“There’s no leaving Edinburgh, No shifting it around: it stays with you, always.” – Alan Bold
On June 4th, a day after I turned 55, I woke up from my bed at our rental in Edinburgh with a strange backache. I attributed it to soft bed. We had to hurry as we planned to reach Burns Monument to catch our tour bus to drive out to see Stirling Castle and some other sights. Sahana wrote some funny phrases about this day and I am going to quote them in this blog as reading them made me laugh out loud.
“mom wakes w achey back. this is 55. we vamoose up and down and up to burns monument for hairy coo bus and arrive 30 mins early – what can u expect from the two of us.
hairy coo bus arrives (bruce guide and ross driver) and we embark!”
What, indeed, can you expect from the two of us? I am extremely anal about time and punctual to the dot. It was such a joy to travel with Sahana because I seemed to have raised a mini me in this regard. We discussed a time when we wanted to leave. Both of us were ready with our shoes on and bags on our shoulders right on time. Then we looked at each other and beamed. So yes, we left early, grabbed something to eat, went up and down the steep roads of Edinburgh to join the line to board our bus for the day. The bus was supposed to leave at 8:30 sharp and so it did. A jovial man, red faced and happy, and wearing a kilt, introduced himself and the driver – Bruce and Ross. Bruce was going to be our guide and Ross was our driver. We heard about the day ahead of us as we left Edinburgh. First stop was the Kelpies. The Kelpies are a pair of huge horse heads made of steel. I will be honest, while they were impressive and the area was beautiful, I did not love them as much as I loved some of the other sites. I could easily have given this a pass. And now I will insert some of Sahana’s note because they are funny and they are true.
“we visit: kelpies – baron and duke (then mom naps), balloch and loch lomond + cruise with chatty alaskans (then sahana and mom nap), then aberfoyle for lunch (then both nap), hairy coo sighting and feeding of honey and hamish (baxter uninterested), then stirling castle to round us out (both nap and miss bridge explanation), bridges (then probably more napping otw to edinburgh). sahana drank very little water all day (stupid). ramen for dinner (fortifying and delicious).”
There you have it. That is what we did. But while we were visiting the Kelpies, Baron and Duke, we also saw mama swan and fuzzy baby swans swimming towards the horse heads. That was pretty.
Our next stop was Balloch. We decided to get boat tickets and take a cruise in the loch. As you read in Sahana’s notes, a very chatty lady from Alaska sat next to us. She wanted to know everything about us, what we were doing, if we will go shopping (NO!) and then proceeded to tell us all about her trip, her daughter’s plans, their home in Alaska, their other travels. Both Sahana and I nodded politely, trying to look at the beautiful nature around us. I doubt if the lady paid any attention to the hills and the lush green around the loch.
Then it was lunch time at Aberfoyle. We went to a cute restaurant where the server asked us how much time did we have before the bus left. We told her, she considered what we had ordered, nodded her head and said, “Ok, we can get this in time.” While we waited for our food, we enjoyed watching the antics of a puppy at our next table. I want to write these little moments down because they are such integral parts of our joy of traveling. We both loved the fact that dogs are allowed inside restaurants, not just service dogs.
After lunch (steak and ale pie for me and something with bacon for Sahana), we went to see hairy coos. Honey and Hamish were interested in us and the food that we held to feed them. Baxter, however, could care less. He was doing his own thing, and did not give us the time of the day. Honey and Hamish made up for it with their cuteness. We could stand there all day, except Honey decided to take a dump. The smell was so intense that it broke the magic charm and we quickly walked away and embarked on our bus again to head to Stirling Castle.
Bruce was doing his best to tell us about the history of all the places we visited. But here is the thing though. I kept falling asleep! And missing a lot of the information. As you may have read in Sahana’s notes – mom kept dozing off. And Sahana then kept dozing. Poor Bruce. I made sure I gave both of them good tip after we came back to Edinburgh. The bus was so comfortable and we were very tired after 4 days of non stop walking.
Sahana was feeling dehydrated, we both were exhausted and in dire need of sustenance. We ate the best ramen of our lives in Edinburgh. I don’t know if the ramen was the best or if it was our hungry and tired soul that found the ramen fortifying and nourishing. No matter, our food loving souls were satiated.
With renewed energy, we trudged back to our apartment and crashed. The following day we were headed to Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was a day of pain and adventure. Stay tuned.
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