Hogmanay

In Scotland. New years' eve is a big celebration and we call it Hogmanay. From wikipedia:

Hogmanay (pronounced [ˌhɔgmə'ne:] — with the main stress on the last syllable - hog-muh-NAY) is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. Its official date is the 31 December. However this is normally only the start of a celebration which lasts through the night until the morning of the 1 January or, in many cases, 2 January.

The roots of Hogmanay reach back to the pagan celebration of the winter solstice. In Europe, this evolved into the ancient celebration of Saturnalia, a great Roman winter festival, where people celebrated completely free of restraint and inhibition. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later became the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter festival went underground with the Protestant Reformation and ensuing years, but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century.

The Cadet is going to Edinburgh with her family, so Mowgli and I put our kilts in our rucks sacks, fill the boot of the beetle with alcohol and head up to Glasgow.There is little or no plan, but basically, we will sniff out some parties with the assistance of Nine Inch Nina, my brother, and anyone else who gets in our way in the next 12 hours or so.

We have gone overboard on the alcohol, having decided that we are not going to run out. The boot of the care contains:

Red wine - six bottles:

White wine - 2 bottles:

Jack daniels - 2 bottles:

Spiced rum - 1 bottle:


Were we to drink this in the next 12 hours, even though we are wearing kilts, which surely increases your tolerance to alcohol, we would definitely die. The amount of alcohol exists in the boot of the car in order that it can act as our own personal stash which we can come back to if we run out of alcohol. Our first port of call is a drink with my brother in the Halt Bar on Woodlands road:


He isn't there and a phone call tells us that he is next door at the Arlington:

He lives near here, so is a main stay at most of the local bars. I know the mates that he's with, so we settle into the beers quite easily. It turns out that they have Budvar on tap:



Mowgli has been mourning Czech beer since he got back to scotland, so we take a few pints of it. It doesn't taste as good as it does in Prague, but it is still far better than Tennants.

After we've discussed plans for the night and had a few more drinks, Mowgli and I head to Nine Inch Nina's. She's nto answering her phone but she told us to come round, so we head over there to see what's happening. We check the boot of the car and take a bottle of wine for her house party. We have a taste for beer now, so we leave the rest and head to an off license for some cold beers. Having started on the Czech beers we get 6 bottle of Staropramen each:


We get a Taxi to the other side of Kelvingrove park only to discover that ИiN is AWOL. The Staropramen comes in handy as we walk back to the Halt Bar, while trying to get either Nine Inch Nina Ms. Diddley on the phone to find out what is happening.
We get back to the Halt and settle into more pints of Budvar, until Mowgli's kilted friend arrives, at which point we head into town to meet the recently contacted Nina at Miso the Japanese sushi bar:


It's a 15 minute walk into the centre, and we have returned to the car to pick up the last three bottles of Staropramen for the road:


By the time we get to Miso, we're not on the guest list, so have to wait outside until Nina arrives to network us in the door.
We sit on the wall finishing our beers until Nina arrives and gives us a big bear hug... Then it's into miso where we feel slightly out of place. It's a classy place, and a little far removed from the Arlington....
Nina and I always drink Jack Daniels together, and tonight is no exception:


Nina's art work hangs on all the walls of Miso, and I get the drunken Hogmanay tour. I have one bad photo taken in the club:



The bar closes and we do the New Year count down followed by the ubiquitous hugging and well wishing of people you have either just met or don;t know at all. During auld lang syne we did the can can to an array of flashing cameras. It maybe have been the kilts, or maybe the Offenbach appreciation society had chosen to spend their hogmanay in Miso. We are keen to go off and start on the first footing parties. Wikipedia defines first footing as:

First-Foot, in British folklore, especially that of the north and Scotland, the first person who crosses the threshold on Christmas or New Year's Eve. Good or ill luck is believed to be brought the house by First-Foot, and a female First-Foot is regarded with dread. In Lancashire a light-haired man is as unlucky as a woman, and it became a custom for dark-haired males to hire themselves out to take the New Year in. In Worcestershire luck is ensured by stopping the first carol-singer who appears and leading him through the house. In Yorkshire it must always be a male who enters the house first, but his fairness is no objection. In Scotland first-footing was always more elaborate than in England, involving a subsequent entertainment.

