Welcome to Edinburgh

I noticed that the money I'd received from the ATM outside Tesco's was a little odd as it said "The Royal Bank of Scotland plc promise to pay the bearer on demand Twenty Pounds Sterling at the Head Office here in Edinburgh by order of the board 1st October 2001". Sounds a bit like an IOU doesn't it? However, I am assured that it is real money... Scottish pounds! Being genuine GBP it should be accepted anywhere, although apparently some places in London are a little bit funny about it. From this point on I to try to break notes where I get the chance with the hope of getting some English pounds as change. Scott says I can change it to English pounds at the bank so it's no real drama. I might do that on Monday when we do the music shops of Edinburgh.

After a slow start to the morning I cooked us porridge, Australian style, and the only real difference in the taste was because the oats we got at Tesco's the night before had wheat bran in them too! Different, but probably very healthy, and Scott was very pleased with it... the combination of cinnamon, sultanas and honey seems to go down a treat. After breakfast we set off for Scott's hairdresser, just out of central Edinburgh, and after that I had a Link sausage roll which was really nice. We checked out a few extra shops, including one little second hand music shop where I picked up a copy of a Bellatrix album for £4. The time on the meter was running out, so we went back to the car, walked past a Fish and Chip shop advertising deep fried Mars Bars and drove to a shopping centre on the way back to Scott's place. By this stage I was feeling pretty crook, from lack of sleep and my cough. I picked up some cough medicine at the Boots chemist and a 3CD Hacienda compilation from HMV for £10.

Getting back to Scott's, I got the chance to meet his dad Allan, but then I was off to bed for a few hours sleep - completely dead to the world. Scott woke my up at the pre-arranged time of 6pm but he had to knock on the door for a bit to wake me, I was so out of it. Downstairs for a quick dinner, quick shower and a quick coffee... all with the goal of feeling a bit more human. Allan drove us into Edinburgh and we started the evening at a cool little pub called The Tron, where there were some decent tunes being played on the video screens. There we met a few of Scott's friends, had a drink, and then went off to this odd youth hostel pub. Odd, primarily because many of the kids there were under 18 and yet there was alcohol being served. It was pretty tacky, with plenty of karaoke in effect... one guy in particular had a shocking voice! One of Scott's friends sang a couple of tunes and thankfully he was much better. In an attempt to wake up and get going I had my first Jagerbomb (a shot of Jagermeister literally dropped into the glass of Red Bull... shotglass and all) and that worked a treat. While there the remainder of Scott's friends arrived and as 10:30pm came about we set off for the main destination for the evening, the indie club Evol at the Liquid Room.

The Liquid Room was a decent enough venue and the music selection was a good range of old and new. Having been out of the loop musically a little of late, some of it I didn't recognise but it was all of a pretty good standard. Once I started dancing to some tunes I started to wake up a bit and we kept going until just after 1. At this point we left and walked back to the meeting place back near the Tron where Scott's Dad was going to pick us up. All in all, the people we came across were agreeable enough although there were regular ambulance and police sirens so I suspect others weren't so lucky or well organised. Edinburgh at night is a pretty spooky place - in part because it's actually built on top of the old Edinburgh and partly just because all the buildings are made of stone. There is so much stone in this place, it's unbelievable. I'll leave you with some random pictures of Edinburgh nightlife, taken largely while we waited for Scott's dad (bless him) to pick us up at that late hour.

That guy on the left, his name is Paul too. Like all of Scott's friends, he was really nice.