Day 1: Thanks, on behalf of all the brujas.
David and I arrived in Edinburgh around 8am and with our US passports, we breezed through customs/immigration. We might as well take advantage of that luxury before the rest of the world starts to ice out America because of, well, ICE. Mom’s flight was on-time and scheduled to arrive just a mere hour after ours. All that movement from the day before, train-plane-automobile-plane, made me extremely nauseous. Or maybe it was all the canned alcohol & bottle of wine I had for dinner the night/day before. I’m not entirely sure of what day of the week or time of day it is most of the time since we’re moving around a lot.
Once mom joined the group, we headed to Averon Guest House located about 20-min walk from the castle. We arrived well before check-in, but Jaime gave us some coffee & toast while we waited for our room to be ready. After freshening up (sorry taxi cab driver), we decided to head out to walk the Royal Mile before the Real Mary King’s Close tour and were met with cold and windy weather. I basically went from one extreme to the other in terms of weather. I think I want to go back to Spain’s weather!
I had been to Real Mary King’s Close before, when I last visited during my She Galavants World Tour 2018, but I thought Mom and David would really enjoy the interactive and immersive exhibit. Mary King’s Close was first mentioned dating back to 1694. In 1753, when building works began for the Royal Exchange, houses and closes were covered over and laid preserved for hundreds of years. The exhibit is Edinburgh’s only preserved 17th-century street & it’s certainly on my list of must-see in Edinburgh. It’s haunted by a ghost of a little girl but we didn’t experience anything creepy. Probably for the better.
Upon recommendation by our guide Raffi, we went to The World’s End bar. Back in the 16th century (way before the failed America experience), Edinburgh was a walled city and the gates to the city were situated outside the pub. As far as the people of Edinburgh were concerned, the world outside the gates didn’t belong to them, hence the name. Mom & David had their first official pints (cider & IPA, respectively) in Scotland! Aye, which is how Scots say “yes!”
Mom’s only allowed 1 pint per day – it makes that lady silly. And when she found the heart on the ground marking the spot where witches were hanged, she spit on it! Thanks for that on behalf of all the brujas in the world.
Day 2: ABC = Another bloody castle
The next day started off too early for vacation (waking up at 6:45am) but we needed to get a head start on a day trip to the Scottish Western Highlands. I had no idea what my mom was talking about when she asked our tour guides Gregor and Brian if we’d be seeing a hairy coo on the drive. Get your mind out of the gutter people, it’s a highland cow that has long hairy fur and horns. We learned from the guides that it means hairy bum in Portuguese. That’s something that certainly could easily get lost in translation. We took a photo with Gregor (who I kept wanting to call Conor) and our amazingly adept bus driver, Brian.
The tour included various stops in Glenfinnan, Fort William & Glencoe. The countryside is green and lush but hard to enjoy when the weather involves cold, freezing rain and wind. At one stop, they allowed us 10 minutes but everyone was back inside in 10 seconds.
Their usual Fort William stop, aka the place to see the Hogwarts Train (officially known as the Jacobite steam train), was very crowded so Brian dropped us off at some angry old Scottish man’s dirt sidewalk and we walked to the visitor center/viewing area. Just before we got off the bus, Gregor may have jinxed us when he said he’s never left anyone behind and he wanted to make sure we all stuck together until he could radio Brian back to coordinate our pickup point.
With David controlling traffic, we crossed the street to walk on the sidewalk – all 25 or so of us. All of a sudden, I heard a thud and looked back to see a guy rubbing his arm and a family with their passenger-side mirror hanging off. Remember, people drive on the wrong side of the road so it wasn’t the woman who hit the pedestrian, it was the man. Instead of asking if everyone is OK, the couple start yelling “you have to pay” and pointing…At the pedestrian…. That they hit. He wasn’t seriously hurt; and now I can’t decide which is worse: getting left or getting hit and then yelled at.
Gregor/Conor did a real nice job of giving us history (even the dark side of bloody massacres and fealty-pledging to false kings), along with interesting facts about Scotland and why he was wearing a kilt, not a skirt. He told us he “kilt the last guy who called it a skirt.” You can guess how much fun the nearly 12-hour long tour was, even if we ended up exhausted zombies at the end of it. At least I didn’t get hit by a car!
The last stop was more of a rest stop but it offered less tourists, hot food, and the chance at seeing lots of hairy coos. “There’s your hairy coo Marta,” said David. I hope to never him utter those words again.
We got back to the room at 8pm for another quick refresh (seems to me that I’m a bit of an expert at them now) and went in search of food. Be aware, everything serving food closes at 10pm (ON A SATURDAY). Don’t worry if you drink your dinner, those stay open until 2am. I’m missing Spain’s late-night culture for sure!
There She Goes... 