As I get older, I like my sleep more and more, and can’t function without it. We were fortunate to get a direct flight from Newark to Edinburgh. It was a night flight, so we could be efficient on time, sleeping on the plane and arriving at 7am local time. I slept for about half the flight, amidst interruptions for food, drink and snack service.
<rant> Why, on a red-eye flight would you evenly spread out your meal and drink services throughout the flight? Why not load up the service on either end? It’s night. You are arriving in the morning. In a different time zone. Now I know that I have the option to decline service, but how can you decline the scent of airline meals (just to be clear, the scent is that of a geriatric care facility’s cafeteria), the crack of a soda can or the movement of the tray table that was in its upright and locked position! </rant>
Upon arrival, we didn’t quite know what to expect for customs, but it was painless and before we knew it, we were out in the arrival waiting area. We set out on getting our money exchanged and finding out how to get into the city. The bus turned out to be the cheaper option, and not much slower than the train. To our pleasant surprise, the bus was a double decker and we of course rode up top. As we left the airport, I started preparing myself for driving (which wasn’t until the next day), noting the traffic signs, lights and general traffic flow.
We got off the bus in the heart of the city. We found a spot for coffee, and made a basic plan for the day. We couldn’t check in for a while, so we walked around with all our luggage for a while. I was getting pretty cranky. Tired, sore feet and an extra bag didn’t help much. Even though it was still early, we attempted to check into our hotel. I had enough Hilton points from work trips to get us a room for the first night. Even though our room wasn’t quite ready, they took our bags and we set back out into the city. We visited the castle, toured around, and I purchased a sim card for my phone. Cell service is so cheap over there! for £20/month, you can have 2GB of data, 500 minutes and 2,0000 texts. The buying the general installation was easy, the hard part was activating the data, which required me to download a configuration certificate (which required data, which I didn’t have yet), that I wasn’t able to figure out until the next day.
Tired from all our traveling, we crashed… hard. We slept for a solid 11 hours. Which was good, our Scotland adventure had just begun.
