Not in my Hostel!

HAVE MET OTHER CANADIANS. STOP. FORGOTEN HOW CRAZY THEY CAN BE. STOP. NOT TO MENTION THEY ARE FROM SASKATCHWAN. STOP. NO MORE TIME. STOP. ALL THE OZZYS THINK WERE NUTS. STOP.

ALL MONTY PYTHON SKETCHES EVER. STOP.

"Freeeeeddddoooooom!"

That famous Mel Gibson quote from the movie Braveheart was appropriate for the fist time ever last night: Scotland won the Calcutta Cup back from England during their Six Nations match last night.

We were lucky enough to be in a pub packed full of Scottish Rugby fans. To give you an idea how unexpected Scotland's victory was, I had tried to find a pub full of English fans, so as to join in the celebrations with the "winning team". So I was a little nervous when we could only find room in a pub ninety percent colonized with Scottish fans.

I was not sure who to cheer for at first, England maybe where I was born, but England's style of rugby lacks just that: Style. By half time, with the score tied, and Scotland having lead so far, I was considering where I could get my own kilt on very short notice. In the final ten minutes of the match, the whole pub was singing the Scottish national ruby team's un-official theme song, The Flower of Scotland, with more energy then any national anthem I've ever herd (of course, Canadians tend to consider it a matter of national pride to slur most of the words to O'Canada).

Once the final whistle blown the streets were filled with thousands of very happy Scottish men and women. The sheer celebratory potential of drunken men in kilts has to be seen to be believed. Our hostel is on the main street for all the city's clubs and pubs, with about four times the amount of bars and clubs in all of Victoria packed into one street. The streets were FULL of people until 4am.

Many Scottish fans were wearing hats with a Loch-Ness Monster on top, I want one!

I have been inspired to figure out a way to get Canada to start some sort of a domestic rugby league. Of course with way things our going, my plan for an English Ice Hockey Team is not only my only possible avenue to Olympic athlete hood, we just might beat Canada at it's own game. Just like everyone else :)

Back in Action!

The Job hunt has been pretty full-on over the last week so I have not had much free time to post.

Shannon has already secured a job with a High Class shoe store in the very center of the city. It's a bit of a relief really, as the limits imposed by her work VISA might have scared employers off a bit. It would have been hell trying to get employed in Victoria with that sort of thing. Lucky for us the job market here is totally different. Companies in Victoria act like they might report you to the police if you even suggest in an interview that you might not be able to make more then a two year commitment. During my first interview at quite a nice hotel/bar/restaurant combo the lady paused like she was delivering a deal-breaker before telling me that: " We really ask that you stay for at least...four months..". She even winced as she said it. She nearly leaped with joy when I said I was thinking that five months would work for me.

Me: "..Six or seven would work also."

Her: "Oh excellent! We don't really keep people past six, as we don't want anyone getting to board of the job. It's not like we expect something ridiculous like two years!" At this point she collapsed into a fit of giggles at the very thought.

Yes, looking for work here is slightly easier. Potential employers even use the three word that would strike fear into the hearts of companies back home: No experience necessary.

It seems that employers here actually intend to teach their staff a few things, instead of looking for worker drones with "..at least ten years experience in the field of sandwich preparation." Or want ads that read: "The ideal candidate will have been raised since birth in a retail sales environment, with at least one parent having held a similar position for a minimum of fifteen years.

Once I return to Canada I think I'll be turning to alternate sources of income :)

As Predicted...

Our Hostel lies in the shadow of Edinbrugh castle, which is perched on a rocky outcropping of the hill in front of us. With it's stony exterior looming at us, lit up for the tourists, it was an obvious choice for a place to go for a walk the other night after dinner.

It was around ten at night by the time we summited the hill, so the Castle was closed. We walked across the short drawbridge, now fixed permently in place, and admired the plaques set into the main arch way. One for Sir. Robert the Bruce and the other for William Wallace, of braveheart fame (Freeeeeddddom!).

