Edinburgh: Tour minus one day

We departed Knoxville with Cassidy in tow. Her mother entrusted this perpetually happy 20-something to us, as Cassidy had never flown before, let alone been overseas.

The flight from Knoxville to Atlanta was 38 peaceful minutes of Cassidy glued to the window emitting occasional gasps of delight. We tried to explain that the flight from Atlanta to Edinburgh would be, shall we say, less comfortable. Every time I looked over on that 10 pm-6 am ATL-EDI flight, Cassidy was twisted into a different bread product shape. There was the pretzel, when she tried sleeping with her knees tucked up, feet on her chair. The brioche, when she slumped onto a pillow on the folding tray. The croissant, a kind of diagonal lean that annoyed the man next to her. The donut. Nuff said.

None of it worked. Microsleeping in three-minute intervals sucks. We arrived groggy, grabbed our luggage, and boarded the tram for downtown Edinburgh, where we would stay with beloved friends Barbara and Oliver. Cassidy loved the tram ride, waking up more with each stop.

The skies opened as we departed the tram with about a half-mile walk to BnO. Cassidy loved the rain. She said it was lucky if it rained on your wedding day, so this was Scotland welcoming us. We didn’t quite follow the logic, but she was helping pull Jack’s suitcase, and she was cheerful, so it didn’t matter. This would become a pattern. Cassidy=cheerful.

We squelched into BnO’s and went down the staircase to their warm kitchen, where the Aga (a kind of stove that’s on perpetually in British houses, providing what is often the only internal heat) welcomed us. BnO live in an old four-story, where they own two of the stories including a sunken garden out the back where Cassidy had her first cup of tea. We had naps.

We met Mark, some wealthy real estate guy who was a lot of fun and took us all to the local pub. (We should explain, Barbara is famous. She’s like the Dolly Parton of Scotland, so she has a lot of people who are friends because it’s cool to go to a pub with Barbara, etc.) Mark was a hoot. He thought Cassidy was a hoot and bought her a Guinness with Black Currant. Her first drink.

“The Currant will make it palatable,” he said with a grin, setting the thing down before her. (It didn’t, but she managed to get it down while the rest of us had three rounds of something.)

We had fish suppers, and this Cassidy found more palatable. For those who have never had a fish supper, it’s deep fried battered fish and chips—french fries to you—with a wee Styrofoam cup of mushy peas usually thrown in. Because, we should all eat our vegetables. I often refer to the natural self-loathing that follows a good fish supper. You can’t believe you ate something that bad for you, but at the time it’s sooooo good you ignore the voices saying things like cholesterol, calories, heart attacks….

Then I took Cassidy for an evening ramble as the rest sat chatting about music, politics, and other Scottish subjects. Up past Princes Gardens to the High Street, thence to the Royal Mile, so tomorrow she could conquer it herself. And so we could walk off the fish suppers. The child caught on quickly.

Home again, in the Scottish daylight that lasts well into 11 pm, and face down into the eiderdown we went. And there was darkness from about 1-4 am, and that was Cassidy’s first day in a foreign land.