A week ago, we were on a Sunday flight from Edinburgh to London that left at roughly 3:30 pm. Followed quickly after by the connecting flight from London to Newark. Followed by customs, not finding Rob's bag on the baggage carousel & reporting it missing, getting to our car at garage P4 and driving back to West Pittston (we arrived after 1:30 am). After being awake roughly 24 hours, this was a super difficult drive - it was such a relief to get home. Plus, the Friday evening departure from Newark had started us off with a 2-hour wait in line for the security check. It has taken this past week to recuperate from our busy vacation and the travel experience. Unfortunately, Rob's bag including a new, classy Helly Hansen shirt, pillows, most of his long pants etc. is still missing. We are disappointed with British Airways customer service, especially since our return flight from Edinburgh was cancelled Saturday about midnight and it wasn't possible to call British Airways until Sunday, 8 am and so our best option was to get to the airport about 5:45 am to re-book flights (instead of simply calling to make arrangements by phone). This resulted in waiting at the airport for an extra 7+ hours. Our current sentiment is that we are not going overseas again for a long time.
All that aside, we did have a brilliant (I heard a Scotsman use this UK slang) week in Edinburgh and its surrounds. A tour guide told us the correct pronunciation is "Edin-Bruh". A taxi driver said that only "daft buggers" (which happened to include his wife) swim in the North Sea on New Year's day - in Portobello, where we walked by the beach, except for Rob who visited the Surgeons Hall museum instead. Rather than a public or restaurant bathroom, it's "toilet" which is absolutely more accurate. After some exploration, Alex learned that our apartment at the Knight Residence Inn is up the street from "pubic corner" in Edinburgh where we constantly walked past 3 strip/girly bars. Nearby, we also had a phenomenal view of Edinburgh Castle. I love the fact that the Scotland national animal is a unicorn, which adorns the Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile. And we all appreciated that remaining identified grave at St Giles Cathedral is under a "car park", where the marker for John Knox is in parking spot #23. This spot is assigned to the minister, and he apparently drives an Audi (unlike most Presbyterian pastors)!
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We walked up, down and around the hills in the somewhat grubby city, took tours to castles, learned SO much history including stuff relevant to the new world, and tried out a number of pubs (only one of which, a sports bar, had good food). Alex, you came back with a permanent souvenier from Sacred Skull Tattoo on Dundee Street (its owner verified that a "quid" is a pound). Rob, with your encouragement we visited the cat cafe Maison de Moggy. We saw lambs with their mums on hillsides Everywhere outside the city. After trying haggis, except for Steve of course, we decided the Scots can keep it. We visited our Buchanan homelands near Loch Lomond, plus the beautiful lake itself. And had a practically perfect day going south to Anglo-Scottish border country which is gorgeous, and seeing ruins of Hadrian's Wall (completed around 127 AD, an amazing Roman engineering/construction feat) and Vindolanda a nearby fort/village. Alex, you want to go back and hike is that area. Rob, you would be interested in Glasgow and the western islands. I'd like to go back particularly to the highlands, and Isle of Skye.
Steve is a phenomenal travel blogger, he wrote about our trip day-to-day. You can link to NCFE here and find his posts from May 21-27, 2023. Sincere thanks for all the wonderful pictures you took, Stephen G!
While I'm now taking a break from travel planning, I consider this trip an absolute success and feel lucky that we had this special time together. And Rob, I am truly grateful that you generally felt well (you mentioned having a headache just once). Here is the only photo taken of all 4 of us, at Vindolanda:
Postscript, the morning of June 6:
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