Wooooo weeeeeee, were we tiiiiireeed. We could not fall asleep and then we could not wake up. Time changes can be hard. But my brother is a shift worker and had way fewer issues with it. We slept in and then wandered over to Rose St. cafe for an 11am breakfast. The espresso coffee was delightfully delicious and we all had yummy Scottish breakfasts!
I have wanted to visit Scotland for so many years….I mean, my last name is McIver! But when my aunt Shirley sent me some of my family tree from my dad’s side, I learned that I have so many Scottish ancestors in the country on both my grandmother and grandfathers sides. It felt so good landing here in this place even though I’ve never been here. And having the customs guy ask about my family name and with no issues with pronunciation…now that was affirming.
Elden (my younger brother) really wanted to do a Dungeon tour which goes over some of the darkest history of Scotland like the scientists doing research on freshly dead bodies and how that lead to killing of innocent people. The corrupt courts and witch trials. The torcher, cannibalism, and the hiding away of people with the plague.
The actors were fantastic and they made it entertaining and as fun as possible to learn such a bad part of the Scottish story.
After the dungeons, Elden and Justine went to a bookshop where they found first edition signed novels from their favourite authors. We limit the amount of shopping because we are on this adventure with just carry-on luggage. We went on a hop on hop off double decker bus with a local tour guide narrating the ride. We sat up top with the good views and we stayed on the bus the whole time as we loved his stories, sense of humour, and of course, his accent. He told us funny things like Gordon Ramsay having a record of 312 swears in one episode, and that when Taylor Swift just visited Edinburgh, her fans were not properly dressed and 300 ended up in hospital with hypothermia. He showed us buildings with covered-in-with bricks windows (but painted to look like windows) because at some point they instituted a window tax and folks couldn’t afford it. He was also the first to explain to us the nickname of Edinburgh “auld reeky” for their smell from human waste and/or the smoke from burning garbage and waste.
The Scott Monument
After the bus tour, Marc was on the hunt for the perfect dinner. We tried a couple of places with great reviews but they were all booked up. We ended up at a nice little place on the Royal Mile which met Marc’s high expectations haha it was called Lucken Booths.
I will say that food prices in Scotland are pretty expensive.
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