I arrived at the Edinburgh
airport around 3:30, while the sun was already getting pretty low in the sky
and it was raining. But luckily the good
cheer was on display in the form of Christmas.
As I walked into the airport, the music, the lights, and whole sensation
hit me, and suddenly the world me around felt like home. It’s funny how Christmas does that. Then when I ordered a coffee it came in a cup
half the size of my head, and I realized I was in a place much more culturally
similar to the US than Spain, where it’s hard to find a coffee half the size of
my fist.
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| Caledonian Backpackers - Bar and Billiards Room |
Later a group met in the common
room and we went out to a few clubs. The
first was called Opium, a rock bar
with a heavy attitude. I was starting to
learn that anybody who says "rock and roll is dead" hasn’t looked in
Scotland. They were playing everything
from post-2000 pop rock hits, to the Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, to
“Johnny B. Goode”. And everybody was
rocking their hearts out. Next we went
to a place called Banshee Labyrinth,
a pub-club (plub) that was converted from an old prison without any change in
the room configuration. For that reason
the place exists as quite the labyrinth, with three different bars and a few
dance floors, some playing electro-pop and some playing that good old rock and
roll.
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| Edinburgh Castle |
The next day I decided to check
out Edinburgh Castle, and stumbled upon a bit of luck in doing so. My good luck began with the bad luck of a
very lovely Nigerian girl, Fatima, who had dropped her gloves from the top of
the castle. As I was walking through the
park below the castle, I said hello in passing and she responded likewise. A second later I turned around when she said
“Maybe you have good eyes and can help me find my gloves. I’ve dropped them from up there.” Well what do you know, I have twenty-twenty
vision, so I helped her look. Scanning
the hillside and rummaging through the foliage alongside the path did not prove
successful, except she offered me her free pass to the castle, saving me
fourteen pounds, or about twenty-five dollars.
She only requested that I mail her back the pass, and there’s no way I
could ebb that good flow of karma so of course I sent it out the next day.
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| View of the city and Loch Ness from Edinburgh Castle |
Then I went into town. Before too long I discovered an art gallery
with a sign in front reading “Free Entrance, All Welcome” and I thought, “Why
not?” So I walked in to see what they
had on display, which turned out to be some very artsy-fartsy modernist stuff. One room stood out, with paint-spattered
shirts hanging from molded clay hangers on grey walls that were arrayed with
long malformed lumps, which curiously resembled human feces. In the middle of the room, there was a TV
playing a two-minute loop of a Scottish man talking to a stone cylinder with a
smiley face on it. I later discovered
that the exhibit was supposed to represent learning something unusual and the
process in which that thing becomes normal to us. Go figure.
After walking through the grey
poop room, I found what appeared to be a small cinema. A girl who was working in there informed me
that within ten minutes, they were going to begin a screening and discussion
for a few local artists. With nothing
better to do at the time I once again thought, “Why not?” So after grabbing a scotch and apple juice
with a beer for later, I sat down for the screening. They played three clips made by two video
artists, the first of which was comprised of four awkwardly long sepia-toned still
shots of an iMac computer with a cryptic poem open on its word processor, which
was kind of weird. The second was a pan
shot of a park in Edinburgh that had been purposely rendered with computer
glitches to appear like a moving series of watercolor brushstrokes, which was
kind of cool. The third was a sequence
of shots where a nice pair of polished shoes walks up and crushes a strange
Styrofoam object, which was kind of weird.
We never got to discuss much, but
at least one audience member had the guts to ask about the fecal formations on
the wall in the other room, to which the responsible artist seemed entirely
oblivious. That’s how I found out what
the art was supposed to represents and how I decided that artsy hipsters have
no common sense. They can be just as creative
as anybody else, but the art they make shows ZERO COMMON SENSE. As evidence, I give you the fact that the
same girl who made the iMac video had written a two-page essay entitled “When
we know that we know that something isn’t what
it is.” The piece begins by questioning the nature of
human perception and how it is our point of view that defines something as
“art”, which makes some basic sense. However
it continues as a complaint that real artists are oppressed by the capitalist
system. If that artsy hipster girl had
any common sense she would have known that she is oppressed as an artist by the
fact that her artsy hipster friends are her only audience, save random walk-ins
like myself. I’m sorry if I’ve offended any
of my less mainstream readers with these opinions.
| Hero to Scotland and to the World, Sir Sean Connery |
After counting the art gallery as
an interesting experience, I walked back up toward the castle, where they were
soon having a Scottish pride event for the upcoming St. Andrew’s Day, which
celebrates the patron saint of Scotland.
It began with a man’s explaining Scottish pride in a heavy brogue. After hearing the tales of historical figures
like Adam Smith and Andrew Carnegie, it was delightful to be reminded of
another great Scot, Sir Sean Connery.
The event then concluded with the lighting of two flaming coats of arms
and a fireworks display that was shot from the top of the castle. There were also a few ice sculptures and
luminaries on display. It was all part
of a very enchanting Scottish atmosphere.
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| Scottish pride fireworks - Edinburgh Castle |
My last day in Edinburgh was Tuesday,
which I spent at first hanging out with the hostel crowd again, waiting on a
message from my Alicante friend Blake.
Eventually I heard from him and we met up around eight o’clock along
with his friend from home, Ryan. We took
a pint at a local music bar, and talked until twelve, when parted ways and went
back to our respective abodes.
I made it back in time to catch a
midnight snack in the kitchen with a few of my favorite hostel dwellers: Mike,
an Italian guy who lived in North Carolina for seven years; Nicolas, one of the
French guys; and Simon, an Australian fellow who has been traveling the world
for six months and plans to continue three more.
We talked about various philosophies and things like cultural
differences, eventually moving to the poolroom, and I slowly said good-bye to
those I had met as they went off to sleep.
My flight was at seven o’clock the following morning, so I stayed awake
through the night, catching a bus to the airport at four and sleeping in
transit. At the Edinburgh airport, I
faded in and out of half-sleep while I pondered my next destination. Paris.
