To Barcelona!

The only thing that sucks about clubbing until past 6am numerous nights in a row is trying to go to bed early the night before a travel day.

Gillian and I both layed awake for 8 hours trying to sleep before our trek to Barcelona today. We 'awoke' at 9 to pack and walked to the bus station. We took a bus to Ibiza Town, which Gillian almost puked on, and spent the afternoon wandering around the nice town. Ibiza town is just so much nicer than San Antonio, and I could finally realize why people might actually live on Ibiza Island.

After a beer at McDonalds (why not?) we took the bus to the airport and waited around for a few hours.

Beer at McDonalds

Only after sheer boredom we read our boarding passes that said we must get our tickets stamped previous to security if we are not from the EU. We freaked, ran back to check in where they directed us to the Ryanair lineup where people were rebooking their missed flights. We caught up with a group of people in the same boat, who were actually also from Calgary, and finally got our tickets passed and got in line to board our flight. We wore 1000 coats since we thought they were going to weigh our bags, but in the end we wore our coats and sweated through our clothes for no reason.


After our flight we took the subway to our hostel and met up with Emily Woods and her new friend Leah and sat around drinking sangria. they made us a delicious dinner and we decided to stay in the night instead of going out with the hostel gang. We are excited to see most of Barcelona tomorrow!

Tiesto!

Tiesto last night at Priviledge, the worlds largest club with a capacity of ten thousand, was absolutely unreal. We went to a preparty to get our free bus to the club at around midnight, and finally got to the club at 2ish. Tiesto went on at around 230 and we ended up dancing for hours on end. We decided not to drink that much since we didn´t want to deal with the huge club and getting back and whatever else being completely gone and we are so happy we did that. The vibes in the place were enough to keep us dancing all night. 

Massive crowd at Tiesto!

Everyone there was ridiculously short which made it awesome to see Tiesto... not that he really did much to look at, but yah! Gillian was pretty much a giant.

Tiesto and his dancers!

We´re off to Barcelona tomorrow to meet up with Gillians friend Emily and my friend Amanda! Excited!

Ibiza!

We made it to the island! After the worst plane ride in the world and some confusing directions and an extremely expensive cab ride we finally got to the hotel. It's pretty nice considering we booked pretty much the cheapest hotel that didnt have 'DONT STAY HERE!!'reviews. Although we did see that written on a dirty car this morning.. haha. The plane ride was absolutely ridiculous.. filled with the most annoying girls and douchbag guys singing vengaboys. Gillian awoke from her nap to a guy wearing pink tights with his cock out. I pretended to sleep almost the whole way as to avoid any interactions.

After finding our hotel we decided it would be a good idea to take the elevator since we were really tired and our room is on the 4th floor... that was a huge mistake. As we crammed into this 2 person elevator with our bags and pressed 4, the elevator lurched up then probably got to the 4th floor where it kindof lurched again and then did nothing. We pressed the number 4 again where it lurched upwards until we pressed the door open button, and it let us out on the 5th floor. Never again using elevator.

We have just been lounging on the beach mostly.. we bought tickets for Tiesto and are going tonight... so freaking excited!! We are so confused about times though... we are supposed to catch a bus to go to ´the worlds largest club´at 1am... I have a feeling it is going to be a complete all nighter.

Our second night here we just wandered around the smaller clubs in San Antonio, using the same technique we did in Cusco to get as many free drinks as we could by staying in each club only long enough to finish our first free drink. It was a fun evening, but we spent most of the next day feeling like poo laying on the beach.

The water here is amazingly clear, and spending a day on the beach is as relaxing as it gets. We took a boat to another beach which was a bit more secluded and spent the afternoon there.

Portobello and Arthur's Seat

There are a lot of touristy things to do in Edinburgh. On Tuesday Gillian and I headed down to Portobello, the seaside part of Edinburgh for a 'beach day'. Although watching the waves is pretty relaxing, the beach seams like more of a nuisance, making it harder to walk and getting sand in my shoes, rather than a place to lay down and go tanning and swimming.

