and Mike and I discuss that “some Duke was there” and the palace was closed.  Where’s JP? Scatological discussion 1,002.  The link has requisite pic of palace from gate.

Up the hill, find garage, exit, figuring out how to pay with the yellow disc – we just paid what showed on the screen.

I tell them I’m going to drop them at the start of the pub crawl and go look for parking.  Rose Street is pedestrian only.  It’s nae wide, as the photo shows. They jump out and I go up a block to George Street, make a left (remember, it’s lefts that are easy), to the west, the direction the crawl goes.

There is metered median parking on George Street – cars park in the center between where the two lanes each way run.  But there’s not a spot in the first block, the second block, the third block…finally, one spot in the 4th block!  And it says there’s no payment after 630 and it’s after 6.  I pay, park and find the guys in the Abbotsford.

The highlight for me, kinda, was place #3, which had decent looking food (note to self, check first, though, there was a nearly empty Jamie Oliver Italian restaurant in the next building west! Merde!), a quiz, and then karaoke.   If we’d played, we might have won the quiz.   Two questions – what month does America hold presidential elections? & John Wilkes Booth assassinated which American president?

There are photos of dinner, the one has haggis balls, which were ordered and eaten.  Haggis balls.  Sacrilege!

I fell asleep during dinner.  So I missed the rest of the evening, going to the car for a power nap as they hit more pubs.

There’s a picture of each on the link.

They ended up doing 6 before calling it a night at 1130.  ON the ride home, they decided the Black Cat was the favorite, with nice folks at the bar, live music, and good beer.

After a false start – we circled the block based on my misunderstanding of “Ms Google” – we shot off to St. Andrews, making it in Ms Google’s assigned time of an hour and 15 minutes.

Little of the conversation on the way home is reportable.  No one puked or mentioned being close.

The highlight might have been our all belting out to the Bee Gees “Lonely Days” – my choice.

And we were back to our temporary home and Mike says of JP, “he was three quarters of the way down and he was already snoring.”  With the lights on!  It was a long day.

Tomorrow supposed to be the windiest, and we play the Jubilee Course, which is right next to the New Course, which is between it and the Old.  All right there.  Friday we become geographically more challenged.

Another fine day.  Rah rah.