Back from a trip to the UK on Saturday. Felt crap and took a Covid test and ended my streak of not being positive. But I’m all vaxxed and boosted so hoping it’s mild.
The trip was great and being able to go as a family was really nice. I had been telling myself a story for a few years now that family vacations would be impossible/impractical once the kids got into college. Happy that was proven wrong.
We did way too much for a blow-by-blow style blog post. But I will share a few highlights and pics.
London:
- Rented a flat in Pimlico off AirBnB it was great*.
- Planned on taking public transportation around but with 4 of us, Uber ended up being a little cheaper per trip. So we Uber’d and walked everywhere basically.
- Lots of walking – around 20k steps per day. I thought my feet were going to fall off but it was fine. Generally we’d walk off somewhere and then Uber back once our legs died. We ended up seeing everything I could think of in the 4 days were there. Minimal grumbling.
- Day trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths…amazing shit…everything on that trip was older than everything I have ever seen in the US. Windsor castle was the highlight I think. Built by the Normans after the invasion in 1066. Totally rad.
- *Ok this story is so mind blowing to me: We get back to the flat on Wednesday night around midnight. It’s our last night in London and we fly to Scotland at 7am so we are looking at a short night of sleep. Eager to get in and to bed. So we walk up and the key to the building doesn’t work. are we at the right place? double check: “yes” the key won’t work. everyone is like “let me try” jiggling, twisting, poking, no luck. WTF?! We buzz all the other flats in the building – no answers. Yeah it’s midnight so I get it…..but what the hell? We have to get in! All our stuff is inside and we are supposed to be on a plane in 7 hours. So we’re stuck on the front porch. We end up calling a locksmith to let us in…locksmith arrives about 1am, takes one look at my key and says, “that’s not the right key” I say, “bullshit, we’ve been using this key for three days. This IS the key” he says, ”No mate, I’ve been doing this job for 15 years and there’s no way THAT key goes in THAT lock!” I’m like “fuck me”. He says, “let me see”. He takes the key looks at the three different locks on the door….tries it in one of the locks lower on the door (one we have never touched in 3 days) and it actually works! But the main lock is still locked. Then he says, “hah, look this one is new!” pointing at the main lock. He’s laughing. Cracks the new lock in 2 seconds and lets us in. We run upstairs, head to bed. All good. Turns out someone in the building changed the locks while we were out and didn’t tell us or the AirBnB people!! wow! Insane. Anyway, goodnight London.
Edinburgh
- Edinburgh was more like a DC or San Francisco to London’s NYC. Stayed right downtown across from the Walter Scott memorial. Badass views of everything from that spot: the Castle, the botanical gardens and a fantastic skyline of old buildings.
- Beautiful city. Put another 20k in steps each day as we traipsed the Royale Mile and saw everything we could think of. Ate some haggis, gawped at the old buildings, found the grave of Tom Riddle, marched up Arthur’s Seat, tasted some whiskey, downed some gin. Did the whole 9 yards.
- The Fringe Festival started up on our last day there. So cool. Huge crowds soo many acts. We saw two: both were fantastic. reminded me of SPX but for comedians. I would go back in a heart beat.
- Last night: “Am I coming down with something?”
Great post!