Portobello Beach

We didn't really do much while we were there.. just sat and chatted for a few hours then took the bus back to the city center.

On Wednesday Gillian and I decided it was time to separate before we got really irritated with each other, and I took that opportunity to walk up Arthur's Seat.

Arthur's Seat

Arthur´s seat is really lovely, and is the thing you are supposed to do as a tourist in Edinburgh. It was nice to get some exercise too!

For dinner Gillian and Duncan made a huge haggis meal and it was surprisingly delicious.

We had one last pub night on Friday after packing for our trip!

Audrey, James, Myself, Gillian, Rory and Nicola

Glasgow

Gillian and I attempted to get up early to go shopping and sightseeing in Glasgow for the day, but it ended up with us catching the 2:30 bus, getting stuck in traffic and arriving in Glasgow at 4:30pm (or 'half four'), with only an hour and a half to find Primark and sort through the masses of cheap European fashion.

But we did spend awhile walking around Edinburgh first visiting Victoria Street, which is this crazy street which is on two different levels of the city, and then walked by the coffee shop where Harry Potter was written.

Victoria Street

I ended up buying a bunch of funny accessories, and of course skirts and tights because apparently that is the only acceptable thing to wear out here. After shopping we grabbed a coffee and wandered to the University of Glasgow.

Sauchihall Street

The 1.3km walk Google had predicted was somehow more like 3.5km and the round trip to the University took over 3 hours but it was so worth it, even though I didn't have on my proper walking shoes. The University is so beautiful, even more so than Edinburgh's which I didn't think was possible.

University of Glasgow

The university had all these gates and passageways to walk through we kept feeling lost then ending up in some other sort of weird fancy courtyard.  My mom called Gillian's 'mobile' and we chatted for awhile which was really good.

Important names on the main gate of the university

After walking back to the city center we decided to take the train instead of the bus since it was much quicker and we had tickets to see a comedy show at 10:30. We saw Jim Jeffries last show which was really really good... absolutely hilarious. And we finally got to see a main festival act so we didn't feel like we completely missed the festivities.

Edinburgh Part II

The past few days have been a bit of a blur due to my introduction into Scottish drinking.

I am still so amazed at the whole Flat system they have set up for living here.. it's incredible. They have definitely managed to make use of their space here.

Marchmont Street Corner

All the buildings have these lovely pointy tops that are so repetitive its so pretty. And behind every teeny street side door there is an entire apartment system hidden behind.

Spiral staircase up to Gill's Flat

As Gillian studied for, and then wrote, her last exam I went off to find myself a cellphone. Wandering down Princes street was an absolute zoo due to the masses of people here for the festival. I found a phone even more middle ages than my first ever cellphone and then wandered off to take some photos.

Scott's Monument

Princes street faces the Edinburgh Castle and is extremely picturesque. I spent a solid portion of my afternoon just taking pictures and people watching.

Edinburgh Castle

Finding my way to the University and then finding the building where Gillian's exam was did indeed take the hour I allotted myself. But the campus is super nice, and there was a lot of interesting people to watch.

Cockburn Street.

The street above is fabulous, but to my disappointment is pronounced Coburn.

I met up with Gillian and we wandered down Rose Street where we had a pint before going to her friend Judith's sushi restaurant for dinner.

Rose Street, with Edinburgh Castle in the background

After dinner at apparently the only sushi place in Edinburgh with a Japanese chef, we met up with Ola, Gillian's polish friend for some drinks.  We went to The Standing Order, which was a weird bar, mostly because it was so light inside and everyone is standing around on this nice carpet. We drank some Pimms (a gin based lemonade and herb drink) and then headed home to get ready.

