A Whole New World
After enjoying the quiet of the club for long enough, we headed to our gate. After a few minutes, we were notified that our flight would be a little delayed - 5 minutes or so, due to the incoming flight being late. Our boarding time came and went, and still no plane. Finally, it arrived. We boarded the plane, and it left the gate 30 minutes past scheduled time. However, we were either in a long line to take off, or our pilot is really bad at rock-paper-scissors with the other pilots. By the time we were finally in the air, we were well over an hour late. The pilot assured us that he would be able to make up most of the time, which only put a bit of jeopardy on our now negative five minute layover in Chicago.By the time we were over Missouri, the pilot came back on, and said there was a bad weather system delaying flights in Chicago, and that we would have to circle for 20 minutes. I started looking at our connection, hoping they were delayed as well, so that we wouldn't miss the flight to Edinburgh. That flight had apparently left Dublin 1.5 hours late, so there was a chance things could align to make our flight. I would like to take this moment to personally thank all the passengers on the Dublin to Chicago flight for taking one for the team.You see, one offhand comment by the pilot made me think. He said for us not to worry, they have plenty of fuel for us to circle. My original response was "is that really something to brag about? I consider you having enough fuel to keep us from falling out of the sky to be something of a fundamental assumption when boarding a plane." However, this was not the same situation for the Dublin flight. They eventually had to be diverted to Indianapolis to refuel, forcing United to find another plane for our connection. Our new plane ended up leaving Chicago only about 1.25 hours late, but, and this is important, we were on it.Our seats, or "pods" (more accurately), were not our usual method of transport. There was a nice set of blankets and pillows and an amenity kit waiting on our seats. We had an entire overhead compartment for our stuff, so it was super roomy at our seats. Before takeoff, we had our choice of pre-flight beverages. Then shortly after takeoff, we got some warmed nuts (Carrie was glad to just hold the bowl, as it was pretty cold). Our experience was pretty nice - great meals, and later, lie flat seats to sleep on. They claim they are fine for up to 6'4" people, but even I felt a little cramped - Carrie was much worse off, but it beats sitting with a seat 6 inches from your face for 8 hours.I don't think we got much sleep, but we did rest our eyes and stretch out, so it wasn't a total loss. Upon landing we headed in to immigration processing. The line stretched to near infinity, and took well over an hour to process. Afterwards, we got our luggage and got a ride to our hotel. Checkin wasn't until 4, and it was only noon, but they ended up having a room for us to take.We gratefully headed up to shower, change and head out to explore. First on our agenda was Edinburgh Castle. Last time we were here, we got there too late to enter, and we were only here 1 night, so no joy. This time, we had plenty of time. So, we put the location into our map, and followed the directions. Apparently, both Apple Maps and Google Maps think the proper way to enter the castle is to scale the sheer cliffs on the side. Even the possible alternate path was closed due to construction of the stands for the Military Tattoo that will take place later. So, we got to descend the steep hillside, walk down parallel to the royal mile, then re-ascend to enter the actual entrance of the castle.By the time we made it, the entire metropolitan population of Edinburgh had a similar idea, so they were already inside. We got to hear them fire off a cannon, and we took some pictures and decided we were done for now. The Royal Mile is a very tourist-y spot, and par for the course, there was a Scotch Whisky Experience that looked like it might be a way to get out of the heat.Oh, didn't I tell you? Scotland, and Ireland for that matter, has been in the midst of somewhat of a heat wave. Of course, for my California and Texas friends and family, you might scoff at calling high 70s and low 80s a heat wave, but locals assured us, people are dropping like flies.Anyhoo, back to the Scotch attraction. It started off with a ride through the process of making whisky. It was like if Disney made one of their kids rides, but made it really science-jy and boring . But, we agreed, our feet didn't care how interesting it was. After the ride, the really interesting part started. A knowledgeable guide took us through the history of the different regions of whisky distilling, along with their unique qualities.Then we got to choose a region to sample. Carrie and I chose different regions, and my Highlands label won for both of us. We finished the tour and walked back to our hotel. We had some time to kill before our Royal Mile walking tour, so we took a bit of a nap. Then, we trudged all the way back to the Royal Mile to join our tour.Our guide was super knowledgeable, and very nice. And, it was great to hear her accent all through the tour. We walked all through the hidden and off-the-beaten-path areas of the Royal Mile. Now, the Royal Mile is on a ridge. The Castle is the highest point, and the palace is on the low point. We ended up by the palace - which happens to have Her Majesty the Queen in for her annual garden party, since she is also the Queen of Scots.Upon finishing the tour, we were resigned to having to walk the entire way back up, then continue on to our hotel, so we decided to get an Uber. It took us to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel. We realized that at 9:30 pm, we had not eaten since 6:30am on the plane, so we were famished. We both had fish and chips (me without the mushy peas), and we were sated.A brief walk back, and we were hitting the hay. It has been a good day.