Suddenly a crashing sound echoed out from the huge doors in front of us. Shannon sqeaked in fear and surprise, and I prepeard myslef for the type of hand to hand combat that years of hollywood movies had tough me always ocured outside of Scotish castles and New York pizza places.

Instead of the expected hordes of Ninjas in full Scottish kilts, a voice from behind the door said: "Hello!."

Then I spotted the face pearing out from a small barred window. The voice and the face turned out to belong to a young british soldiar assigned to guard the castle at night. He informed us that teams of six spent a week guarding the castle at night in five hour shifts. The noise we herd was him throwing the dead bolt on the door back and forth, he had been waiting pationently for us to enter his "strike Zone". Capt. Castle (we never did get his name)happily told us tales of the many people who he had frighted over the week. One lady from Texas holds the current alltitude record ater shooting ten ft. in the air at the sound of the bolt.

The conversation soon turned into the tradtional swapping of drinking stories, and before long we had killed over an hour for the greatfull Castle guard.

Next time on thelastspot: The Great Buskers Riot of 2006

Happy Belated Greeting Card Industry day!

The job hunt continues...

New resumes have been edited, printed, edited again, printed yet again ect, ect. I did the classic beard trim and hair cut, and Scotland now seems almost as cold as people said it would be:)

Our room is fantastically emtpy since the French guys left. Someone even vacuumed it this morning.

Last night we got fed-up with the hostel's crappy pool table, so off we trekked, two doors down to what else but "The Oz Bar". Yes, I can hear your laughter from here. It all turned out OK in the end however, as we ended up playing doubles against a Scottish photography student and his mate (sorry, their names escape me, one of 'em had a fro' though). Anyway turns out his mate mountain bikes, and he is a LONGBOARDER! I've now been offered a tour of Edinburgh's best Longboarding terrain by a local. Swift.

I've found a free wireless hotspot at a near by cafe, so I promise some pictures as soon as track down a few job leads.

Till then, if your board, watch this six part interview with Star Trek's Cpt. Sulu

Est. Feb 2006

We have switched hostels to a more long term hostel, the aptly named Budget Backpackers. Location wise it's still pretty much in the center of town. It turns out that I actually stayed here before when I visited Edinburgh back when I was living and working in London. It's a lot bigger now, split over two buildings. Longterm rooms (us) in the "old" hostel, with a massive building just across the roundabout for the short term dorms.

Our rooms mates are a pair of guys from France that have been here for five months, but by sheer coincidence are planning on moving out in a few days. This means a four bed room for the price of two, which at this place is already super cheap:) So far this place seems pretty chilled out, despite one of our nabiours did what sounded like attepted vacuuming this morning. This lasted for about two mins until there was a scream, the vacuum shut off and then about five minutes of coughing.

The weather has been a lot better then we were lead to believe as well. Despite my Gradparents prediction of freezing to our backpacks after thirty seconds exposed to the Scottish air, the first day was really sunny, if a little cold. A few hours of drizzle in the days since, but other then that, pretty mild really.

Oh ya, we are right down the street from one of the coolest buildings I've ever been in: The Museum of Scotland.

I caved already.

The internet "broke" at the hostel we are staying at. I offered to fix it just 'cus I could not bear the pained expresions on the managers face as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

The CMOS batter was dead, and the router's DHCP server was broken. Done and Done.

I had lots of interesting things to tell you all, but buy the time I fixed the internet connection, I forgot them all.

Oh well, I'll remember latert today.

Funny Title

We arrived in Scotland's capital at around lunch time and were promptely ambushed by a survey taker for the British Airport Authority, inquiring as opinion of the airport. After rating our joy on a scale from 1 to 10 (about an 8), we headed for a hostel at breakneak speed before anyone tried to sell us any kilts, or tartan socks.

I tried to convince Shannon that Scotland's national currency was the sporren, but she has learned to ignore any facts that I seem to certin of. I can't imagen how one would make change for a sporren anyway.

