The Good and the Bad
Edinburgh, Scotland - Day 11
Edinburgh. We stayed at a place called "Merith Hotel" which quickly became our second worst hotel experience ever (Holding strong in first North Carolina!). The room was tiny. There were maybe 4 inches between the foot of the bed and the wall, and maybe a half foot between the far side of the bed and a window. The bathroom had a sliding door and the toilet was no more than a foot and a half away from the bed. Not only that, but the box spring had completely caved in on one side and more than a few springs were shot on that mattress. It wasn't cheap either. To top it all off, we were giving two keys, one for the front door that everyone has a key to, and one for our room. The deal was...the 'one to our room' opened nothing, and the one that opened the front door opened our room as well. So that sucked. Sucked even more that this was one of our few two nighters...and so started the bitter sweet Edinburgh experience. We woke up semi early (but not early enough for the breakfast that ends at 8:30), and headed to the zoo. It was a great zoo. Almost better than the zoo though was this little toddler with his Scottish accent, "This is fantastic!" We have found children with accents hits us more than the adults. After the zoo we went downtown to do a bit of shopping and grab some dinner. We parked Dijon and fed the meter. They had a few shops that Katie really liked, and overall was very scenic with all the statues and Edinburgh castle up on the hill. We ate at a little cafe off of the main drag and enjoyed haggis for the first time. We watched as our meter would expire and though, 'how bad can a ticket be'. We finished up dinner, grabbed a delicious strawberry cake dessert to go, and walked back to our car. We were greeted with a ticket. Not only any ticket, but a £60 ticket. That is roughly $110. Overjoyed with the ticket we sang all the way back to our lovely hotel and had a wonderful night sleep.
