These entries are taken from a journal I planned on keeping throughout my stay in Edinburgh in 2000/2001. Unfortunately I didn’t keep to it as well as I should have, but the few entries I did get down on paper brought back memories. This is the third post.

1/1/2001

Holy cow. What a crazy last 24 hours. Loony. Insane. Nutty, even. We got into Edinburgh (after meeting A & L at the airport) the night of the 30th and were picked up at the train station by Jim, co-proprietor of the Baronscourt Guest House. We’ve got a great place - den with kitchenette and TV and a bedroom with a full bath.

Anyway, we left for Hogmany at about 7 or so last night and on the bus downtown (or to the “centre” as they say) Luci had to apparently pee reeeeally bad so the first thing we did was find a pay toilet and she proceeded to leave her camera bag in the pay toilet as it began its self-cleaning process. Apparently these toilets wash the interior out with hoses after each use and also wash things off the floor through a panel. So when the door opens back up for me to go in, the camera bag, with Luci’s $400.00 camera, cash, and credit cards… GONE.

We hadn’t even gotten inside the festival area by this point. We find a phone and call the TOILET EMERGENCY CENTER. They tell her they’ll try to recover it and have it at the police station the next morning. So we walk around the area, gawking at the beautiful Edinburgh castle lit by spotlights and torches on the hill above us, amazing. Checked out Moby on the big video screens - he was playing at the castle. (Talk about a small world - DAve).

It snowed pretty heavily for a time but then changed to rain, so we queued up at this pub and after waiting about 45 minutes or an eternity or so we got inside. After about half an hour of playing wallflowers, a guy from Newcastle came up and started talking to Luci and eventually bought us all drinks. Johnny was his name - he went to the U. of Newcastle and was at Hogmany with some of his rugby buddies (cool guys). We joined them outside for the big countdown and when it was all said and done, the Edinburgh sky lit up from the glare of golden fireworks and Luci had found someone to kiss (and kiss, and kiss) for New Year’s. Johnny gave her his number in Newcastle and asked her to call him… apparently he was quite taken.

After leaving Hogmany we trekked to the bus stop and were fortunate to be at the stop with an elderly couple that was at the one we headed downtown from. So we had no real difficulty getting back to Baronscourt.

One problem, though: the one set of keys we had with us were in Luci’s bag. Thankfully, Jim and his wife Margaret were still up so they let us in. Their daughter and her husband and another couple were there and they kept feeding us alcohol. So all ended up well…

Not quite. Our room door was locked with the same keys that the toilet at and the only spare was inside the room. So in the early morning hours of the new millenium our host Jim had to take the hinges off the door so we could get in. I was embarrassed by the whole thing.

I woke up at 3 PM to find that Luci had already gone to the police station (by Jim, nonetheless) and gotten everything back. We took it easy all day today and plan on hitting the Royal Mile tomorrow for a last chance to be real tourists.

Ciao.