Exhausted in Edinburgh

The nearer we came to Edinburgh (that’s ED-in-bur-ruh) the more palpable our relief at soon being rid of our rental car. The little Fiat 500, Fifi, has been grand on these country roads, but the time was nigh to give it up. So much navigating and driving and getting lost has exhausted us to our cores, but at least we can still laugh about it. Each time we find ourselves circling somewhere we’ve already passed, I quote Jim Carrey in the Truman Show: “We’re on a loop! We just go round and round!” and Thayer responds by quoting Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s European Vacation: “Look, kids, it’s Big Ben!” I can’t tell you quite how many times we’ve had this exchange.

To reach the Budget Rent-a-Car return on the outskirts of Edinburgh, I frantically wielded three or four different maps, trying to reconcile them against each other, and I nearly wept with joy when we finally arrived. Sadly, this joy was to be short-lived.

While Thayer went inside to take care of business, I stayed outside and unpacked the car. I took it as a very bad sign when I finally went into the office and found him on the phone saying, “…but I’m looking at our paperwork and it says to return the car here.”

Our online Budget booking had directed us to this office for the return but, as we were horrified to discover, this office was a franchise that did not take corporate returns. There was “nothing anyone could do” but send us off to the car return at the airport, about a 20-minute drive away, and yet no one in the office could quite tell us how to get there. No truer words have been spoken than when Thayer, very calmly, explained to the Budget associate how desperately close to “losing it” we were. The memory of it makes me laugh now. It didn’t then.

[On the way to the airport]

Thayer: Two roundabouts here, are you kidding me?

Hayl: Nobody is kidding us, honey. Nobody.

Well, we made it to the airport, freed ourselves from the car, and took a bus to downtown Edinburgh. There we met up with Simon, who let us into his partner James’ Airbnb apartment, which we had all to ourselves for the next two nights. James joined Airbnb last year, thinking he would just stay with Simon when someone wanted to book his place, but interest in it was so high that he fully moved in with Simon and rents his place pretty much constantly. Rightfully so—the sleek one-bedroom apartment overlooking Edinburgh’s old rooftops and Arthur’s seat—the remains of an extinct volcano—is fantastic.

We spent the next day and a half exploring Edinburgh on foot and by hop-on/hop-off audio-tour bus, stopping into nearly every cheesy-wonderful Scotland tourist shop on the Royal Mile, touring Edinburgh Castle, gawking at the stunning St. Giles’ Cathedral, and visiting the National Museum of Scotland. There the highlight for us was viewing the taxidermied Dolly. Remember her? Dolly-the-sheep was the first ever animal to be cloned; born and raised in Scotland, she was, aye. And named for Dolly Parton, for she was cloned from cells from her mother’s udder.

[reading some information at the museum]

Hayl: I knew that already because I have a brains in my head.

Thayer: You do? You have a brains?

Alas, the exhaustion had finally reached our brainses. We dropped off our purchases at the apartment and then made our way to Grass Market, a narrow street running up a steep hill, its different colored storefronts contrasting adorably with each other. We spotted some people up above us on a terrace we hadn’t noticed before, so we climbed a staircase and enjoyed the view of the dimly lit old street from a story above it. Up there we enjoyed delicious Kurdish food at a patio table at Hanam’s before hoofing it home and collapsing into bed, grousing the whole way about our old, weary bones. We are not in our twenties anymore, that much is for certain.

In the morning, after not nearly enough time in Edinburgh, we quickly bustled ourselves and our luggage down the 60-step circular staircase and to the rail station about a mile away. A relaxing train ride to Glasgow and bus ride to the airport followed, and with a quick zip-zip over the pond, we landed again in Reykjavik.

Until next time!

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