National Museum of Scotland

Good thing that we had a nice day yesterday because this morning

 we wake up to chaos.  Trump has said that no Europeans can come to the US for the next 30 days.  So, John and I are faced with the fact that we have to go home.  We can’t go forward into the EU Schengen Zone when the UK is currently not under this edict.  While, we as US citizens could get home, there is every chance that Germany will be put on lock down, that we will have a lot of trouble finding any airplane flying from Europe to America when Europeans can’t go and more wiggling 

 to try to get home.  Egypt is currently having extreme flooding and no water, so we have to break the news to Oscar that we can’t go to the one place he wanted to go on this trip.  He gets angry and then tearful, which is fine because John and I are crying too.  We

had such a great trip planned and now it’s in shreds thanks to a virus that is not as deadly as the flu.  I just don’t understand, but you have to bow to government interference.  Now, comes finding a plane home, sucking up the horrible price gouging because the Google

 fights matrix can’t even keep up with how the airlines are increasing their prices to meet the demand of Americans going home.  What a mess….we can’t even focus on the other things we have to cancel except for the flight that we’re supposed to be on tomorrow to Germany

and then our rental car there.  Both Eurowings and Europcar refund all of our money, which we didn’t expect.  I wish that Hotels.com and MSC could figure out how to handle this situation in the same way.  I know that places are hurting with tourism dropping and I feel sorry for the places in Egypt that we’re cancelling, but don’t feel sorry for huge conglomerates that can weather this storm.  We finally pull 

ourselves together with nice pastries for breakfast and decide to head out to the National Museum on Scotland to check it out.  Well, we didn’t know that it was like 4 museums in one and very child friendly.  They have so many hands on things in certain areas, that Oscar forgets that there are things that he shouldn’t be touching, and we have to remind him that he has to look for the signs about what he can touch and what

     he can’t.  But this place is amazing and we are able to forget the end of “our big sabbatical trip” as Oscar calls it.  Until we go to the Ancient Egypt section and see the bust of Nefertiti that we’ll miss in Berlin and parts of things we’ll miss from Luxor and the Valley of the Kings…..so it was time to leave and we have decided on retail therapy to make us feel better.  We’ve decided that all the things that we liked at the charity

shops, but said that we couldn’t buy because it was too expensive to send home, we’re going to buy and fill up our suitcases.  We have nothing more to bring home and might as well get the things that we want.  So, this makes all of us feel better today….some more Illegal Jacks Mexican food at the homestead and it’s a wrap on this day.