Wednesday & Thursday, July 13th-14th - Good-bye Scotland, but Not Forever

I must mention the rain again. It did rain while we were in Scotland. In fact, it rained a lot. Miraculously though, it only rained while we were on the bus. Every time we arrived at a stopping point and got off, the rain had stopped. On the Old Man of Storr, it was absolutely beautiful, but then rained as we drove to our next destination. I would not bank on this happening if you are planning a trip to Scotland, the best I can figure is that the Scottish weather was smiling down on us because we had a Scot with us.

We ended our last tour day with a quick stop at a bakery so we could have lunch on the beach because the weather was so nice. Of course, by the time we got there the sky had clouded over, but the beach was still packed with pale Scottish children learning to kayak, playing cricket, or braving the cold water. The sand was coarse, like river sand where I’m from, and it was a really lovely lunch.

During the long drive back to our initial starting spot, Andy had the tour group decide on a clan name. We became the MacGaryLeftOurLuggageBehind Clan because, as we pulled away from our last hostel another guide chased the bus, banging on the side of it. Turns out our bus driver, Gary, had left the back open and luggage was spilling out. I was elected to draw a coat of arms for our clan in a large book that the Haggis Tour keeps for comments, and I drew a bus driving across a Scottish sword (with luggage falling out) with our clan name and the date of our tour encircling it. In the four spaces I drew a hairy coo, a white horse, a Scottish flag, and a stuffed sheep that rode at the front of the bus. Meanwhile, Andy counted up the points (he had been awarding points to the various countries aboard the bus if the members of that country did things like remember important dates or tried haggis, etc.) and the top 3 countries - Australia, US, and UK all had to elect one member to compete for the winning title. We elected Mc and Andy announced . . . a dance-off. The UK girl sat down almost immediately, but Mc and the Aussie gave it a real go. In the end, the Aussies won, but the real winners were M and V who have a video of Mc dancing in the aisle of the bus.

We arrived back in Edinburgh at about 5:30pm, and when we showed Andy the address of our hotel and asked how much he thought a taxi would cost to get there, he offered to just have the bus drop us off, which was amazingly kind. We dropped our things off at the Edinburgh House Hotel (I have no idea what that means) and headed back into the city center for dinner, just a 10 min walk according to the website (who remembers my SuperNova Travel Observation about times in the UK?). 30 min later we finally reached the main drag and found a lovely restaurant on High Street (a little less spendy than Princes Street) and had our last haggis and shepherd’s pie. Then M and V went exploring while Mc and I started the long walk back.

*SuperNova Travel Tip:  Book your accommodations close to where you want to explore. This is sometimes hard to figure out when you’re looking at a very large city and don’t know exactly what you want to see. But if you have limited time and want to see/do just a few things, then try to get a hotel close to that. It will likely be more expensive, but the extra expense is worth the extra hours spent sleeping or at the sight (instead of commuting to your hotel). We made this mistake twice on this trip; we could’ve gotten more sleep in London if our hotel had been closer to the Globe and we could have explored Edinburgh a little more if our hotel had been near downtown. Do not trust the website description. As I mentioned before, the website said that Edinburgh was a short 10 min walk from our hotel (the hotel, by the way, was perfectly nice with a fantastic English breakfast). Always map the hotel and the areas you want to sightsee; GoogleMaps even has a “walking” setting so you can see how long it’ll take to walk. I actually really like walking and don’t mind long walks, but when you have so little time to see something, I’d rather spend less time getting there and more time seeing.

The next morning, Mc and I made a quick trip to Princes Street to see if we could find something with the Mc tartan on it. We went to lots of shops and even found a swatch of the Mc tartan, but no one carried it in stock. It is possible that it’s very obscure, or it’s possible that you just have to go to the area of Scotland where the Mcs are from to find it more prevalent. Mc did stop to buy me a beautiful silver necklace of a Celtic knot, which I’d planned to cherish forever (more on that later), so we didn’t go back completely empty handed. We got back just in time to jump in the taxi and head to the airport for Germany.

This is our tour route, starting and ending in Edinburgh