This morning we woke up in Glasgow, Scotland and had a dreadfully early meeting time of 8:15. I was up at 6:30 and felt like I'd been hit by a truck. If we are tired, just think about the older folks that are doing these excursions each day! Kudos to them! Today we were on the bus at 9am ready for our two hour ride to Edinburgh. The ride was fine and our guide, John, and our driver, John, were both pretty quiet. They are doing quite a bit of road construction/expansion, so traffic was congested and slow. John only chimed in on the microphone when there was something of interest. Other than that he was silent and it was so nice. Everyone was up early, so most people were snoozing, me and Guy included.
When we arrived at Scotland's capitol city it was very compact and crowded. The castle at Edinburgh was humongous and it was almost like its own little city within giant walls. The sections of the inner castle looked more like buildings than castle, but it stood high on a hill and was quite something. We were on our own to look around the city, we just needed to be back on the bus at 3pm. We didn't get the tour of the castle as we had been castled out by this point, but it may have been a good one to see if you are ever coming this way. Wiki says: Edinburgh Castle is a historic fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from its position on the Castle Rock. Archaeologists have established human occupation of the rock since at least the Iron Age (2nd century AD). It's the most paid-visited attraction in Scotland. In 2013 it had 1.4 million visitors. The British Army is still responsible for some parts of the castle, but it is mostly ceremonial and administrative. (We saw the guards walking back and forth. Very serious)
Instead of an internal visit to the castle we took the hop on hop off red bus around the city, which I don't recommend. It took about an hour and they really didn't tell us anything very exciting and the city is so compact that if you had a full day or two you could have totally walked it. After we got off the bus we covered quite a bit on foot. We also did some shopping today and this is not only Scotland's capitol, but is also the jip joint capitol as well! It had the same exact stuff in every store where we picked up a few things, found a Scotland Starbucks (scored a mug) and a few other trinkets we were looking for. It was about 2pm and we were starting to get hungry, so we walked by a restaurant/pub called The Malt Shovel that had good trip advisor ratings and went in. The server told us food was taking about 30 minutes. If we actually got our food in 30 minutes we'd be fine, but if not, we'd be in trouble making it back to the bus. At about 2:35 Guy was getting a bit nervous, but we heard the doorbell (one rang when food was ready for the servers to pick up) and it was ours. We had cod sandwiches and fries. The bun was probably better than the cod, but it was still delicious. The old pub is decorated in very dark wood and a gold picture frame is around the flat screen TV. What a cool idea. We sat at a table by the window and it was a long but skinny wooden table. Too bad we were rushed as the place had a cool vibe. And it's too bad we don't drink beer, they had all kinds of different beers and they pumped the tap when they were pouring them. It was all pretty cool. I'm sure this is a happening place at night.
Without an extra minute to spare, we headed out back toward the bus at a pretty good pace. When the buses were in sight, we knew we still had about 5 minutes and I was out of Dove soap. So we quickly hunted for a pharmacy or store. Then I remembered one more gift I wanted to buy so I was zipping in and out of shops like a tornado. Not only did I get my gift, one of the jip joints had a bar of Dove! Score!! When we got back on the bus we were not the last ones on, but after we were all onboard there was one of the 16 buses from the ship to Edinburgh that was having engine trouble and we were all going to have to take some passengers on. No worries, we had about 10 open seats. However, the other bus finally started and off we all went. Again, neither of the Johns had much to say and we officially heard snoring from the passengers. :) Traffic was horrible again and it took us a few extra minutes to get to the ship. However, we were an hour late getting out of this port because some of the buses behind us got caught in even worse traffic due to a fatal car accident. :( But everyone from our ship got back safely. When we got to the port we had to go through an area set up with local gifts. We actually found two really nice Tshirts. So our shopping was successful today. I'm getting my mojo back.
When we were walking to the ship a local high school band was playing for us. They were all in kilts and playing bagpipes and drums. They marched back and forth in front of the ship and the side of the ship facing the docking area had its balconies filled with passengers and all along the top people were looking over and clapping for the band. The coolest thing is that these young people have learned and practice tradition. It was awesome. The drummer girls were spinning their sticks and it was just so cool to see. Back on board we went up top for just a bit and then came down to get ready for dinner. We bumped our reservation back to 9pm and I'm glad we did. I was even a few minutes late! Ileana made some suggestions and I had a BBQ spring roll that was amazing and Guy had shrimp cocktail and a salad. Our entrees were both really great. I had a vegetable Wellington and Guy had duck breast. Yum-o. And I'm not even feeling super hungry, but it was really tasty. Dessert was mini lava cakes and ice cream. Perfect.
Scotland review: we had a great day and the area was beautiful. The big city was what we expected only more grand buildings and the castle was spectacular. It was pretty, but just coming from the countryside of Wales it doesn't compare, however, in all fairness we drove straight across Scotland from the west side to the east side and only saw that section. We see mountains off in the distance and I'm sure those areas are much more scenic. Would need to come back to explore it a bit more to be able to give a better review.
Weather review: WOW! Everyone on board (crew) and people in the places we've visited keep telling us we are BLESSED to be having such spectacular weather. Our singing tour guide yesterday thanked the driver for a great job driving the bus and then thanked God for the amazing weather. There was definitely a unified moment of thanksgiving on the bus, but on the ship as well. I think everyone realizes we are seeing some unusually beautiful weather! :)
Now tomorrow is a day at sea. We are so excited to sleep in and do nothing. We have a time change tonight and we lose an hour this time, but at least we don't have alarm issues to worry about. I hope our bodies will let us sleep in late. VERY excited for a vacation from my vacation. Update on pictures. There is no update. I can't catch a break with fast wifi anywhere. I hate it because it makes the blog so much more interesting...however, they'll get up eventually. Even if I have to wait till I get home. It's late and I'm heading to bed. I'll re-read this blog tomorrow and fix any typos and maybe add a few things I've forgotten. So excuse mistakes for now. :)
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