The basic plan now is to look for work and a place for us to live. Yes, it looks like we will settle down here for a bit. I've always wanted to live in a city with a castle right in the middle of down town. London dosen't count, the whole place is too much like a demmented theme park in the first place. A huge ferris wheel, a Royal Family, Tower Bridge, Abby Road, Picadilly Cirus, it's hard to belive they don't charge admission just to get in. Hell, what am I saying, they do.

Anyway, back in Edinbrugh the weather has changed three times since I started writing this, like real weather should. Shannon has spotted Justin Timberlake, or his Doppleganger (a Poppelganer, as it were :) . And, while we were having lunch, formmer Member of Parliment, Boris Johnson walked by doing an interveiw. He even gave me "The Nod." I think I'll stay.

On the way to the Big E!

UK POLICE OFFICIAL BULLETIN:

TIME: 18:58
DATE: 08.02.2006
SUSPECT DISC: 1 Male, 3 ft tall, Wearing small Green Hat and carrying a small blue ironing board.
1 Female, Normal height, Dressed as Yellow distress beacon.

NOTICE READS:
Attention all police forces tracking the fugitives known as "The Crazy Cunnucks".

Suspects last seen heading north on the 12:02 First GreatWestern train to London Padington. Intelligence indicates the fugitives are heading towards Edinburgh in order to steal highland Cattle.

WARNING: Suspects are hungry, and may deploy Bad Puns in order to evade capture.

Car Crashes and Rugby, oh my!

I think I've worked out the bugs on the comment moderation system, so you should all be able to comment now. Also, if anyone wants me to add them to the auto-matic e-mail list (every time I post to the blog, that post will be automatic e-mailed to you.) just send my an email saying so.

The last post was called Test, as my internet connection crashed on me while posting. Arrrrg! I was un able to add, that while we were on our way to Falmouth the other day, A car had spun off and hit a wall, blocking the road in front of the bus for 10 mins. It was only a small car, but the roads here are so narrow, that this blocked BOTH lanes of traffic.

As you may have summarized, driving here is a little different. People here drive 40% faster then in Canada and 30% closer to each other on roads that are 20% smaller. Large Grey-Hound style busses happily zip through narrow village roads that I would be too scared to drive my mom's Mini down. Transit style busses will pass each other at full speed, on the same size road, while the drivers cheerily wave at each other. It goes with out saying that the sidewalks are fare game.

Having said all that, the drivers here have one skill a lot of Canadian drivers do not: They can drive. Not to insult anyone back home, but 90% of the drivers in Victoria would be wiped out the first time they let there car perform such standard Canadian practices such as not signaling, driving 10km/h in the fast lane, or my personal favorite: Not using the indicators WHILE TURNING. A traffic circle/round-about in Victoria would confuse people to no end. We might even have to do a special course on those strange triangle shaped signs, the ones everyone in Canada assumes are stop signs that were not cooked properly.

Ok, Sorry about that, rant over.

England won it's Six Nations tournament rugby match against Wales ( The country, NOT the mammals). Yay! Scotland also won against favorites France. Yay two!

Yesterday we again braved the British rail network, and headed off to the Eden Project (or here) for the day. The Eden Project is a massive set of Bucky-Ball shaped green houses in a huge abandoned China Clay mine near St. Austel, Cornwall. The biomes, as they are called, are filled with different plants and lots of information on how each plant affects the global economy and/or world history. The architecture itself is mind-blowing, and the whole site is only five years old, so it's still be added on to.

And day before that was St. Michael's Mount, an island that you can walk out to when the tide is low. It also has a Castle and a small fishing village on it, as all British Islands over a certain size are required to have, for tourist reasons.

test

Yesterday we took the bus over to Falmouth, a small port town about an hour and half from Penzance. Besides being located in the worlds third largest natural harbour, it is also home to a fantastic National Maritime Museum, and some huge drydocks.

 

Starting in the 1680's and running for over 130 years, Falmoth was home to the "The Falmouth Packet", the British Empire's first ocean going mail service, with dedicated saling ships called "packets" which carried almost nothing but a few bags of mail on trips lasting longer then 100 days.