#98 September 17, 2022. Nomad Diary. The Queen's Funeral Procession at the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Moving from Housesit to Flat. Scottish Highlands Bus Tour.
Selfie by Darrell of us in the crowd at Royal Mile on Monday, September 12th for the Queen’s funeral procession.
Saturday Activities. 17. We did a more difficult exercise routine this morning. I could feel stretching in my face and jaw where I was injured a few weeks ago. I made it through, and glad that I could do it. Darrell spends some time on the pc doing several things: email, Kenya articles, our budget on the Mint app, and shopping for our New Zealand cruise in 2023. We have been discussing this on and off, and looking at our calendar and at the ship calendars as cruises are beginning to get scheduled for 2023 and into 2024. We took time to compare our cruise options. We mostly cruise on Princess ships and for this transpacific cruise we settled on Princess again. We are scheduled for going Vancouver, BC to Auckland, NZ beginning on September 23rd. With this decision made, other thoughts and planning details begin to emerge. And so this Nomad living continues.
Week’s Highlights.
Friday. 16. We sleep in to at least 7am. I just have to go down to the French bakery that I can see from our living room window! We go have an almond croissant and cappuccino, then we come back to our flat and have a real second breakfast! We go shopping in Edinburgh for new shoes. We have walked at least 100 miles per month. Our shoes need replacing and we get new ones! While we were out shopping we went into an M&S store. It turns out that it is kind of like a super Target. Anyway, this particular store in Edinburg was funny to us. We went into it and followed signs to an escalator to get to the shoes. Once we realized that these weren’t what we were looking for, we had to find our way to the exit. We kept going up and down escalators and even an elevator for like 4 tries. Some man who worked there saw us and asked if we were looking for the exit. Yes, we were. He gave us 3 more directions that left me kind of laughing. Go down this hall to that escalator and turn left go to the end of the aisle and the the exit will be on your right. Well we did take his directions and made it out! Friday night I had a Whatsapp call with my friend Sharon. She loves to travel and it’s nice to talk with her about places and methods of traveling.
Thursday. 15. We get up at 5:30am to do our workout, eat breakfast and walk to our bus tour by 7:15 am. We arrive in plenty of time. We get on our bus and take off for a 13 hour day! It’s long but we are determined to see the Scottish Highlands, and we do! We have a bus driver and tour guide who is talking and playing music through out the day. He tells us so much information and made the day very enjoyable. We stop a few times as planned for photos or food. Our big stop was to do a 1 hour cruise on Loch Ness. Our tour on that trip was amazing! He had worked for MIT research on the Loch for years. He also grew up on the Loch and he had a mix of ultra science and research and everyday stories. He met a woman recently who had a son that was bitten by a Loch eel and had to be hospitalized to save his arm or leg. Just wow! Don’t go swimming in Loch Ness unless you know the critters that are there and what you are getting into! We saw gorgeous scenery all day long. Got back to the flat tired!
Wednesday. 14. This is our last day with Hamish, and at our nice house with him. We spend time cleaning the house today and doing the towels and sheets for Lorna. Today is our second son’s birthday. Wesley is 36 today and shares his birthday with our grandson Owen who is now 1 year old. Owen belongs to our oldest son Eric. Our hosts come back around 4pm and Allie drives us over to our flat near Holy Corner. We get into our building and realize that our flat is on the top floor. The 3rd floor in UK and the 4th floor in US. We get our luggage upstairs, and Darrell figures out the keys. Two are skeleton keys! The place is really nice with character of an old apartment building. High ceilings, big windows, radiators. It’s not perfect and new, and I love it! It’s clean enough. The bed isn’t super comfy and I still love it. There is a gorgeous sunset view out the kitchen window! There is a cool street out the living room window. I’m happy.
