Edinburgh

Traveling is always sort of a time suck. I have some sort of elevated wish to be productive and get some work done, write, or… something.

Did that happen? No.

But that’s okay!

For “reasons” I was sitting alone for both legs of the trip. I would really prefer to have a direct flight but stopping in JFK and breaking the trip in half was not a horrible thing.

On both flights we got in early so it was less than 5 hours and then we got off, used the restroom, and got Shake Shack which actually was really tasty and fresh.

The first leg I ended up watching 3 episodes of Paradise. I really enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s super quality TV but I love Sterling Brown from This is Us and a political dystopian drama on Hulu sounded right up my alley. Everyone was raving about the 7th episode and it was great. The soundtrack was amazing. What was not cool was watching the 7th episode (which some of which was on a plane with a global event happening) while G was at home gave me a very high dose of anxiety for about 30 minutes.

Also, the sunset while we were landing was something else. Amazing! I also listened to the most empowering RealPod episode at someone who was just diagnosed with cancer and was going over what happiness and joy meant. I need to listen to it again.

The second leg of the trip was brutal. We all took a Tylenol PM (or some of us took half) and I think what it did was not make the every 5m so bad. I do not sleep on flights. It’s sort of impossible. But with the PM, I had a sleep mask, jacket over my head, and finally had to abandon listening to music or an audio book because I couldn’t doze off. But I felt… slightly refreshed, or perky once we got there? It wasn’t as excruciating as the past flights have been? Maybe I slept I 20m increments instead of 5?

It’s currently 230 pm local time (730am my time?) and I’m sort of dying but it’s all good. I’m all about powering through.

Since our flight was early, we had time – or I had time? – to put on my warmer clothes, brush my teeth, and get organized. Although I did get dragged out when I was NOT QUITE put together so I kept dropping everything but whatever! We found our ride – our sweet tour guide, Rafal, who picked us up.

He was so entertaining. While we did all agree that it was slightly disappointing to have a Polish accent and not a Scottish one, he was FANTASTIC and took so many photos.

And he sent them to me after every stop. I’m so impressed by him, the learning he’s done and he’s currently getting his psychology degree (counseling?) and he’s going to do some fancy “Edinburgh Counseling in a Taxi” gimmick thing next? He’s been doing guides for 3 years, he has two kids, and he loves nature. I was super entertained.

He had a whole print out of where we were going which I guess I took out of my backpack (along with my wallet but YAY Apple Pay!) because I’m currently sitting at a pub trying not to fall asleep, yet also drinking wine which… oh well.

So anyway, to the best of my memory.

Also… adding pictures to WordPress on my phone doesn’t work, so then I have to send them to my iPad and really, shouldn’t technology work better than this? I will have to make layouts in Canva and transfer them I GUESS. #annoyed

He picked us up from the airport and we went to Cramond. Do I have my notes, no. But it was right on the border of the sea, next to Edinburgh. It was delightfully moody, not touristy, and you could see some sort of amazing island across a wall/sea bridge you could technically walk over. Lovely and it was cloudy and moody and walking about in the fresh air was so lovely after the plane.

We then drove around for a bit over to Dean Village. I had mentioned that I loved Harry Potter so he kept throwing in trivia and we drove by where Rowling had purchased a house behind HUGE green hedges.

Also Rowling sucks but I can still appreciate Harry Potter. Sigh.

Dean Village was SO cute. Very old, medieval, and had some residential housing and then was next to a creek (a crick!). There was a walking path that said 6 miles to “something”? And I desperately wanted to walk on the beautiful path next to the “crick”. Alas…

We got some great pictures – Sam was having so much fun with photos.

Old Village was next and “a lot of walking”. J sounded a little unsure about walking so I told Rafal ‘no’ on the steps. We ended up taking some steps for the view but the walking was nice. We saw the castle, we walked on the Royal Mile (shopping!), we walked through St Giles cathedral – BEAUTIFUL! We went through the most famous street of all, which was the Diagon Alley inspiration – which was cute and I could see it but wasn’t completely Instagramable.

We were a little hungry so J wanted to stop at the farmers market and I had passed up 3 gelato stops and finally it was just time to have gelato. At 11am but whatever. Sam and I shared a cup and yummmm gelato. I haven’t had it in months. We did half dark chocolate and half salted caramel and it was so fresh. The place we ended up getting it was Molly’s Milk Bar (I think?) and Rafal said in summer the lines are all the way down the street. It smelled SO GOOD in that shop. J grabbed some yummy sausage thing.

We walked up the steps for the castle view. Rafal knew all the things! I love tour guides like that. Although Sam correctly identified that the steps we were on was in the One Day series in Netflix.

We then walked over to Greyfriers Bobby which was a story about this sweet doggie whose owner died and he spent the next 10 years guarding the place. There was the sweetest memorial and we touched his nose which was supposed to bring luck for the next 24 hours.

Here’s hoping we get our rental car and get around the roundabouts!

Next we stopped off at the bottom of Royal Mile which was the Holyrood Palace. Rafal had all sorts of nice trivia which #iforget but what was so cool was some fancy person had to drive out of the gate and someone came over with an old school key and opened the gate to let them through so we grabbed a cool photo with the gate open!

Calton Hill was next. It was one of the places I specified I wanted to visit as it was on both Sam and I’s list. Oh it was lovely. We had views for days AND the sun came out or at least it was partly cloudy.

PERFECT DAY!

Even if it rains the next two days, it’s so worth it having our first day be beautiful. Although I did say if we can have our first day in London on the Eye be the same thing, that would simply be amazing.

I think all of us were starting to drift off and Rafal dropped us off at our hotel. Only one room was available so we camped out there for 30m. Sam sort of rolled over and closed her eyes and I said NO.

NO, I will NOT sleep for an hour and then get stuck not sleeping.

I mean, I could take another PM. Maybe I will take a PM? #decisions But I didn’t want to sit in the room for 4 hours and do nothing.

So I bailed and asked the doorman where I should go for a drink and ambiance and to stay awake and he recommended the Princess Gardens.

I GPS’d it, walked the wrong way, shopped a bit, went back, walked around, and then walked back into the shopping district and found a pub that called to me and ordered a glass of wine. I will probably regret it but I’m eating cashews and drinking wine and typing so all is well in my world for the moment.

Now if I can only figure out Canva from my phone…

Or maybe I will start my book…