Edinburgh, Scotland
We are in beautiful Edinburgh, Scotland! It really is gorgeous here, and not just because Europe appears to finally be getting some sun! The trip from Tralee involved a train ride across Ireland to Dublin and then flights to London and then on to Edinburgh. We arrived here on a Friday afternoon and my luggage didn't actually make the full trip with us, but rather stayed on in London for an extra day. I really didn't mind so much, as it meant I didn't need to drag it along on the bus to our Edinburgh home but rather it was delivered to our door the next day courtesy of the airline. I had jammies and a toothbrush in my carry-on, so the only inconvenience really was making sure we were here to receive it at the door. It all went a lot more smoothly than when the airline tried to replace Ronan's luggage that was destroyed somehow between Miami and Heathrow, that took a full two weeks to be resolved. We spent our Friday and Saturday exploring our immediate neighborhood, finding a local grocery store, taking walks on the numerous paths where it always smells of wild onions, and enjoying our fabulous flat that is spacious, comfortable and clean and, best of all, has two full bathrooms and beds for everyone! Yay! Our next door neighbor is the Chinese consulate and there is a huge rugby stadium and park across the street.
Our real explorations of Edinburgh started Monday morning. We can catch the bus right outside our front door and go pretty much anywhere within the city. We toured Edinburgh Castle. It poured rain on us, but we persevered and ran between the dungeon and the chapel and the great hall. We checked out the Scottish crown jewels (twice, cause, why not), watched them fire the one o'clock gun, which startled a scream out of a little girl watching behind us and then ate our picnic lunch at a table inside the cafe during the worst of the rain. We walked the Royal mile and saw bagpipers and a woman with spiked and wildly dyed hair sitting at a spinning wheel right on the sidewalk spinning wool and more shops selling scarves than you would think could possibly be sustainable. We hiked up Calton Hill to see Edinburgh's own Parthenon ruins and to look down on the city as darkness fell. We hiked to the top of Arthur's Seat which I hope really is where Camelot once stood and this time consumed our picnic outside despite the killer winds and cold.
We shopped our way along Victoria Street, and I am going to have to agree with Edinburgh and say that *this* is way more likely to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley than anything we saw in London. We found Thomas Riddell's grave in Grayfriar's kirkyard and touched the nose Greyfriar Bobby's statue (and cried a little inside over the story of this little doggie who lived on his owner's grave in the kirkyard for 14 years!).
We went to the zoo where they have pandas and koalas and chimpanzees. It was really a very satisfying zoo day, even if the "penguin parade" ended up being only about 5 penguins marching out of one gate of their enclosure, along the sidewalk, and then back in another, they were still penguins and thus cute. All day long there were keeper demonstrations at various locations and every single time the same keeper was giving the talk. One night there was a big football/soccer game a few blocks from here and lots of fans gathered at the pub across the street before the game. They were loudly singing something to the tune of winter wonderland and shooting green smoke in the air before they all marched off right down the center of the street presumably on their way to the game. Where they lost, we watched it on tv as tickets to a Hearts vs Hibs game only days before the game are pretty scarce.
We did the National Museum, a decision which was met with some initial moaning that we had already seen a billion museums, but in the end they seemed to genuinely enjoy it, especially all the various interactive exhibits in the science sections. And Robert the Bruce's sword was pretty popular too. Our last trip of the week was to Craigmilar Castle on the edge of town. Liam says it was our best castle yet. He is partial to ruins over castles that still have roofs and this one was ruins but with still functioning stairs so they could climb almost all over it, even up on the battlements. It was very cool. It is also where Mary Queen of Scots possibly colluded with her Lords to have Lord Darnley killed, a possibility that has never really been proven but my kids all say she was definitely part of the plot.
We still have a few things we would like to see and do here in Edinburgh, but we also are picking up a car for the duration of our stay and want to explore further afield too so we are working on prioritizing. And then on Saturday we will begin our drive south and eventually back to London from where we will fly 'home' to Colorado.
PS: When people ask where we are from I still say Colorado, even though that answer gets complicated if they inquire further and discover that I go back to the States in a couple weeks and expect to then live in Idaho. Whatever, I am from Colorado.