Tuesday. 13. Did our morning DDP ab routine which we usually do on Tuesday. Most mornings we get up and do a pre-recorded DDP workout routine first thing before breakfast. We have been doing this for many years. This is our last full day and night at our house sit. Darrell makes us pancakes for breakfast. I have an egg on the side and and he has some bacon along with fresh berries. We take Hamish for a long walk and then a couple more shorter walks through the day. I do our laundry which takes extra time to dry since we are using the clothes line and the drying rack to complete. I cook a nice chicken dish called Chicken Torino for us and for our hosts to have ready when they return on Wednesday afternoon. We go out for an ice cream which means we google a place to walk to. Google says .4 miles and 15 minutes. We start walking and it’s .7 miles! So we are also walking off the ice cream! We decide on taking a bus tour on Thursday to the Scottish Highlands. Darrell and I have each spent time looking at available tours for the past week. We settled on this tour and Darrell purchased the tickets online. The bus tour begins at the Royal Mile which is a 30 minute walk from our flat that we are moving to Wednesday night.
Monday. 12. On this morning we get a bus to Dean Village to try to meet up with our niece Casey and her friend Hannah. They are wandering around there until 11am when they will go to the Royal Mile to get into the Queen’s funeral procession crowds. We have to go back to our house to take care of our dog. So we won’t be able to get to the crowded street until closer to 2pm. We find them at about 10:45. We had enjoyed walking around Dean Village taking pictures and walking beside the water of Leith and back for about an hour. We came back to an intersection of streets in Dean Village and we were trying to decide what to do next as we had not seen Casey yet. Darrell looks up and sees Casey right in front of us! He says, ‘So aren’t you even gonna say Hi!?’ It was funny because she looks at him and me and goes through all kinds of faces and then we all laugh and begin hugging. We meet Hannah and stand talking for a few minutes, take some pictures and then go separate ways. We leave wanting more. We get back to our neighborhood, have lunch at our garden Bistro and then back to the house to take Hamish for a walk. Then we go catch a bus to go to the city for the funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth II. We spend a lot of time going to the wrong places, but eventually we get to the Royal Mile but not close enough to see the car. Darrell got a blurry picture of the hearse. The crowd was amazing! Casey and Hannah were camped out in close to the procession and got a fantastic picture of King Charles and others in the procession. We are glad that we went. We left about 3:30, walked a bit to a bus stop and got back to our house by 4pm. The weather is so sunny and beautiful today!
How to order?
Fabulous food.
Sunday. 11.Today we walked about 1-2 miles to a bus stop to take us near to church. We arrive on time and get to meet just about everyone as they arrive. It is a mixed group of local Scots, students from Nigeria and Korea, a family from Ghana who has lived here 12 years, another group of tourists from the US, and another family from India. We enjoyed the worship together with singing, communion and preaching. Afterwards we get a bus back towards our neighborhood and go for a late lunch to an Asian Dim Sum place. We are a bit confused about seating, but finally get seated. The menu is confusing to us, but then we get a little bit of help. We get our order which is plenty of food and delicious! It’s so amazing that they make this all from scratch! I took two long naps today. One before we went to church and one after lunch. I think I am as tired as Hamish!
Nomad Notes: Between last week and this week our two grandsons had their birthdays. Quinn turned 2 and Owen turned 1. Quinn’s family is currently relocating from the West Coast to the East Coast. They left Vancouver, Washington and bought a house in Portland, Maine. They lived in Portland for a year prior to the pandemic and decided to buy in Portland where they have some friends and enjoyed the area. On their move to Portland they went to Alabama and visited family including getting these two little cousins together. It’s made my heart so happy to see the little ones playing and growing!
Technical issues with my phone having internet access through a data plan has resurfaced. Darrell got our internet on our phones working through using our e-sim cards and connecting with a company called Ubigi. We each purchased our plan for the UK of 3 gig for $8 lasting for 1 month. Well, I used up my gig before the end of the month. Turns out that Ubigi makes it super simple to purchase my next 3 gig and extend me for another month from the date of my purchase and I’m seamless with my internet access. It’s really great! Darrell looked at their plans for the US and it appears that we can get a great price on month
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