We have a couple of glasses of champagne and then leave:

The walk towards the west is fun. Everyone has now been drinking, spirits are high and there is a general agreement in the streets of Scotland at this time of year that you wish everyone happy new year and say hello and have random conversations. It's great, and it's very glasgow.....

We manage to have 1 hour conversation in a newspaper shop when we go in for a diet coke and a packet of crisps. By the time we get back to the Halt bar to track down my brother, its about 2.30 - its taken us the best part of 2 hours to walk 2 miles. The phone networks are down and my bro is nowhere to be seen, but eventually after many more drunken conversations and invites to parties in places which too obscure and far away. Eventually my brother appears to tell us that he's found an open window which leads to a party we can gate crash. We get a bottle of bourbon from the car each and head along....

It turns out that the party is extremely boring.... pretty inconsiderate of them to leave a window open when the party isn't up to much....

We head along great western road to byres road, where we are pretty sure there has to be some parties. We head into one party where my brother knows some people. Its a standard student party, and isn't up to much, but we stay for a little while and drink a few more JD and cokes. It's been a while since I was at a student party, so the general attitude and arrogance which everyone seems to emit gets on my nerves somewhat. The party is not interesting enough for Mowgli and I's European pallettes, or more to the point out fantasy of what Glasgow should look like on Hogmanay.
This is the major problem of Hogmanay. Everyone expects this wonderfully wild party to happen so people are disappointed. We are quite happy, but it certainly hasn't been the wild times we expected. Sometimes you feel liek you have to force the good party, just because you are trying to top 19?? when it was so wild that you don't expect it to be anything else, but we tend to look to the past with rosey tinted specs. We are now on our way out to downanhill where there is the promise of a subdued, but still awake party.

We have decided that we aren't going to be in Scotland for next year's Hogmanay. It's too good an opportunity to discover the pulse of another city, and it appears we've ran too far to get home.

We wander through the big houses and winding streets of Hyndland and Dowanhill until we get to the house in question, checking along the way for suitable parties. It appears that everyone has retured early - although it is about 6am.
When we arrive, it is indeed a quiet party, but it's some friendly people and low and behold, there's a guitar:


Okay..... It's a robust beast with pretty high action which makes my drunken fingers ache, but it is a guitar. Between swigs of Kentucky's finest we blast out a few Lemonheads, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Neil Young covers, before settling on a 12 bar blues. We manage to do what by memory was a 45 minute blues jam with Mowgli improvising lyrics based on what we'd got up to in the previous year(alright most of them were based on the previous week, but you get the picture); which is quite a good way to end a year. Maybe it was our drunken ears, but it sounded amazing - improvised solos, improvised lyrics etc. etc.

The drinking and playing continues until about 8am, until we find ourselves wandering aimlessly along Great Western Road trying to hail a taxi, a half empty bottle of Jack daniels each. We contemplate various possibilites at finding a party - another scout along Byres Road??, Murano street student halls?? but eventually since the sun is coming up, we decide to head back to the flat and go to bed.

After visiting the bank, arranging a mortgage and managing to pay the extraordinarily inflated rate for the taxi we make it back home. We are about to go to bed, but can hear a party somewhere, after sniffing around for a while we discover that its coming from the fan in the Kitchen:



We can hear a party through the pipes. It's about 9am. We are in a dodgy area of Glasgow and we after listening for 10 minutes, we decide that we can't hear enough women or Seattle Grunge to merit dirtying our kilts by doing a Bruce Willis through the heating system......

And so with that note the year is over.......

Amsterdam in Kilts.

