Scotland - Day 6 - 7

Monday morning we woke up and returned the car then headed out on foot through the city. We did a little shopping and a little window shopping. We stopped by the first department store, I think they claim "in the world" but I'll do some research on that one before I believe it. At any rate it was quite nice! After our shopping excursion we went to the Royal Museum of Scotland, had lunch at a pub, and then stopped by the Bank of Scotland museum. We learned a lot there. Each of three Scotland banks actually print their own notes. They are not printed by a treasury. So, when you go to the Bank of Scotland ATM you get.... Bank of Scotland bills and when you go to the Clydesdale bank you get..... you guessed it Clydesdale bills. However, all coins are minted in England by the treasury. There is a little useless information for you.

After all the museums we made our way to Holyrood park and ran around for a bit and then checked out the Scottish Parliament Building. It is a beautiful building and since we were there, we took the time to learn a little about the Scottish Parliament and some current political activities going on there. Well, Matt and I chatted with the guide while the boys counted all the seats on the Parliament floor and climbed on all the seats in the viewing area.

The next day we toured the Holyrood Palace. It was beautiful! The Holyrood Palace is the official residence of the Queen in Scotland, meaning when she visits Scotland she stays there and holds many official meetings there. Her husband just happens to be the Duke of Edinburgh so it also serves as a handy little spot for him to come hang out when he is in Edinburgh as well. We came back to the flat for lunch and then I took a nap. I can't tell you what happened while I was enjoying my siesta. Nothing was broken so I guess all was fine.

We closed out our evening with a trip back down the Royal Mile for dinner (I had the most delicious local food) and we stopped by a place called "Chocolate Soup". I read somewhere that it had the best hot chocolate ever.... they were right! We wanted to end our time by climbing back up King Arthur's Seat, the 800 meter hill we climbed on day one. We made it up, froze at the top, and enjoyed a view of the city at dusk. I packed up our bags, Matt did the last of the dishes, and we had everything ready for our mid-morning departure.

Then, we checked the news and found out that our flight to Frankfurt was canceled due to Ash issues. Things get complicated here. In short, last night the powers that be closed Scotland Airspace today from 7am - 2pm, then this morning only portions of the airspace were closed leaving Edinburgh open. This is good news! However, our specific flight is still cancelled because the flight coming from Frankfurt to Edinburgh was cancelled and never arrived. So, the actual ash isn't the problem it was the fact that they made this blanket ash cancellation last night even though things ended up changing.

We contacted our flat owners and they graciously agreed to take our money for another night and we rebooked our flight for tomorrow. We are praying that we make it back tomorrow and now planning what to do with our bonus day!