The Meadows

After playing some drinking games with the flatmates we headed to Teviot where we somehow managed to spend 6 pounds on a drink... Which in my head was normal until I realized they were pounds and not dollars. Leaving there we went to 'Doctors' which was just some small Scottish pub for some more pints. There Gill and I turned into typical hunter kleptos and stole a bunch of sweet pint glasses. On the way home we walked to the 24 hour food store and bought a ton of Flumps, which I later grossed everybody out with by putting them in a bacon sandwich. Delicious by the way.

After sleeping most of the next day, we went to meet some of Gillian's friends, Ben and Jack. She tried to warn me to how vulgar they are, and having spent time in the field and on drilling sites, I would have assumed I'd be prepared. That assumption was really wrong. Nice boys, but yes, very vulgar. We all headed out to Karma, which apparently is a super dirty bar, but I loved it since it reminded me of Phils. As we walked in the door Ben bought a 28 pound round of drinks which I thought was absurd.

Gill, Myself and Jack. Classy Group.

Overall the night was really good, with both the Backstreet Boys and Shania Twain coming on and Gill and I dancing up a storm.

After moving Gillian's excessively heavy suitcases to her flat we went for dinner and a movie at the cinema and I was very grateful for a sober night in.

Lettuce

We tried to buy some lettuce for salad and ended up buying some sort of lettuce plant. Food here is weird.

I am extremely impressed Gillian and I have managed to stay civil!

Edinburgh!

I made it!

An attempt to arrive at the airport very tired to adjust my body clock was proven successful as I headbobbed for a few hours waiting for my delayed flight to Scotland. I was sleep deprived enough to sleep almost all of my flight with my mouth hanging wide open, to the jealousy of the large English woman seated next to me. Arriving in Glasgow at 7:30am local time, 12:30am Calgary time I convinced myself it was indeed morning and caught a shuttle to the bus station. After getting off at the wrong stop (Buchanan Galleries is not the Buchanan Bus Station.. but said by an automated Scottish woman they do sound the same) I wandered around until finally stumbling upon the bus station.

Clock Statue outside the Buchanan Bus Station in Glasgow

I tried to stay awake and take in the views of the Scottish countryside on the bus, but being tired combined with my tendencies to fall asleep on any moving vehicle resulted in my passing out for the entirety of the ride. Getting off the bus in Edinburgh I followed Gillian's specific instructions to find St. Andrews Square where I could get a taxi to her flat, but somehow I ended up exiting the bus station from a different door, which allowed me to get completely lost and I got to walk around looking like a typical confused tourist. I was in awe of the architecture and the never ending tenements on each street and my photo snapping did nothing to help my poor tourist look. However, Edinburgh in August is full of tourists here for the Fringe Festival so I didn't feel completely out of place.

York Place

After dropping my stuff in Gillian's flat, we hopped ourselves up on coffee and did a walking tour of the city. Since the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on, the city is pretty busy and we were given pamphlets for different shows every few steps, there's all these painted people standing around and lots of traditionally dressed Scottish men playing bagpipes. 

The Royal Mile

Bagpipe Player

We then visited the Edinburgh Castle, which is somewhat less attractive due to the stadium set up for the Scottish Tattoo, but still a wicked castle nonetheless.

Edinburgh Castle

A walk up to Calton Hill left me feeling out of shape and lazy, but the views were amazing, and the statues were equally awesome. The National Monument, constructed as a memorial for those who died in the Napoleonic War was my favourite of the bunch. It is meant to be a replica of the Parthenon, but funding never came through, and the monument was never finished.

The National Monument

The views of the city from up here were pretty sweet.. I couldn't get over how many nice buildings there are in this city.

North Bridge

After being touristy we hit up Pound Land, which is much less gangsta than I would have hoped, and bought cheap food and household goods. We made our way back to the flat and I met Gillian's 'flatmates' James and Rory.

Overall, first day in Edinburgh was absolutely fantastic. I love Scottish accents, cool buildings, statues and double decker buses. It is just as I imagined it would be.

Typical Edinburgh