Friday, June 19, 2009

Day 6 - Edinburgh to England.

I think I can technically say that Day 6 started while we were lost in Inverkeithing, Scotland, trying to find the train/bus station where we parked our car to take the bus into the city of Edinburgh, but it's a long, tiring story. See, we missed our bus stop on the way back and it was downhill (actually we spent quite a bit of time walking uphill) from there. One day it will be a funny story. For now, it is still tiring. So, I will end that story now lest you get lost in the details and stop reading altogether. Day 6 of this recap will start when we drove ourselves into Edinburgh and visited the famous Edinburgh Castle and walked part of The Royal Mile.

The castle was on a hill high above the city.

Look at these precious little kids in their uniforms! Made my day...they were on a class field trip.

Couldn't get his guy to crack a smile.

Here is a view of the city from the castle walls. We were blessed with good weather in Edinburgh...it was about 70 degrees, which was considered a heat wave by the locals.

Just thought these were pretty.

What if this was your neighborhood?

We left Edinburgh early in the afternoon and headed south to Nottingham.  When we got to the Scotland/England line, we stopped to get pictures of the flags and the stone.

The flags...one is a bit tangled.

Cool stone.  After all, a sign that said "You're now entering England" would totally ruin the vibe.

Dearest England...we're back!  To our surprise the majority of the trip to Nottingham was on a 2-lane highway.  We went through villages, saw TONS of beautiful countryside, and unfortunately, witnessed one wreck.  Luckily, no one was harmed.  The trip was beautiful and it took almost 8 hours. Not exactly what Google Maps suggested.  It's ok though...we were able to take it all in.  Below are just a couple of things we learned on this portion of the trip:  

1. A lot of restaurants only serve food at actual meal times.
2. England has very few radio stations.
3. Said radio stations tell the same news stories every 30 minutes. We heard countless times the following 4 news stories (in this order):
a. Susan Boyle has been admitted into the psychiatric ward of a London hospital and is being treated for exhaustion and she wants her cat. *It's worth mentioning here that Susan recovered and was in good spirits once she learned that, even though she did not win Britain's Got Talent, she was being offered a record deal.  She was also delighted to learn that she was a YouTube phenomenon in the USA.  I guess a spoonful of fame is what the doctor ordered.
b. The Air France plane crash 400 miles off the coast of Brazil - this one is tragic and I was very upset about it.  At this point, they had not even begun to locate the wreckage and had no idea what caused the plane to go down.  I do not like stories like this one...makes me nervous and sad. At this point, they only knew of one British passenger on board, an 11-year old boy who was flying back to boarding school. :(
c. Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown was being encouraged to step down, and there was quite a bit reshuffling going on in Parliament.  I'm not sure why exactly. We did learn that the expense reports of several members of Parliament were being audited and things were not looking good for them.  On another political note...President Obama is on lots of buttons and t-shirts in the UK.
d. And finally, some great soccer (football) coach got a job that everyone expected him to get. Brad can elaborate on this one.

We arrived Nottingham safely and sleepily.

The Great Castle, 8 hours of highway, and countless segments of the same BBC News stories. Day 6.

4 comments:

  1. Two things:

    1) That is Scotland's flag, England's is the Union Jack

    2) The coach DID get the job. I think it was for Scotland

    Everything else is exactly as you said, although I wonder if the radio stations we were listening to were some sort of satelite radio. That just can't be what their radio is like.

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  2. Corrections made! What was I thinking about the flags? Of course that's not England's flag. Rolling my eyes.

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  3. You look good in that neighborhood!

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  4. Can't wait to read the rest...I'm laughing my arse off!

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