The Secret Life of Sea Monkies

I thought I knew about stingrays. Well not in an indepth biological sense, but in the general Stingrayish sense. What I did not know was that some have FEET!! Feets? On a stingray? Weird.. lol.. before that the most id really had to do with stingrays was at the beach just avoiding standing on them as they vamoose at speed into the distance.
We went to the Scottish sea life centre, mainly because mum had never seen an otter before (I had on the other hand spent a good half hr with my brother watching them at Australia Zoo, before Erwin died at the hand of afore mentioned sea creatures.. stingrays.. not otters..) and because I happen to think otters are pretty groovoid I went along with it.
This place was full of uber weird animals I’ve never seen before. Including a weird blob of slime attached to a piece of seaweed, and a well I guess it was a crustation sans eyes apparently built out of Kevlar that swam around like a maniac banging into everything. (Horseshoe crab?)
I also discovered sea monkies are actually plankton (whale food) serious disappointment there..not that I thought they were really underwater monkies *cough*.. but well I was expecting something more exciting than plankton..
What else? Seals.. flatheads.. oh, and eels.. I have a slight dislike of eels.. I had a rather close encounter one day with an eel about 5cm from my nose in a river (we both had the crap scared out of us.. id say the eel now has a similar aversion to amelias as I do to eels-I was probably only 10ish when this happened-).. since then ive rather avoided them. Although this wasn’t quite as possible as I would have liked in Portugal, I was taken to a fishmarket and there were trays and trays of live eels. I was actually asked if id ever seen an eel before.. I refrained from the ‘yes, and the bloody thing scared the crap out of me and tried to bite off my nose’ I think that would rather have spoiled their desire to expose me to new things.

So that was the sea life centre. Woot, exciting and rather out of chronological order, although I think readers might go into a state of shock if things were actually ordered logically.. neatly even.

Currently we are near Edinburgh, today’s activity was an excursion into this tourist Mecca, and to return the car.
We saw the castle, where the Tattoo is preformed, and a hundred million tourists mainly from Japan and Germany far as I could tell. The world truly has become multicultural.
Not so multicultural as to fruit a decent coffee though.. that is still proving an enigma to the Scottish people...
Although I did see ‘Coffee Nior’ which is a lovely way to say ‘Black Coffee’, normally just referred to as American Coffee.
We also went sock shopping.. this is up there with THE most boring activities in the world as far as im concerned.. its on par with.. hmm.. well cable hunting (for computer cables) is pretty bad.. currently I cant actually think of something quite as dreary and mind numbing and overly complicated. There has to be a limit to the amount of socks on the market, logically a finite number of feet can only have a finite number of socks.. and a finite number of activities to undertake whilst encompassed in said socks.. noooo apparently there doesn’t. Theres over socks, under socks, coolmax socks, thermal socks, silk socks, wool socks, cashmere socks (talk about swanky) etc. etc. then they come in different thicknesses, and of course sizes and colours.
Funnily enough I lost interest within about 15 seconds of the conversation with the lovely, and copiously informed, sales lass.. and as such went off in search of much more expensive and as such interesting items that I in no way, shape or form actually need.
I was ultimately bullied cruelly into paying attention.. sort of.. in a sense.. and managed to choose socks. I think I ended up choosing them on a mix of colour and the most obscure, yet relevant, question I could think of which was ‘Do they dry quickly?’ As you may have guessed I was rather on a different planet.. probably trying to work out how to convince mum to get me something that I don’t really need.. but could be incredibly useful one day.. like when I end up in the swiss alps abandoned by… as of course happens every day.
I did get a backpack, that was more exciting than the socks.. as you can tell it was a riveting day.

Yesterday was pretty cool though.. we went to a castle.. called……. Cawdor Castle. This actually meant nothing to me, but they say its Macbeths castle.
My knowledge of Macbeth is somewhat limited to ‘Wyrd Sisters’, a programme I happened to see when I was home sick one day (about Lady Macbeth going totally mad and washing her hands a lot), and my neighbour being tutored by mum.
Somehow I feel I haven’t really done such a hardcore play justice, I know its about death, possibly ghosts, murder and guilt as the undoing. I also know some quotes (‘is this a dagger I see before me?’ – the next line I know ‘no it’s a carrot’ must have been added on by some satire.. it doesn’t sound very Shakespeare… oh and of course “when shall we three meet again, in thunder lightening or in rain?” –again “no need to shout, well I can do next Tuesday” I think were also added on by a satire.. but I know the quotes.. so that should count)
But the castle was cool.. the gardens were more ‘Much ado about nothing’ –see I have some culture- the castle is actually lived in. There was the cute juxtaposition of really old books in a book shelf next to the Da Vinci Code. The people living there were naturally messy.. but I think they had ‘people’ come in and tidy every day for them.. so that we could pay to have a gawp at the various rooms, mainly tapestries.
I did like the little captions for each room, they were beautifully written. Hidden in one of them was the statement ‘I’m not boring you am I? Of course not’, I didn’t actually read the rest of the page, it was detailed descriptions of tapestries.. and I was somewhat distracted by the big fluffy toy cat thing under the table.
There was a book shop, which is cruel. There is nothing worse than hundreds of wonderful books when you are a backpacker and already carrying the upper baggage weight. And mum has a terrible, unhealthy in my opinion, habit of picking up everything and weighing it in her hand.. generally giving her opinion of ‘much too heavy’ or ‘very bulky’ or something horribly practical of that nature. (my mother on reading this has burst into rather hysterical laughter.. partially because of the injustice of me so horribly alleging such things about her.. but also because deep deep in her heart she knows its true.. and much worth the comical value)
But I got a mini book of Shakespeare’s insults, compromise. I just need some people who wont mind being eloquently insulted now.
So now im going to flick through and share them.. I figure shakesperes been dead long enough not to worry about copy right.. although someone out there for sure would get miffed.. just think about it as publicity.
‘Thou smell of mountain goat’ Henry V.. that’s nice and simple.. better than ‘you smell of cheese’.. which was popular for a while.
‘Scratching could not make it worse… such a face as yours’ Beatrice, Much ado about nothing. Possibly helps to know the context, but its such a brilliant quick firing set of insults that she lays at.. thingo.. her ultimate husband, and sparring partner.
“more of your converstation would infect my brain”, Coriolanus. Again nice and simple.. and very true in the case of socks, although not at the fault of the sales lass.
And thatll do cause otherwise it could get repetitive and dull.. I might just work from the quotations. Decide which insults I like and then read the play.. that’s a nicely obscure thought.

