August 23rd
Today will be an interesting day. Jim, Brighid and Russell have tickets for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and since we’re not in Edinburgh, they have a pretty long bus ride, leaving at 3 today. We have no excursions planned for the day for the rest of us, but after a leisurely breakfast in the dining room (love the eggs benedict), we decide to take a stroll through the town.
As we are leaving the ship, there are two bagpipers in full dress standing to have their pictures taken with people as they disembark. We hop right in line to get our pictures, and I think they might be my most favorite of the ones we had taken. Then, as we made our way down the path, there was a guy dressed up in an inflatable costume, standing about 8 feet tall, in a kilt and a Tammie (Tam O’Shanter hat). None of my kids wants to get near him, so I just take his photo and move along.
There is not much here in the village, so we walk down towards the mall. The street is lined with little shops, although honestly, it seems as though every other one is a bakery, and the ones in between are selling real estate. There aren’t really many shops to stop in and browse through, so we make it to the mall in record time.
The mall is WAY smaller than anything we’ve been in here – I don’t think there is an anchor store in this mall. It’s mostly made up of shops similar to those on the walk here – a number of bakeries among them. There is a coffee shop – not a Starbucks – and they don’t have sugar free syrups. There is a magazine/newspaper shop, so Jim goes in and picks up a couple of gossip magazines. Unfortunately, one of them is for the UK version of Big Brother, which I don’t even watch in the states, so I don’t have any idea who anyone in the book is. That’s kinda funny. We run in and get Brighid a couple of birthday cards, since her birthday is tomorrow. Eilis finds a miniature birthday cake in traditional Scottish flavors (I think it was fruit cake), and we buy it because it’s so cute. It’s really a petit four with royal icing, but again, it’s decorated like a tiny birthday cake and comes with a candle, so it’s ours.
After a nice walk through, we head back to the ship. They have a whole pavilion set up with Scottish crafts, souvenirs and gifts, so we browse through there a good hour. I end up buying a tartan plaid dress for Granuaile, who did not get an Irish sweater, and Eilis used some of her souvenir money from Nanny to buy a snow globe featuring the Loch Ness monster.
We headed back up to the dining room for lunch, and then the girls went to the kids’ club. It wasn’t long before it was 3 o’clock and time for the gang to leave for the Tattoo. I went to pick the kids up at the kids’ club, and they came back for a nap before dinner. I figured since it was just me controlling the two of them at dinner, it was better that they were well rested!
Dinner wasn’t too bad – they were really trying to behave! It was another nice meal, and then Eilis went to the kids’ club.
Jim and Brighid came in around 1:30 in the morning, and Jim wasn’t feeling very well. It was cold and damp in Edinburgh – go figure, cold and damp in Scotland! – and they just about froze their butts off. Brighid ran up to the buffet and got him a cup of hot tea, and they both sat on the bed and excitedly talked about the Tattoo for a while. Then they both went back to the buffet to get a snack and some more tea. They had not eaten since lunch, and there was supposed to be some better food out for the people coming back from that Tattoo, but they came back with just the same old late night buffet stuff.
We talked until well after 2 AM, and then Brighid went to her stateroom and we went to bed.
The show tonight on board was The Music of Scotland, and Granuaile and I went with Dot and really enjoyed it. I love that they bring local flavor to the shows with traditional music like this.
Kilt towel?
Jimmie hat?