Chris-Anne and I decided to go back into Edinburgh today for a proper visit, since when we wandered around she was coming off of 24 hours of transatlantic travel and it was rainy. Today was supposed to be gorgeous, and that made it the perfect day to wander around.
That perfect day started off with both of us ignoring the alarm clock for an hour. Which put us on the later bus than we'd intended.
No worries, so we're an hour behind. It's all good.
It's all good until the kid behind us makes the comment that he's 'not keen on transport'. Okay, sure, not everyone likes being on a bus for an hour and a half. Apparently he missed the memo that if you get motion sick, you should take a pill, sit in the front, and have a plastic bag with you as a courtesy to other passengers. Because no one likes it when you vomit on a bus. Especially when it goes between the seats and gets on my arm. Win.
After that 'but at least it makes a great story' start to the day, we make it to Edinburgh Castle, which was one of two things that Chris-Anne just had to do. Which, I love the castle, so I'm always up for exploring it.
Chris-Anne looking fashionably nonchalant beside one of the cannons.
Since it's Mother's Day here in the UK, they had costumed actors all through the buildings, which was pretty cool. Here in the Great Hall, there was Queen Mary and that Protestant rabblerouser John Knox having words.
And with a beautiful day, we climbed to one of the high points to get a shot overlooking New Town. It was ridiculously windy and cold at that point, though.
Which meant that we decided to take pictures of each other taking pictures and being cold. Artistic, no?
With all of that walking around, Chris-Anne's next statement was 'we need a pub'. A good seat and a good drink sounds like a plan to me, especially with the second thing that she wanted to do coming up.
Ah, this one will do.
The delightful mix of exhaustion and excitement.
With our whistles whetted, we move on to the next thing she requested -- Chris-Anne wanted a ghost tour. Apparently Edinburgh is one of the most haunted cities in Europe, and that's too much to pass up for her. Me? Never a huge fan of something to intentionally scare me. But Chris-Anne wants to go down in the vaults, so why not?
Why not? Vaults are small, and stone, and underground, and dank, and dark, and did I mention small? Oh... did I not mention I'm slightly claustrophobic?
The tour was slightly cheesy, but the feeling of being in a small space was enough to make me uncomfortable and give me the heebijeebies. Fresh air for the win, after that.
But at least we still had plenty of time to catch the last bus back to St Andrews.
Oh, wait, here's the other part of that 'it makes a good story' time. Apparently they've changed the Sunday schedule without changing the time tables in the bus stations, or indicating the new start date on the web. So what nine of us thought was the bus to Glenrothes to connect to get into St Andrews turned out to just end in Glenrothes. With the nine of us standing outside in the cold and realizing there's something wrong when no bus comes and a look on the web on what is indicated as the unchanged normal schedule (last updated Dec 2009, my ass) now indicates that this was the last bus to Glenrothes and the last connection to St Andrews left an hour previously.
It cost £35 between me and Chris-Anne to get a taxi from Glenrothes to St Andrews. Color me unamused. I'm sure that someday it will be a funny story, this trip to Edinburgh, however, tonight I want nothing more than a sandwich and to curl up in bed.
Tomorrow we're going to Glasgow... surely the travel gods have to smile on me more this time...
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