If You Aint There The Plane Leaves Without You!!

Well it is Scotland

For those out there who just like the pictures and not the words this article can be summed up with ‘got wasted, missed flight’. Everyone else please read on... Hanging out in for the week in Edinburgh has been not too bad. I never though I would enjoy being in the UK very much but I must confess that it was at least tolerable. And as the week progressed the shenanigans increased. More than one hangover was fought off with coffee as I suffered through the mornings having been out drinking the night before. At least I made it to where I should be… however things went a little more astray on the final night.

There is no shortage of cool old buildings to look at/photograph

It all starts when I caught up with old friends in Edinburgh on what was supposed to be my last night there… you see where I’m going with this right. Before I left New Zealand I knew one person who lived in Edinburgh, however it turns out actually knew half a dozen (and now a few more). The whole crew of Scottish boating scumbags I met in New Zealand a few years ago have made the way back to where they come from and now can be found lurking in the seed depths of underground pubs. I forget the names of the places they took me too but they were all pretty classic.

Just like the people, the cool buildings are everywhere!!

As I still haven’t adjusted to the new time zone I made sure to have power naps throughout the night… one at each pub. Lucky I managed to keep my eyebrows and with each quick recharge I was ready for another assault. The night ended with gin and tonics at the place Paul and Colin work at. Oh yeah this was after they had closed the bar and kicked everyone else out. All we had to do was buy the manager a few drinks and bingo bango, our night of drunken debauchery continued.

Ah my own lane... excellent

In the morning I woke up just after eleven to be surprised at how light it was… sun shine… it should be sunny at six in the morning (the time my cell phone was set to wake me up at, and shortly before I was to head to the airport). My next reaction was to ask Dawson, who I was sharing a bed with (that’s another story) “what’s the time”…”ah it’s five past eleven”… “but it can’t be, my plane leaves at nine!!!”…. to which he replied “I wouldn’t lie to you man” and started laughing at me.

Along with all the buildings are a lot of statues, here's one of the many

It tuned out my cell phone battery died and therefore didn’t wake me up… error. In actually fact though I probably should have been heading to the airport before I even got home form town!! Oh well, at least it was a good night and because work buys flexible tickets it didn’t cost anything to change my fight.

Sunset over Edinburgh... only the lucky ones get to see it on account of the normally appalling weather

As a side note, it is the first flight I have ever missed and I think I really nailed it… I give myself five points for classiness and a bonus point because I didn’t even realise until two hours after the plane had gone. Booyah

Tis A Bonny Wee Toon

There's people everywhere... EVERYWHERE!!

Well as I said there’s not much going on on a boat and the flat Caspian Sea with its permanently hazy sky wasn’t even interesting enough to make me unclip the buckles on my peli case, let alone get the camera out and start snapping away.

And while you might imagine that I’m in New Zealand at present having all sorts of adventures (as was hinted in my last post and because your reading this one I’ll assume that you read that one too so are indeed up with the current state of affairs… which makes this whole statement pointless really… interesting). Where was I, ah yes my present whereabouts. While on route home I checked my email – mistake!! Turns out I had to go to Edinburgh for a training course bang smack in the middle of my six week in New Zealand. And so here I am, sitting in a hotel room in down town Edinburgh at 2:37 am rather unable to sleep. Something about ‘jet lag’ or ‘time zones’ or something, I don’t know, but not being one to miss an opportunity I have change my return ticket home to Denver, Colorado. Shortly I’ll be shredding snow that is presently falling in the Rockies and there will be yarns to be told… peau peau

‘At present we are experiencing technical difficulties’ so I can show any of the few photos of Edinburgh that I shot before this ‘jet lag’ thing hit me like a freight train. On first impressions… aye tis a bonny wee toon, but with just one small teeny tiny flaw – MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. The buggers are everywhere, EVERYWHERE.