Edinburgh, Scotland

Posted on January 16, 2024  •  10 minutes  • 1986 words

We arrived into Edinburgh and after being on a train for 3.5 hours, a walk to our Airbnb sounded better than a taxi. Google said 15 minutes, but it forgot to account for the giant staircases! Dan had to take 2 trips.

Once we cleared the numerous sets of stairs, we had a very easy walk, passing by cool thing after cool thing.

Within minutes of getting inside our AirBnb, I was doing laundry. My estimate is 90% of the kids clothes were dirty and I couldn’t wait to get things clean. Our minds for this short trip to Edinburgh were on the visa interview the next day and not exploring much. Dan hopped out to get some stuff for dinner and we had a chill night in. Kids down early and Dan and I double checking we had everything we needed for tomorrow morning.

We thought we were giving ourselves SO much time by going downstairs 45 minutes early to get an Uber for an 18 minute ride. It took a bit to get there and in the meantime a couple cabs passed that could have fit all of us. Lesson learned…most cabs can fit 6! We were in the Uber, still with plenty of time but the traffic was terrible! I could feel Dan’s stress from the front seat, but Max was loving getting to be the kid that sat in the 3rd row by himself.

Saw this van on the way and laughed. I wonder if it was an issue or they just said it for fun.

We got to the agency with 5 minutes to spare…yes, WAY to close for Dan’s comfort. Check in was easy, but it became quite obviously quite quickly that it would not be quick. After about 20 minutes Dan got called into the little ‘room’ and they had told us to go one by one since there isn’t much room. Kids held it together really well for the first 1.5hrs. They loved having me tell them what to draw and then draw it. I’m really bad at coming up with things to draw on the fly. Castle, dragon, shark, mountain and I was out of ideas.

I had brought minimal snacks thinking it would be an hour or so. HUGE mistake. And when I say ‘HUGE’ I mean it in the way Julia Roberts says it in ‘Pretty Woman’ to the sales lady who wouldn’t help her the day before. HUGE MISTAKE! We needed more food and I found a close place. I went up to Dan and asked if we could leave quickly and he said he was just wrapping up him and he’d need the rest of us soon. JUST wrapping up him in 1.5hrs! I did some quick math and knew this was not going to be good. Back with the kids I offered to read ghost stories. Slowly, one by one kids were needed with Dan. Then he came to get us to say we needed to go to another desk to get fingerprinted and get our photos taken. That was NOT fast, but when we made it through that…currently at 3hrs…he said we could go while he wrapped up the last little bit. 2 blocks away we went to a cafe and ordered coffee and sandwiches. We were right in the harbor.

When the owner/guy at the counter asked how are day was going I said we were coming from the visa office after 3 hours. He understood. He got the kids sandwiches going quickly while they sat at the bar stools at the window and watched the cranes. I found his take a book, leave a book shelf and it was probably the best stocked one I have EVER seen!

I picked one to read while I waited…one of about 12 that I wanted to read. Seriously, so good. I ended up chatting with him for a bit and told him just that. He says he loves to read and most of the books are ones he or his brother buys to read and then puts there. I guess it was in bad shape at one point, according to his brother, and said brother came in with a bunch of good ones. I have left my share of good book at these things and not taken one. I really wanted to read ‘Boy Erased’ and asked if I could take it, promising that I would give it to a worthy shelf in the future…you know…keeping the karma up. He said sure, if I gave him a review on google. Sold! It really was great food and coffee, so I wasn’t lying. I finally got my sandwich and coffee and enjoyed every minute of the time I got to read.

Kids were enthralled with the cranes! At one point, after picking up huge things, it picked up a helmet. Haha! I guess some guy/girl up there forgot theirs? Dan finally got there, got food and we decompressed a bit from the last 4 hours of our lives. It was long, but we decided that if it had been short, there was probably a problem. So it was worth it, we told ourselves. Now in a waiting game. We were told 1-2 months, so we’ll see. I’m optimistic we’ll get the visa, it’s just how long it will take. Although, I did tell Dan I need to get my optimism in check. I was so optimistic that maybe it would be an in and out…as in 15 minutes. Ugh! Still more fun to be an optimist I claim though.

No agenda and no rush, we took the tram back to our place. Any public transportation and the kids are so happy.

Even though we were saving touristy things for when we came back and weren’t just coming off non-stop travel weeks, doesn’t mean we can’t see the castle. It was hard to miss.

