Hogmanay. The Scottish New Year’s Celebration. And us with no plans of anywhere to stay, or how to get home before 7am. Fun times.
We went from the tube station near Katie’s house to the tube station near the railway station. On the tube, Bethany noticed a group of people with luggage who had tickets to Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. As we were getting of the tube, I started talking to them, and they let us tag along. They were taking the bus, so we went with them (it was cheaper, they said). There were four of them, all our age, one guy and 3 girls. The guy, Murray, is from outside Edinburgh, going to school at Glasgow Uni, and the three girls are all from Northern Ireland, two of whom also go to Glasgow, and one of those is Murray’s girlfriend. Helen=gf, Leanne=Glasgow but not gf, Emma=not Glasgow. The bus was bumpy, and stopped at Haymarket station, shy of the city center because the roads were closed off. Upon getting out, we realized that the wind was blowing very strongly (leaning-into-the-wind-and-being-supported strongly), and Murray (a philosophy student!) predicted the Street Party would be cancelled. Our four new friends were going to a party at a flat belonging to a friend of one of their friends (who would be there). They agreed to let us tag along, as they didn’t know the owners of the flat either, so we did. There we met a bunch of other people our age, notably Andrew (our friends’ friend), Craig (Andrew’s mate), Kathleen (owner of the flat), and Eilish (studying in London), oh, and Bethan and Jenny. Most of them study at Glasgow too, except Kathleen and Eilish. Everyone was really nice, we went out and bought alcohol and food, then came back, then went out for dinner (Chinese). Then we came back, found out for sure that the Street Party was cancelled, and decided to go out and pub hop anyways, and to meet other friends of people.
We went to a bar just off the Royal Mile called Tron, which was jammed full. I didn’t have anything, everyone else did. We left, ran into some people (including some Australians), stood around, walked out to the middle of the North Bridge, stood around, figured out vaguely what we were doing, then went back to the base of the bridge. We stood around there for a while, then mostly went back to the flat. The Irish folk, Murray, and ourselves then split for a party at the flat of one of his old friends, which he said was just around the corner. It took a lot longer than all that, and when we got there I didn’t really like it. Lots of wild people I didn’t know. We were there for midnight, and on the stroke I had my first taste of Irn-Bru, the OTHER national Scottish beverage. We left soon after, and returned to the flat, which was empty, and consequently unenterable. So, we went to a pub on the corner and sat a while. The proprietor and bartenders were coming around with free plates of sandwich sections, which was lovely. There was karaoke, some good, some bad, but the highlight of that part of the night was at the end, a guy was singing American Pie, but the monitor kept flaking out, and he would bang the top of it, and sometimes it would skip, and once even it went back to the beginning. And, of course, everyone in the pub was singing along at the top of their lungs. So, we went out for a walk, and decided to check on the flat, which was open and inhabited now. We went in, started to get ready for sleep-ish stuff. We talked about differences between Scotland and the UK, and talked about Facebook and stuff. I got all of their full names, and facebooked them, and got a couple of them to join facebook (hahaha, I’m so evil). I never slept, but tried to write in my journal, not very productively. Around 6:30, Bethany, Murray and I headed out to catch the bus back to Glasgow. It was early by the time we got back, so we went back to Murray’s flat instead of Katie’s. We talked about all sorts of stuff; it was great, learned a lot. But gotta run now, ’cause internet cafe time is about to end. Cheers! more later