First day in Edinburgh

Edinburgh — By Ryan on February 11, 2010 3:47 am

Day 12 – First day in Edinburgh Scotland

So finish my journey out of England the same way it started my flight landed without a hitch, I grabbed my luggage and was ready to head into town to see my good friend Paul. Paul asked me to give him a ring when I landed and so I found the only 4 payphones in the Edinburgh airport to make a call. Payphones, like most everything else in Europe are insanely overpriced and it asked me for 40 pence(or about a dollar back home) which I would have assumed would get me an unlimited local call as any sane person would expect. Oh no, $1.00 literally got me 2 minutes to talk before it asked for another dollar. Which I obliged of course, but 50 cents per minute? How crazy is that? It’s no wonder that the economies of the European countries have been left in the dust of the USA, there people are nickel and dimed to death that they have absolutely no money left over to spend on luxuries and emerging markets/technologies, which means those emerging markets grow that much slower than back home, which is why so many more big movers start up in the USA and take off as apposed to Europe. But that’s just my uneducated ranting, what do I know? Not much After two disconnected calls Paul, in his infinite wisdom just tried to call the number back that showed up on his call display and sure enough the phone in the airport starting ringing and even more bizarre is that the phone allowed us to talk as long as we wanted to, I’m guessing Mensa candidates aren’t working for the phone companies in Scotland. I let Paul know that the eagle had landed and that i was on my way into town via the lovely super shuttle bus. Super because it was humongous, two levels with a baggage area inside the bus and plenty of leg room.

As I was putting my bags away and sitting down two gals in their mid twenties came on board and were talking in North American accents so of course I started up a conversation(It’s been shown that I have trouble resisting cute girls in buses) and sure enough the two were from Canada. Ottawa to be exact. I wasn’t about to allow this insane concidence go un-appreciated, the fact that we were the only two people on this bus in Edinburgh Scotland in the dead of winter and we all just happened to be from Canada. We chatted the way into town, found out that they were both going to Uni in ottawa and they fell in love with Scotland on a previous trip so they both decided to come back for a week and do the highland trail during some time off at school. Good call on that one, too bad the weather wasn’t more inviting however as it was cloudy and rainy for the entire week.

As the bus entered into the downtown of Edinburgh I was treated to a sight which I was comletely unprepared for. I had absolutely idea that Edinburgh was as old or as impressive as it is. My only real view on Scotland is what I have from trainspotting and a few other films that feature some footage in the country. I was assuming that these were regular cities in a cold rainy part of the world. I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried. As the bus started entering the city was began to see buildings that put Cambridge to shame. But not just buildings, we’re talking about rows and rows of buildings, blocks and blocks of them that put Cambridge to shame. The old section of this city dwarfed anything I had experienced in England. It had all of the ancient beauty but on a scale multitudes greater than anywhere else. There was literally an old city built ontop of an ancient and both layers were still being actively used. Absolutely incredible. The two canadian girls just looked at me with this ‘ya, tell me about it’ look on their face as they had both been here before and experienced the same shock that I was going through.

We got off the bus together and there crossing of the Wyverly bridge was a big beautiful hunk of a Scot by the name of Paul Canavan. As I saw him walking towards us I jumped with joy and bounded over to give this man a big man hug, and in the process nearly destroyed every piece of electronical equipment I was carrying. If you can imagine in slow motion me bounding and leaping into the air as I run 50 meters towards Paul and with each leap something different flies out of my pocket, lingering in the air for a few seconds and then crashing to the ground. My camera is definiteliy destroyed and no longer works but thankfully my MP3 player is made of studier stuff than that, although the 2GB micro SD card thta was in it flew out and was lost forever Boooerns! Double Boooerns!! I ignored the storm of electronics flying about me and gave Paul a big bear hug which he recipricated naturally and passionately, a first for me and European men. I am glad to see that the Scots are that much less repressed than the english. I introduced my two Canadian friends to Paul and his girlfriend Melissa and he offered to guide them ½ of the way to their destination where we finally parted ways. I had intended on staying in touch with them, however it would seem that Anna Brousseau is not on facebook, or at least invisible. Booerns to that, so when google picks this up and you are googling yourself and this blog comes up first for Anna Brousseau Ottawa don’t be shy and shoot me and email saying howdy.

The 5 of us parted was and Paul, Melissa and I carried onwards up the main road to his parents place just a few minutes from downtown. As we were walking up the road and the houses were getting nicer and nicer I remembered thinking to myself that there was no way he lived in one of these mini-castles but sure enough he points to the right at this gorgeous semi-detached 160 year old house and says ‘this is us’. My jaw just dropped, for the next week it would seem I would be living in a palace and even more exceptionally is that I had no idea that his amazing parents, with their love, warmth and generosity easily dwarfed the beauty of this house 10 times over. I didn’t know it just at that minute but I had travelled halfway across the world to this ancient cold city and I was finally home.

It was fairly obvious from walking in the door right off the bat that I was going to get along famously with the Canavans. Their witt was sharpened over the years by the same dry humor that I grew up on, they were open, giving and said it the way it was. Luckily for me what they said was exactly in line with how I thought on every topic. Mr. Canavan greeted me with a quick jab and we fenced back and forth for a minute or two in jest because I gave Mrs. Canavan a big hug and thanked her for welcoming me into her beautiful home. She had really gone all out for my arrival, stocking the fridge with Soy milk and preparing a weeks of vegan friendly recipes. I was fairly flabberghasted at the amount of effort this wonderful woman had put into taking care of a perfect stranger from a different land. I had full intentions of going out grocery shopping as I do most places I stay and I feel fairly uncomfortable being a burden on folks with my dietary choices, but the Canavans would not hear of it. They had the larder stocked full of Vegan friendly ingredients for me to go to town with so instead I took my food budget and spent it on a beautiful bouquet of flowers for her. Paul and did a quick wonder around the block, grabbed the flowers and came home to help prepare dinner. He had gotten the week off work, a rare miracle from what I gather but alas his time off didnt’ start until the day after tomorrow so it was an earlier night for all of us in bed sleeping before 10pm for me, which had become a regularity in the UK.

I had Paul’s sisters room as my own for the week, a huge room with 20 foot ceilings and a bed fit for a princess, or in my case a prince I hit the pillow and slept like an absolute baby… for 5 hours at least until my body, like clockwork, woke me up at 2:30, and so begins another day in this grand adventure. Yay life!

Tags: Edinburgh, scotland