Two Days in Edinburgh

Currently, Brian and I are hiding out in our hotel. The Hudson Hotel is in a convenient location, but there are two weird things about our room: 1.) there are three stairs to get up to the bathroom and 2.) the TV is wired so you can hear the show (or in our case, golf) while you use the facilities. Yesterday we left Belfast, struggled a little to find the gas station, and then happily ditched our car at the wrong airport. I assumed that we would fly out of the international airport, since we were going from Ireland to Scotland. I'll admit it, I was wrong. The good news is that the Budget people didn't really care. We turned in evil Sylvia, and I told the Budget dude that he absolutely cannot give out this GPS to anyone until it is fixed. We flew a budget airline called Flybe; we were in the air about 35 minutes. Of course, Brian fell asleep. We got a taxi to our hotel, and then we wandered around Princes Street Gardens, Princes Street (lots of shopping), the Royal Mile, and Edinburgh Castle. I don't like getting stuck in big crowds with pushy people, and generally I get bored in a castle after about 10 minutes. It cost 16 pounds (about 24 dollars) per person, and it was raining. We took some photos and then went through some of the stores. The only thing I bought was this small striped Scotty dog to make into an ornament. About an hour later, I realized the significance of the dog--that it was a Scotty dog. Brian was not impressed with my stupidity. For dinner, we walked to this Italian restaurant that Brian found. We couldn't eat there though because a building across the street had been on fire earlier (we saw the fire truck previously). The whole street was taped off with police caution tape, and we were told the restaurant was closed. Instead, we ate at a Mexican restaurant (Brian now likes chicken enchiladas). We got our two drinks free because the waitress thought the service was slow. This morning we set out early to get to the Edinburgh Zoo. I was just going to take a taxi there, but Brian got some bus information from the lady at the front desk. Unlike what happens usually when we get on buses, we made it to the zoo. Edinburgh recently acquired two pandas from China, and we had tickets to view the pandas (of course, this was extra, but they eat a lot of bamboo). Only one of the pandas were out, but Brian and I took a million photos. Pandas sleep about 16 hours a day (and poop all the time). We were lucky to see one of them today. As for the rest of the zoo, it was starting to become a bust. The penguins were funny, and then we saw LOTS of empty cages. Most likely the animals were still sleeping somewhere we couldn't see, but Brian thought that there weren't any animals in the zoo. Our laughter about this helped us get up the steep hills and steps. We watched the big cats and the baboons for quite a while. I made it through the gift shop without buying a stuffed animal. For lunch we went to Bella Italia, where we were denied admittance the previous night. Then Brian dragged me on a long hike up to the top of Calton Hill. He wanted to find the columns. Luckily, the view was good, because I could have cared less about Brian's stupid columns. At this point, we had been on our feet all day, and walking up hilly paths. I was done. We came back to the hotel. While Brian took a nap, I played a million games of Boggle on the iPad. It's our new addiction. Brian is still making up stupid words. After searching for a dinner option, we realized that we weren't really hungry, so we caved and went to McDonald's. I only approved because there were lots of loud, drunk people out on the streets already. Also, advertisements kept luring me to the non-Amerian McFlurry combinations. I had a Cadbury Wispa Gold McFlurry--full of caramely goodness. Tomorrow we head back to the airport and pick up our rental car (a manual this time) and a functional GPS. We are then driving to St. Andrew's to not play golf. Cheerio! I guess that works here,too, like in London.