Edinburgh First Day and bottom of the Royal Mile

The next day we head out onto the street after waiting and waiting

for the washing machine to stop it’s cycle.  Unlike in Greece where I needed my phone to translate the instructions, unlike the one in York that didn’t resemble any washing machine I had ever seen, this is a front loader in English that I still can’t understand.  Mainly

because it’s not in English.  It’s in some international picture and number version that makes no sense to me.  Some make sense, like the waves for the warm water, the degrees for the water, the rinse cycle, but after that, I don’t know what the hell to select.  I’m hoping for a 30

minute wash, but it keeps going, rinsing, spinning, sudsing, rinsing, spinning to the point that I wish for the one where I was in charge of the different cycles.  We finally get them out and hung up and head out to walk around Edinburgh.  We have just a couple of important

things to do, find me a place to get a massage, find John some whiskey and find the park that we should be next to for Oscar.  John sees a massage place as we step onto the street and the owner is opening the door.  I ask about a massage and she gives me an hour at 

4:30 this  evening.  AWESOME!!  We head in the direction that our taxi driver vaguely pointed when I said that we should be near a park and I can see the cliffs ahead that Holyrood Park should be at the base of, but there is no way down or to them, or any park 

 that I can see.  We’re just wandering around back residential streets and then a muddy trail before deciding to head back to the streets and some breakfast.  We find a little café that is run by a Greek and have a great breakfast.  I get a feta pastry, John loves his salad and croissant, and Oscar eats almost all of his French toast that is very eggy and his bacon that is very undercooked.  These are foods that he turned his nose up at in

    Barcelona, but now he’s eating it all and complaining that he wants more.  Okay.  I’ll take it.  We head down to the Royal Mile and walk down half of it to Holyrood Palace.  After having a breakfast that felt like we were back in Athens, it was a rude awakening to realize that the UK doesn’t have winter prices like Greece.  They want 21 pounds a person to walk through Holyrood Palace.  WHAT?!?!?!  Don’t they eventually price themselves out of anyone being able to visit?  I don’t understand.  It’s not freaking Versailles or anything.  It’s a minor palace that no one lives in.  The Royals go to Balmoral when they’re in Scotland.  But the new Scottish Parliament building is across the street and it’s free, so we go there.  We get to wander around and see their chambers and it’s really a strange building.  It doesn’t make any sense in the city, but the Catalan architect said that he wanted it to blend in with the landscape.  I can’t imagine how it does that since it is so different, but what do I know? We’re heading back toward home and come across a nice pub (Holyrood 9A) to stop and get some drinks, fries and nachos.  All amazing food and I just don’t know if the food has gotten better from England.  I know that the drinks have definitely gotten better, but I think that the food has too.  We get home and relax for a while before I head out to my massage across the street.  It’s great to have a real massage therapist actually work on you.  It’s not like having Summer, because she knows where every knot that I have exists, but this lady knows when she feels something and does something about it, unlike the tourist massage thing I got in Turkey.  It’s very nice, but I can tell that I’m going to be sore after it because I know I’m not drinking enough water and she hit some places that now feel like they’re going to be bruised…..oh well, worth it.