N and N's New Adventure: Day 61 July 24 Tuesday

Day 61. July 24,2012 Edinburgh

We messed around having breakfast and getting cleaned up. Once it was past 9:30, we went to Queen Street Train Station to get tickets to Edinburgh. I asked for tickets that would take us over the Firth of Forth Bridge.....our goal for today. He told us that it would be less expensive to buy separate trips, so I asked for two senior off peak round trip tickets to Edinburgh. When he told me that it was 28 GBP, I asked about the discount. He told me there was none. We finally got our senior passes out, and he said he just didn't think Americans would have one. He refigured the tickets and they were back down to their usual 16 GBP.

We caught the next train out and and entertained ourselves with the scenery and with Sudoko puzzles. It seems to fascinate people that I do them upside down, including writing the the numbers upside down.

We arrived in Edinburgh at exactly the correct time. "Gotta love those UK trains" We went straight to the ticket office to inquire about trains that would cross the Firth of Forth Bridge....see Sunday, July 22nd about bridge. He told me that they had a lot of people who wanted to ride across the Bridge but most people had a destination. I picked a town, Roysth, and he told me that we shouldn't go there because there was nothing there except for a naval base. We, the ticket agent and Neil and I, finally decided upon Dumfermline Town. We had about five minutes to make the next train across the bridge.

We made the train which left Edinburgh on time, of course. Our first stop was South Queensferry, the town where we caught the ferry on Sunday. The next thing we know we are on the bridge. The land and water are 151 feet below us at high tide. There are two tracks and a foot path across the bridge. The foot path is for train personnel, so despite Neil's suggestion (haha) we will not be walking over the bridge. Because of the two tracks the experience is not totally mind warping. There were great views of the Forth Road Bridge and the Firth.

We got off the train on Dumfermline Town. We found the station, looked at a map that said the center of town was a 10 minute walk.....up hill of course. We really couldn't see much of the town except the road by the station, so we went into the station and bought a snack. We went down the passenger tunnel to cross under the tracks and then up to the inbound tracks to catch the train back into Edinburgh.

Once in Edinburgh we thought we should get some lunch. We weren't really interested in a huge lunch, so we went to the food court in the Prince's Mall. Neil had a cheese jacket potato. I had good old Kentucky Fried Chicken. It may be the first KFC that was not greasy. The chicken was quite tasty. After washing our hands, we decided to go exploring.

We went in search of some new Scottish wool scarves to replace the ones at home that we will eventually lose. We looked in several shops. The real cashmere scarves were anywhere from 55 to 80 GBP for two scarves. They were lovely, very lovely. However, knowing us we chose the scarves that were a little less expensive. They are a cashmere and lamb's wool blend. They are still lovely. We finally found them in a shop on the Royal Mile. One can never have too many wool scarves...unless it is 106 in the shade.

From there we walked back to Jenners, which is a very posh department store owned by House of Fraiser, also a very posh store. We went into Jenners to look for a pair of cotton socks like the ones I had gotten in Glasgow and really liked. They were on sale, but only the strange colors....gold, orange, and mint green. It was also extremely hot in the store...no air conditioning. The temperature outside was 79 degrees. Then we went downstairs to the second underground store. We thought it might be cooler....it was marginally. We spent a lot of time looking at all of the cool Legos, PlayMobile, and dolls that we could buy our grandchildren, but we didn't buy anything because it was Jenners and quite expensive. Toys were not on sale.

We decided that going outside was prudent. It was at least a bit cooler out there. We walked on down the block window shopping. Neil found a Marks and Spensers which had a grocery in the underground floor. We went down and found air conditioning. Instead of getting a diet Coke and going out to the park, we got a diet Coke from the snack bar and sat in the air conditioning doing Sudoku for awhile. Then we went looking through the store. We found a pair of salt and pepper grinders for Pete and Jess who had given up on the ones they had. Pete had resorted to using a hammer to pulverize the pepper. Then up to t he main floor where I tried on some beautiful sweaters. I didn't buy any because one it was warm, two I would have to carry them home, and three there is no extra room in our luggage.

We went back outside and walked for a few more blocks before crossing the street to walk along the park back to Waverley Station. We stopped in Waverley at Costa Coffee for a mocha. We caught the 18:30 train back to Glasgow. It was again super crowded with people standing in the aisles and doorways. Back in Glasgow we called Pete from Queen Street Station. He ordered the food from Ambers, our favorite Chinese restaurant in the whole wide world. We took the subway back to Hillhead and Byers road. We walked to Amber, waited for food and took the back steps...all 100 plus of them back to the flat.

Dinner was awesome. Joey had her bath and went to bed. Jess took Chase out for a walk. We watched a bit of tv and went to bed.

Steps: 15,049

Queen's Street Subway station Glasgow