Back at our place and we just mentally crashed. Dan and I were so relieved to be done with all that. We let the kids watch a show and eventually got some work and school done. Ben had Spanish class at 4pm, so during that time Dan and Sam went out walking just to get some 1 on 1 time for the 2 of them. When Ben finished up, we met up with them and walked around looking for a restaurant. Everything you see is just so cool. So many cool shops, restaurants and buildings. Europe has SO many bookshops! Is this in the US too? Maybe because I don’t live in a city anymore, but I don’t remember this many in Boston or San Francisco. So many and they all look awesome. If I was reading more these days and wasn’t lugging around all my stuff, I’d be going in every single one to get a book.

Sometimes the kids are you-know-whats, sometimes no one will listen, sometimes water gets knocked over 3 times AND sometimes everything is perfect and you have the most wonderful dinner. Luckily it was the later for our dinner this night. We found a fish-n-chips place that just called to us. There was a kids menu, but I lied and said only the fish-n-chips came with the kids’ dessert. I’m sorry, but you can’t order the cheeseburger here Ben. Max wanted the fish and Sam was cool with it, as long as he didn’t have to eat it all if it was ‘hard to get down’. He sometimes chews meat so much that it’s a paste almost and can’t swallow it. Okay buddy.

We all practiced our Scottish accents while waiting for our food, which came our pretty fast. Dan and I also got the fish-n-chips and every last one of us loved it! What is not to love about this?

I also got a tropical cocktail as I am coming to believe that I’m not an English beer fan. I was spoiled in Belgium, but here most places don’t have one wheat beer on tap! I don’t like pilsners like I used to and never been a fan of the dark beers. So tonight, cocktail is it.

There were a few different options for kids’ desserts, but they all picked the ice cream with brownie chunks and chocolate on top, against my best convincing. Not one kid wanted the mini donuts, still with ice cream. It was so much fun eating the ice cream. Dan was distracting kids while sneaking scoops. ‘On look! A blubbering humdinger!" When they’d find out, we’d all crack up. Max would get so into telling a story and once Dan slowly pulled his place mat, which moved the ice cream. He only noticed when he went to get a bite, during a break in the story. We couldn’t stop laughing.

He was a good sharer though.

Finally finished up and walked home, only to pass Harry Potter shop after Harry Potter shop.

Next day was no agenda day. We did breakfast at our place, a bunch of school and still more laundry. Dan was meeting up with this colleague from University of Edinburgh that afternoon and knowing that we were coming back to Edinburgh for 3 weeks in February, there was no desire to force anything. It was a really nice feeling. Didn’t even have a real lunch, just lots of snacking. This was a bit hit for Sam, Dan and myself.

When Dan called on his way home from his meeting, I said just pick up food. If we really wanted to go out, we could go get dessert after. And we did want to go out. We walked around, Dan and I got Scottish lamb’s wool scarves…kids holding out for Harry Potter scarves. Couldn’t find a place for dessert easily and were just enjoying the walk, even though it was quite cold. We had promised dessert, or at least I had, so I popped into a shop to grab my favorite biscuits. Yup, kids now call them biscuits.

Finished up the laundry, did some work and called it a night.

No rush in the morning with a late morning train. I am really loving no early wake ups for travel. When we eventually have a 6am flight, I’m going to suffer. We were going to walk to the train station in the morning and a cab came right up. We were there pretty quickly, 5 minutes. Dan and Ben took some clothes to be dropped off for donation and were back within 10 minutes. I wandered around a bit as my back was still bothering me and I didn’t want to sit. Found out I had to go get tickets from the machine, even though I had a reservation. Our train was showing, but no platform. 5 trains after us had platforms, but still not us. Finally we got it, went through the gates and found out seats.

It was about a 3 hour trip and I sent Dan to a different part of the car so he could get work done. Max was so happy to read by himself (me too!) for a bit while the other ones stared out the window.

Easy ride really, some Where’s Waldo? Or actually you are looking for Charlie as it’s in French while eating sandwiches I had made, but that wasn’t enough for Ben so we had to go get him a full other sandwich from the food car.

As we continued north and up in elevation, we started seeing snow, then more snow and more snow. Kids were elated! After a decent amount of snow was seen, pretty much just looked out the window the rest of the time. Kids constantly shouting ‘Look at that!’

Pulled into our small little station. Outside there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Called a taxi and arrived at our place 6 minutes later.

Continued on Aviermore page…