Best laid plans are sometimes better to be broken

Since my body was pretty much in shock, Tony felt sorry for me and we slept in today. I say it was for me, but he slept longer than I did. We spent the night in an Ibis which is much like a Holiday Inn Express back in the states. He stays in an Ibis in London when he's working. His there is the size of a tuna can. This one in Edinburgh was even smaller. It's a good thing we don't take up a lot of room.

It was fairly noisy as it was right in the middle of pubs and busy streets. But I didn't hear anything. I slept fairly soundly but was surprised that I did wake up a couple of times. And I also woke up at 7 and couldn't get back to sleep for about an hour. Fortunately I waited it out and slept a couple more hours. We ate a late breakfast and headed out.

We hadn't planned to stay in Edinburgh to sight see. But once we drove around a bit decided we should alter our plans. It's a beautiful city that is a manageable size to traverse. I took many pictures (shocker!) of the various buildings and sights. We found a memorial for Sir Walter Scott that had 250+ steps up to three different levels. We got to see the beautiful layout of the city from the very top. It's a beautiful Gothic structure built in the mid 1800s, about 100 years after he died. It's nearly black from all the pollution, but they can't clean it or it will eat away the sandstone surface.

Today when we did the bus tour of the city, a young man commentated. I love hearing the Scottish accent. His was not as thick as some we've heard. Even still, it was hard to follow what he was saying. It was just so melodic when it came out. I was thinking at one point it's as if we've traveled back in time. There was just something about his accent and voice, plus all the old buildings, that made me feel like it could easily be the 1800s.

We finally headed out of town toward St. Andrews. We took the scenic coastal route and still haven't made it there. I think we are only 10 miles outside of it though. We are staying at what is called a B&B, but is actually the house of a family of five. I'm pretty sure they are farmers. It's a neat old house, but doesn't have wi-fi. I'll be posting this at some later date. Who knows when we'll have internet access again on our trip.

The best thing about our trip is that the itinerary is totally dictated by what we want to do and see. We don't have to freak out that we aren't on schedule or that we have some place to be. I guess we really don't have any specific place to be besides two weeks from tomorrow for Tony to report to work. That's a pretty awesome feeling.

It's only 9:00 but we're both worn out. We've decided to hit the sack early. Our hot tub would feel really great right about now. Instead were in a chilly, old farm house in Scotland by the sea. What an amazingly, incredible alternative!!