We wake up slowly and get some porridge and espresso into us. Mowgli and I are wearing kilts, and we're gonna go for a wander in the centre. Living away from home means we put our kilts when we're together. It's a lot of fun and puts you in a great mood, especially when you're just walking around the streets speaking to people.

We get on a tram in the Baarsjes, and everyone is staring. By the time we get off in Leidseplein, we are less self conscious about it. Amsterdam is a liberal city. This means two things. One is that people will holler at you even if they are not drunk, and the other is that people aren't really shocked by people who are dressed funny. This is how you can tell the Dutch/Locals from the tourists. Everyone takes a first glance, when they see two men in a kilt, but the tourists look back for a double take, and usually laugh and say hello. It feels great to be putting a smile on people's faces, adding a little joy to get them through the cold.

Apart from the casual wander, we are in town to put together some fancy dress costumes for the volleyball party tomorrow. The theme is "Cartoon Characters", so I'm going as the famous Scot Groundskeeper Willy:



And Mowgli is going as ...... well Mowgli(Hence the blog name):



I wanted to wear my kilt and I loved the simpsons, so I thought it was the perfect combination. Mowgli is a bit of an exhibitionist, so was attracted to the idea of turing up to club dressed in nothing more than orange Y-Fronts and a wig. After picking up some orange dye in a chemist, we head over to the Rosengracht to the party shop. This gives us a good walk along the Prinsengracht. It's an icey cold day. Suddenly the sweaty kilt of Bulgaria in august is a distant memory, and I'm glad of my scarf and wooly socks.

This is the first time Mowgli and I have been alone(except for a few drunken conversations last night), so it's a great walk to catch up on old times. Eventually, we arrive at the party shop on the Rozengracht. When we go in, the woman behind the counter seems pretty chuffed to have two kilted scots in the shop. It seems ironic that we are in looking for something to dress up in.

We start with the Mowgli wig. There are various black wigs but we settle on one called "The Sandra". It's a black bob, and Mowgli looks like transvestite, or no worse than some of the transvestites that I've seen in my time in Amsterdam. Next, we ask for body paint. Mowgli asks if there is a colour called "indian boy 5". She offers us a small water based colour tub. We tell her that it's for the whole body. She's laughing by now. She realises that we are full on nutters.

Next is Willy. We get a tub of yellow paint the same as "Indian boy 5". This one's probably called "springfield nuclear power yellow". We try for a red beard, but don't get too far. The girl suggests trying the Albert Kuijp market. We do however get some body glue for the beard. I want to make sure, that I'm not going to be covered with flecks of red fur all over my chin when I head off to conferences and meetings on wednesday. She sells us an alcohol based make up remover but tells us that we probably won't need it. Mowgli tells her it might come in useful for removing lipstick stains from his willy in the future. The woman now knows that we are her best customers of the day.

From here we need to go to the Albert Kuijp for red fur. We walk towards Dam Square to get a tram. Before I get on the tram, I need to get some strippenkart, so we head to Albert Heijn. As usual, the queue takes and ages and Mowgli(Like Nine Inch Nina), starts to talk to the people around him. It turns out the girl in the queue behind us is from The Gambia in West Africa, she is amazed that I've heard of her country, never mind been there when I was 16.

We head off to the tram, happy to have brightened yet another person's day.

The Albert Kuijp is a little more out of the centre, so as we arrive, we start to get more looks as we walk along the open market in our kilts. After trying a a few dressmaking shops, we find the livid red fur we are looking for. The shop assistant is quite impressed by the fact that we are dressing up as willy and Mowgli.

From here, we head off back towards the centre, where we are meeting the girls. We get a few dusk photos of Museumplein....





.......and make it Leidseplein in time to have a few beers before the volleyball players have to head off to Amstelveeen to drop off their bags before heading back to the centre for a friday night.

Sitting in a warm bar for a few beers in a bar leaves a few interesting designs on the stools:



I head back to the flat, shower and fill my belly with some of yesterdays leftovers before heading off to meet them on Leidseplein again. Also coming along for the ride is the girl I went to uni with who I was drinking with on Tuesday.

