Getting used to this place

Hey everyone

This is an update written on Duy’s computer so I’ll be able to blast it across to the site when I next get access to the internet. There’s some photos I’ll hopefully be able to put up, and the captions may or may not make sense but I’m sure you’ll all have fun looking at them anyway.

Since the last update, things have been great! We’ve settled into the Edinburgh weather much more now and are starting to get up at more ‘normal’ hours instead of waking up really early (still on Perth time, some of us). The weather has warmed up a bit since the first few days and there hasn’t been any snow in the last few days. The roads are almost all wet though, even though it hasn’t rained a great deal – which is something to be expected in this part of the world I guess.

Another funny thing is that the sun never really gets very high on the horizon. Apart rising late and setting early, the sun’s trajectory across the sky is so low it almost feels as though its twilight all the time. Added to the fact that we’ve been a bit jetlagged it means that 8pm at night feels like midnight, since the sun has already been down for 5hrs by that stage!

Anyway, what have I been doing in the last couple of days? Good question. Yesterday was new year’s eve, and the world famous Princes St party. And I have to say, what a rocking party it was! The whole thing is really well organised, with various entry and exit points into the street and four stages of different music. We managed to make our way into the party at about 9 something at night and made our way toward the Waverly stage, where Steve’s favourite band “Sons and Daughters” were playing. Their music is kinda cool in a weird way – with their blend of hard sounds and funky bass. I can see why Steve likes them! After that, Hard-Fi played – they’re meant to be a good up and coming band and their sound is a lot more ‘normal’. Everyone here loves them, even though we’ve never heard of them before.

By the end of their set, it was just about midnight and cue the fireworks from four different areas of the city. It was an absolutely amazing way to enter the new year! The place was totally packed by then and you couldn’t move in or around the street by then at all. After midnight a ska band played (can’t remember their name) and they were pretty good too – kept us rocking until about 1am when we finally trudged back home. We ended up getting to sleep at about 2.30 am.

Today we all woke up pretty late and the main event on the agenda was the Dogmanay. Dogmanay is another event in the Hogmanay calendar with sled dog racing! It was pretty amazing and I’ve never seen so many dogs in one place at once! After that we walked around a bit and took some more pics of various places. The whole place is so photogenic – I love it!

Anyway, thanks to all the people who are leaving messages on the site, I really appreciate it. Sorry if I can’t reply to all of you – we don’t get much access to internet and it does cost.

Take care everyone and I’ll catch up with you a little later.

Tata!