Tommorow we head to Belguim.. we knowest not yet what we shalt find. Who knows.. we are going by ferry though.. which will be.. interesting..well hopefully, I quite like boats (not whale safaris though.. never whale safaris) a week on the Young Endeavour did that for me. Sleeping on a ship in calm seas is nice.. sleeping on a ship when all you can hear is the booming of the hull as it hits the water is not (especially when you get the double thunder.. that tends to mean it’s a little rougher up there) also worse when you know you have to get up at 4am for Watch.
But.. well this was supposed to be a blog about edinbrugh.. and well.. wasn’t really. Hopefully it was entertaining anyways.

Ok.. well so that was supposed to be the sign off.. but then.. well we went shopping for things other than just socks in Edinbrugh. And what we did manage to get was.. well I got it as a chrissie present for someone cause I love the title. Its two Cds called “Music for Creative Cooks” –how can you NOT get that..lol- anyways it’s the most.. boppy? I don’t know.. very old fashioned Dixie Land style Grammaphone music. And very light hearted and fun to listen to.. so I thought id share that all with you.
I also got presents for paretns but what with them reading this sharing the surprise would rather ruin it.. suffice to say its yellow.
Which reminds me of a joke I grew up with.. two actually:
Q. Whats yellow and dangerous?
A. 1. Shark infested Custard
A. 2. A canary with a machine gun

Classic eh? I would like to think that I have a slightly better way with humor than that.. but it would be hard.. they are gold jokes ;)

Oh.. and one more thing (because this blog isn’t nearly long enough yet) credit cards. I warn you to be ware of these things, not because as some will tell you they make it easy to spend more money than you have (although for sure that’s possible.. but it’s a problem with enough publicity) no.. its their habit of getting ‘lost’. Well.. habit is probably a bit strong, I think if its just me it happens to I can hardly call it a habit. And lost is also the wrong word, it’s the same lost that my glasses are, technically I know where they are, I could take you right to the lake.. they just aren’t currently accessible (until they get dug up on some archaeological dig, fingers crossed).
So.. to begin.. as you know I went to Peru. And peru has a bad reputation for pickpockets etc. so I was warned to have a safe guard.. plan B.. whatever you want to call it. This was a credit card, underwhich I am second signatry. And there was enough limit to get to wherever (Melbourne, London, Stockholm, my three main places to nick off to in times of turmoil.. maybe Oslo.. but the details aren’t important right this second.. ill beg a safe place off someone in oslo someday).
So.. this card was special (note that ‘was’) there was a normal size card, and a mini one..- you would have seen them advertised about a year ago-. So.. I put the mini one in my shoe.. which was at the time about 2 years old and as such rather chemically hazardous-the shoe.. not the card. Anyone going through the sole of my shoe would have had to have SERIOUS mental problems.. and possibly no nose, or sense of self preservation. Plus there was a high probability that the shoe, and card, would be on my foot.. thus making card excavation somewhat more dangerous.
I then, of course, forgot about the damn thing. I walked across the Andes in these shoes (with the card), up a mountain in Norway, through Puddles in Stockholm, up another mountain in Portugal.. and generally around and about. To the point that I wore the shoes to death –in erratic patches-, got a new pair, and threw the old pair out.
About a week later I was sitting in the car staring out the window day dreaming, and my shoes drifted into my mind, because I had no blisters.. closely accompanied by the concept of money, again because I have none.. then the two drifted together while I was mumbling along to rocky horror. ‘you’re space out on sensation, like you’re under sedation…’ interrupted by a rather concerned ‘Oh, Shit’ that filled the car followed closely by ‘Bloody hell.. I did not just do that.. I am not that blonde.. bloody hell’. Funnily enough this somewhat caught the attention of my mother, who wanted to know the cause of my concern. A lesson I was taught when young was DO NOT, under any circumstances upset the driver. As I told my mother in the lightest way possible the car did not swerve off the road and kill us both, and a collection of the local wildlife, but it was a bit tense there for a moment.
But anyway.. apparently I am that blonde.. and the card is still in my shoe out there.. cancelled because anyone mad enough to go through my shoes would be mad enough to try using a well trodden, on slightly smelly credit card, mini though it may be.
I’m glad the lady cancelling the card didn’t ask for the details of losing it, trying to tell the story without bursting into fits of maniacal giggles at my own absent mindedness would have been rather tricky.

Look forward to your comments.
Take care

p.s I imagine it would help if you have a very clear understanding of how I speak to get this blog.. ideally it wouldn’t be necessary but I tend to write how I would say something.. and of course you guys miss all the inflections.. which could leave the reader with rather the wrong impression about.. well everything really..
sooo.. (just realised you’re missing out one the eyebrow movements as well.. and the hand movements.. and the meandering accents.. boy you guys miss out on everything.. lol) ummm deal with it? Lol.. that’s about as good as I can think of.. sorry kiddoes.. lol