There's lots of options for the evening, but I decide that the best one to show my guests, is our usual haunt; The Gollem.

When we get there, The Kiwi and his dutch colleague are already sampling Belgium's finest. We settle down and make some introductions. Before long, Dagenham Dave comes along and we get started on the La Chouffes, Lucifers and Satans.

We have the usual great drunken fun. Mowgli is a good addition to our drinking crew.

The bar is so busy, that it's easier to go to the women's toilet than it is to go to the mens. We have long hair and skirts, so we're half way there anyway. At one point, Mowgli comes out of the toilet and there's a Dutch woman waiting to go in. I tell her that if there's pee on the seat, that it was Mowgli. She takes me seriously and grumpily demands that he come in and clean the seat.

After he follows her in. He sticks his kilted leg out of the door and shakes it, then his head, and shouts "I'm being violated". The Dutch woman is pretty pissed(Appropriate) off and protests her innocence. Mowgli just rants about how rough and wonderful Dutch women are.

Once our Bulgarian Beer connoisseur arrives, I get some russian prompts from the Space Cadet and her sister and shout them across the bar. I tell him he's a drunk!!!

He comes over and joins us, not before advising a few beers. Our drinking party is spreading across a few more tables, and we are gradually taking over the bar.

A few beers more and Marilyn the Argentinean Munro Bagger comes down to join the fun. She's a good addition to the table. Unlike the Dutch woman, she has a sense of humour, and is amused rather than annoyed when Mowgli continually refers to her as mexican.

He asks her where she's from; Buenos Aires. She asks if she knows where that is. He says Florida. It's a subsidiary of Disney(Buena Vista)

Eventually it's time to get the volleyball players to their game in Amstelveen. We have a hilarious drunken walk to the bus stop where I deposit them before heading off to the bar the kiwi girl works in where The Kiwi and Dagenham Dave are already drinking. Everyone is very impressed with the kilt, and I stay for a few beers before heading home after a long but wonderful day.

Amsterdam tours: Day 1 - The red lights of Amsterdam

Friday night has arrived again. I'm not long back from London, but we have the task of showing the Moldovian Girl around Amsterdam.

Purely for the ease of mutual transport connections we meet at RembrandtPlein. From here we can head to the Centre and bypass some of the prettier views, such as the Amstel:



From here, we head along through the canals towards the Red Light District. We stop for a refreshing beer at Susie's Saloon:



I should have known we'd be back here.....

We have one slow beer and get a good chin wag - get to know each other. Moldova has good theoretical english, but she is a little under practiced. This raises a few laughs, as she points out the ridiculous way that Scots and Kiwi's pronounce certain words. This gives us some good running jokes for the weekend.

I've heard this before. Scots roll their r's, so "Girl" becomes "Gurrl" or something like that. Moldova starts out quite quiet and timid, but soon she is taking the piss out of me for this like one of the lads. The equivalent's in kiwi speak(Apart from the obvious use of "Bro" instead of full stops):

Pen= Payen
Expensive = Expaynsive
Never = Nayver

Hence the running joke sentance "I have nayver bought an expaynsive payen"

We head from here to the Red Light District. Moldova is keen to see it as one of the sights of Amsterdam. We do the standard tour which I've done so many times, and generallly have good long walk and talk as we marvel at the lights and shops and play the "Spot which one used to be a man" game:



We eventually find ourselves on the Damrak, and for want of something better to do. We head for the Gollem. We felt it was a good way to introduce Moldova to Amsterdam bar life. On the way we manage to find the bar that the Kiwi girl works in(I think it may be a bar that you can only find - not go to), so we stop in for a Tequilla slammer. This is apparently closer to what they would drink in Moldova, but the bar is busy, and we aren't all moldovian, so we head for something we're a little more used to.

