Makeup day

 Sunday, Sept 18th

Our second day in Edinburgh we were determined to make up for lost time and hit the streets early, have some excellent meals and visit all the places we missed the day prior.

Fast forward to the end of the day, we got up late, couldn’t find any open restaurants and never saw any attractions.

Ok let’s rewind a bit. There actually was a lot happening in between but so many things here have been effected by the Queens passing. We did also continued our personal quests for our souvenirs and did meet with some success.

We have found considerable resistance locating places to eat. There are plenty of restaurants but they seem to have odd hours, close really early or are completely full. We ended up at a Thai restaurant. Not the Scottish fare we were hoping for. And Thai food cooked by an Indian in Scotland just doesn’t taste as expected. Or on second though, yes it actually does.

Next we decided to shoot for a tour of Holyrood Palace. It’s a short walk from our apartment but we found it was closed to the public. Outside and all around were memorials to the Queen. There were rows of flowers and pictures and trinkets and other memorabilia everywhere placed by individuals wishing to show their respect to the Queen.

Behind the palace are some mountains, one of which we hiked to the top. It appeared to be the highest point in the city and almost the whole old city was visible. After a little investigating we even found the apartment where we were staying.


On the way back into town we again hit the souvenir shops. We were schedule to be on an all day tour visiting castles in the highlands the next day so this could be our last chance and after experiencing the cold winds on the mountain I was determined I needed a thicker jacket or hoodie.

Again I was scrutinizing the many items and trying on a dozen or so looking for the perfect item but it was alluding me. A shop keeper, apparently tired of hearing me rattle on told me that he would give me a discount if I would just buy one and get it over with. NOW I was able to find the perfect item! As I was checking out Bryan commented how he didn’t get a discount with his purchase and the shop owner replied, “That’s because you weren’t complain enough.”

We had time to walk through the old part of the city again and focus on the fascinating buildings. Our tour guide the day before told us a little about the Unicorn being Scotland's national animal. In Celtic mythology the unicorn was a symbol of purity and innocence, as well as masculinity and power. Tales of dominance and chivalry associated with the unicorn may be why it was chosen as Scotland's national animal. Jason started watching for unicorns and sure enough, they were everywhere. On buildings, flags, towers, crests and windows.


That evening we again had trouble finding a place to eat. Restaurant after restaurant said they stop selling food in the evening and switch to drinks only. Basically the entire town transforms into a big bar. I assumed that to be the case in Ireland maybe but we weren’t expecting that here.

After an hour of searching we finally found a place still serving food. It was an American cafe decorated with signs and posters from the US and a life size statue of Elvis out front. We ended up with hamburgers and chicken dinners. Again, not what we were hoping for while on vacation in Scotland.

Knowing we had an all day tour the next day we were hoping for a confirmation. The queens funeral was also the next day and many shops had signs up indicating they would be closed. After about 90 minutes we finally tracked down someone that confirmed that the entire tour company would be closed due to the funeral and all tours cancelled.

As disappointing as that was at least it gave us one more day to explore Edinburgh and hopefully find some Scottish food.

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