Today should have been day 1 and 2, but because of Hurricane Debby, we had to push back the start of our journey. That means we only had half a day in Edinburgh, but I will take you through my day. We spent Monday night at my brother’s home about 50 miles away from where we live. We had no power at our house and neither did he, but he has a whole house generator. Our flight was due to leave Tallahassee at 5:02 PM, so we had plenty of time to drive to the airport. We parked our car and went inside the airport to check in. We were flying from Tallahassee to Charlote to London Heathrow to Edinburg. We were upgraded to First Class for the first let of the trip. All this meant was, that we got to board first and was given a drink while everyone else was boarding. There was a lot more leg room and the seats were wider. Also, during the flight we were served drinks in real glasses instead of plastic cups.
We arrived in Charlotte and got us a couple of sandwiches. Our flight to London was delayed for 30 minutes. Jay and I had seats with extra leg room. We were both sitting on the aisle, across from each other. I decided to sit in an aisle because my knee has been bothering me and I need to stand up occasionally. The flight was uneventful, just long (7 hours). At Heathrow, we arrived at Terminal 3 and our flight to Edinburgh was departing from Terminal 5. We had to take a bus to Terminal 5 and go through security screening again. We also went through passport control. Luckily, the lines were short and did not take very long to get through. Our last flight was about an hour. We picked up our checked luggage from baggage claim and went to find the car and driver I had reserved. It was about as 30-minute drive to our hotel.
The hotel we are staying is nice, it is right across from St. Andrew’s square and just a 7-minute walk to Edinburgh Waverley train station. But one thing I don’t understand about hotels is why do they have steps that you have to drag your luggage up. And then they have a very heavy door which is hard to open. We are staying on the 4th floor. To get to the room, you have to go around a lot of corners, it is like a maze. The room is small (by US standards.) It has two twin beds which are pushed together, but each has their own bedding. There is one good size window, but not much of a view. It looks out on the building next door. The TV is huge. I think it is the largest TV, I have ever seen in a hotel room. It takes up half the wall and the window takes the other half. The bathroom consists of a sink, toilet and shower. The sink is also quite large. the shower is wonderful, it is the rain style of showerhead with two settings. It also has a handheld shower attachment. You turn them on and off by pushing buttons. Overall, it is a very nice room (though small) and is in a great location.
We went out for a walk after we arrived. It was very windy. I cannot walk as far as I used to. I eventually told Jay, that I wanted to go back to the hotel, but he could continue exploring the city by himself if he wanted to. He walked me back and decided to take a shower instead before we headed out for dinner. After his shower, we went out and ate at a restaurant near the hotel. We also stopped at a grocery store to get some snacks for later. Then back to the hotel to call it a night.
