First of all: Happy Birthday to Aunt Marti, Lil Sis Abby, and Me! Yay, us! :) Miss you guys today...
We found our way through the airport and on to the bus and over the train tracks down to London road, and on to Windsor Place to the Cairn Hotel. It’s a really nice place—the best bathroom of the trip so far—and they let us check in early. So we dropped our stuff and took a walk and decided to see a movie at the Omni near our hotel. It was fun to watch all the ads and previews in the familiar setting of a cineplex. It was a lazy, rainy-day thing to do, but I enjoyed it. We saw “The Boy in The Striped Pajamas” which I would have loved as a little girl (I was obsessed with the holocaust and loved “Summer of My German Soldier” and Anne Frank). The movie was a bit of a downer and a little simplistic, but I will totally show it to my kids when it’s time to learn about WWII.
After the cinema, it was time for my birthday nap! And we crashed HARD! We slept from 3 ‘til 6, and then I showered and got prettied up for a dinner date. We walked out to the traffic circle and caught a taxi—the cars are sooo cute, and the funniest little Scottish man was driving. We asked him to take us up the Royal Mile to a good place to eat some traditional Scottish food, so he took us to Monster Mash and talked about it all the way. The only thing I could really make out was “tatties and neeps” and “Sausages or hagis,” but it sounded great to me. Monster Mash turned out to be one of our best discoveries. It’s a retro café seving home cookin’ comparable to bright clean American diner with blue plate specials. The menu was set up so you could choose your sausage, your mash, and your gravy. We tried trad Pork, herb pork, beef & Guiness, and peppered pork sausages. I had scallion and butter mash (potatoes and turnips boiled and mashed), Rich had red pepper mash, and we both chose brown gravy. It was soooo delicious and satisfying, but the best part was the ambience and the great service. Rich even got the girls to sing happy birtday and brought me a sundae. It was sweet! (We have a photo I have yet to upload--coming soon!)
We then walked the Royal Mile in the moonlight. It was beautiful! We ducked into the Ibis hotel to use their wireless internet access to call our loved ones over skype (Hi, Sammy!) and video chat with the kids. It’s always so fun to see our cuties—James especially looks so deighted on the webcam. I am so grateful for all the technology that has made this trip so pleasant and keeps me close to my babies.
Our walk home was interupted but some hooligans celebrating something with diapers on their heads and argyle socks on their feet. They were pretty funny. Now we are settled in at the hotel, watching some BBC news and hittin’ the hay. It’s 5:30pm at our house and going on 1am here, so good night! Tomorrow (which is today) we will take a bus tour and visit the castle, then flyback to London, then on to the Casper’s home. Yay! Can’t wait!
