We got up this morning feeling like we are now “atime-atised” to this time zone. We head down for breakfast. Just as the elevator arrives a young man joins us to go down. He seems “dressed for golf”. Stu asks if he is playing today. He smiles and says “The Old Course today”. He tells us that his foursome were drawn in the lottery 10 months ago. You need to apply online and wait for the lottery to find out if you have a chance to play The Old Course.
We select our food items from the buffet and look around at the varied crowd of visitors to this place. There are the Golfers, there are the Spiritualists that have a conference here this week, there are people like us that are just travelling through. Then there are people that we can’t put into a category. Interesting place.
We asked at checkout about the building and students. We were told that September through May it is Student Housing. Outside of that they open the residence to travellers like us, the golfers and the Spiritualists.
We pack up and walk to the bus depot where we get on the bus to the Edinburgh bus depot. We are on the bus for almost 2 hours travelling through interesting countryside.
We arrive in Edinburgh about 1pm. We have an app that tells us what bus to take to the accommodation we have booked. Generally we would walk the 20 minutes, but we are packing an electric cooler to store the medication I need at the end of the month. The bag itself weighs a bit. When you add the ice packs it starts to weigh you down, so we take the bus. Just 2 stops, and about 150 meters and we are at the Destiny Student Murano. This is also a student residence that takes tourists and travellers during the summer.
Check in isn’t until 3pm, so we check our bags and go wandering. We end up in the center of town next to the Balmoral Hotel. Pretty fancy digs! They have a seasonal patios set up in the plaza so we grab a table, order an appy and a couple of half pints of Guinness. We enjoy the live music and the people watching. The sun is shining and the temperatures are warm. We couldn’t ask for anything better just now.
Click an image to enlarge.
Walking home we find an actual phone booth. It is hard to believe that in today’s age anyone actually uses this, but it appears to be still functional.
We decide on Italian for dinner and since our student housing is a studio with a kitchen, we bring home leftovers. We can pick up a salad at the nearby grocery store and have a cheap dinner in the next day or so.
This is the view from our little studio.
Tomorrow we plan to do a tour of Edinburgh Castle and since the Fringe Festival is happening at the moment perhaps a performance of some sort.