We now pick up back on what I believe was May 7, 2011
As a result of my confusion about dates, mostly having to do with the original plan to take the Caledonian Sleeper from Edinburgh to London, we ended with one more day in Edinburgh than I’d been thinking we would most of the time we were there.
By this time, I was seriously exhausted, so this is what I think we did on the last day.
Said hello to the army recruiters who were in evidence outside the guest
Shopping. Trip to train station to buy first class tickets for the next day from Edinburgh to London. Another walk up Cockburn Street , and then The Writers Museum, Gladstone’s Land. Both were interesting, but neither had a lot of places to sit down and my legs were really starting to go.
Then we got a cab to the Edinburgh Zoo¸ mostly to see the Penguin Parade, which our chatty cab driver had told us about on Day 1. The only problem was that everyone we asked at the various stores and restaurants, and even the guidebooks couldn’t agree on when the parade actually happened. When we got to the zoo, they told us the penguins would parade at 215PM, which gave us two hours to walk around the zoo.
So here’s the thing…I hate zoos. The sight of an animal in captivity causes me to channel my inner Dian Fossey. This happens in the best of zoos, like San Diego, and I gotta say that the Edinburgh Zoo is pretty old school. No attempt to do habitats or environments. I tried to keep my zoo hatred in check and mostly succeeded, probably due to fatigue as much as anything else.
At one point I made the mistake of letting Hubby go on ahead of me while I sat down to rest my feet. The next thing I know I’m looking at some lions and then some baboons, but not at my husband. It took a few minutes for me to panic, at which point hubby called on the cell phone to ask where I was. Good thing we’d gone to the trouble of getting the phone activated for international a few nights earlier. Even with that it took like 20 minutes to find each other, at which point we decided to just head for a coffee shop and then to the penguin area to wait for the parade.
I do have to say: Penguins. Parading. PRETTY. DAMN. CUTE.
Once the penguins had paraded, we were pretty much done with the zoo and with Edinburgh, although we have since both agreed we’d like to go back and so some stuff we missed and do some stuff again. We went back to the guesthouse to rest and watch Doctor Who.
I was really excited about this. Me. Watching Doctor Who in the fucking UK!!! At the same time it was actually being broadcast. BIG SQUEEEEEE!!!! The episode itself was…ok. Pirates. Cute. Not great, but still awesome to be seeing in live time, plus the Confidential. (I’m going to miss Confidential a lot.)
After that we went looking for our last dinner in Edinburgh at ended up a Bella Italia. Definitely “tourist food,” but not half bad. We split an anti-pasta and a carbonara, which most wonderfully did NOT have peas in it. We also split a gelato for dessert and that was AMAZING. All three flavors were awesome.
With that we went back to the guesthouse to pack and sleep.
Coming next: On to London!