When we get to the Gollem, we meet a Bulgarian friend that Moldova knows, so we all feel quite at home. We sample a few beers by recomendation of the Bulgarian, and have some good conversations. Eventually, it's time for bed, so we head off and agree to continue the conversations at another time over another beer.

The Shamrock

Tonight we are off to a bar in the West of Amsterdam. A friend of mine runs Jam session's there, and they are having a benefit night, so they asked me to head along.

I take The Kiwi to see the other side of Amsterdam. It's a far stretch from the tourist bars of the centre, and the clientele tend to be ex-pat nutters, who have woken up several years ago in Amsterdam and decided to stay.

The jam session's can be good fun, and I've joined in a couple of times, but it gets a little repetitive(just like being in a band), so I wouldn't want to go every week. It's probably over a years since I've been though, so I can't complain.

When we arrive, you can barely get in the door. It's a popular Sunday night drinking venue, and the benefit has made it even more so. We have a pint of Guinness outside the pub and wait for my Dutch colleague who was out with us on Friday night.



It's an Irish bar, so the Guinness is pretty good. By the time my colleague arrives, the bar has got busier and the music has got louder, so we head across the road to another bar and have a few drinks there. The local worthies have recently had a lads trip to Glasgow, so they are keen to tell me all about it. They seem to have enjoyed themselves. We generally have a good laugh, and The Kiwi is shocked when a Dutchman buys us a beer(They are famously stingy)

Eventually we head over the road again, and listen to the music for a bit, but we don't stay for long, as it's a school night.

Yet another pub conquered.......

Friday night in the other Gollem

After returning from paris, I quickly head home and have a shower, before heading off to meet Marilyn for a few drinks in the Pijp:



The Pijp is a cosmopolitan area of amsterdam full of little bars and cafe's. It is often over-looked by tourists, but is a very popular hang out for bar flys and after work parties of a Friday night.

I've not really seen Marilyn since Scotland, so we have lots to catch up on. She has been busy with, work uni and marathon running, so we blether away for quite a while. The first bar we went to had such bad service that we left some money on the table for our beer and left. Across the road was something that I'd heard of, but never seen.....

A second Gollem:



We decide to head over there for some real beer. Immediatlly on entering the bar, it's clear that there are a few differences between this Gollem and the other Gollem. This gollem is far more airy, and doesn't have the old smokey bar feel of it's sister bar. The menu is the same, but this bar is quieter and lazier. There are a few other belgian beer lovers sipping beers at various little corners of the bar, we order two La Chouffe's from the tap:



I used to consider La Chouffe to be a very special beer, but it's now a standard belgian beer, which I expect anytime belgian beers are offered(Though not always on tap)

A few beers later we are ready for the off. Marilyn to bed and me to sniff the air ready for the next bar.

The Kiwi has got some mates in town, so they are painting the town red. Currently they are in Susies Saloon, which is a bar on the fringes of the Red Light District:



I'm not sure if I've ever been in Susies Saloon. I used to drink in a bar along the road from it a lot in 2002, so I know the area. It's a mixture between tourists and ex-pats, all beer guzzling blokes really. This is a good thing, because the group is a bunch of beer guzzling kiwi's. We have a few beers here, and then head off to Leidseplein by bike. It;s very comical watching some Kiwi's who aren't that used to cycling trying to tackle mac bikes as we make our way accross Amsterdam. We eventually(And surprisingly) reach Leidseplein(Pronounced "Led Zeppelin" by Nine Inch Nina):



It's a nice night, so we have a few beers sitting outside. There are a group of people that the kiwi's had befriended in Susie's so we are quite a large group. These people seem to have itchy feet, and before we get onto our third pint, we are off to visit Rembrandtplein:



We seem to have managed to acheive a pub crawl round every tourist area of Amsterdam. I'm about ready for home. What a day!! Wake up in Paris, then finish the day by a relaxed beer in the Gollem followed by a pub crawl round Amsterdam.....

.....Bring on the weekend.