We arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I was told by the owner of the apartment we rented that it was about a 15 minute walk from the train station. It was more like 30 minutes. Part of that was having to repeatedly stop and make sure we were still going the right way. We finally made it and June was there waiting for us. The apartment is fantastic!
We settled in, started some laundry, and waited for Norm and Georgia to arrive. After they arrived from the airport we walked up to where some restaurants were, and decided on an Italian place for dinner. It was very good, but something with my dinner didn't agree with me. It was a long, mostly sleepless night.
On Thursday there was excitement in the air. Today was Election Day. The day the Scots had been waiting for. A referendum. Would they vote Yes for freedom? Would they choose No and remain part of the UK? There was more excitement and buzz from the Yes camp. Norm & Georgia were interviewed by a reporter looking for tourists opinions.
Here are some images of what we saw -
The people were gathered in front of the Scottish Parliment building -
This guy was doing his best William Wallace/Mel Gibson impersonation -
We had tickets for four separate Hop on/Hop off (to now be referred to as HOHO) buses. We did two of the routes that day. As the day went on it got more and more foggy. We went to Edinburgh Castle and the weather seemed very fitting. First we had lunch, then we went to all the different areas of the castle. The Crown Jewels were amazing, but there weren't as many as we saw at the Tower of London when we were there 8 years ago. The views from there would have been great if we could have seen anything.
In addition to the Castle we walked the Royal Mile and soaked up the atmosphere and excitement of being in Edinburgh on this historic day. It was a long day, and thankfully I got a good nights sleep.
When I woke up this morning the first thing I did was to check the news. Did the voters that wanted independence win? No, it was not to be. As we were heading out today we spoke to the concierge of this apartment building. He is an older man and he voted no. He said that in his opinion there were too many unanswered questions about what would happen if they became independent. Especially with their currency, as England had stated they could no longer use the pound. England had also offered Scotland concessions in the final days before the vote, hoping to persuade Yes voters to change their minds. Apparently they were successful.
Georgia wanted to do some genealogy research this morning, so Jim and I sent off to go to a couple of museums. We went to the National Museum of Scotland first. It was huge, so we decided to mostly concentrate on Scottish history in the Kingdom of the Scots exhibit. We then went to the National Gallery of Scotland, an art museum. We just went to the area where the Impressionists were, as I was hoping to see some Monet's. There were some really nice paintings, but only one Monet. And it was a different style than the paintings he does that I particularly like. Oh well, I will get to see plenty of his work when we are in Paris. The National museums are free. I like that, as it's harder to justify paying admission somewhere when you done want to see the entire thing.
We grabbed a bite to eat, then met up with Norm & Georgia. We took the HOHO that would take us out to where the Royal yacht, the Britannia, was docked. I decided not to take the tour, but the others really enjoyed it. By the time we got back into town it was too late for us to take the only HOHO route we hadn't done. Norm & Georgia had done that route before we met up after lunch and said it was essentially seeing things we had already seen. We wandered around until we decided on an Indian place for dinner. It was delicious and a nice way to end our time with our friends. In the morning we will go our separate ways. We had a wonderful time with them.
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