Summer holiday destination par excellence? Definitely Edinburgh! (take an umbrella with you)

It was one of the nice afternoons late in August. Only a few days left to sunny days and a school break (not for me anymore, obviously). The summer was almost over and that´s why we wanted to enjoy the rest of the idyllic atmosphere of vacation time. The weather in the Czech Republic was just perfect for going to a pool or swimming in the river. You could also enjoy having an ice-cream and do some sightseeing or just run to the mountains to get fresh air. Can you imagine all these lovely possibilities?

But it wouldn´t be me to make it easier. I came up with some ideas, such as going to France, Austria or Switzerland. By bus. I still don´t know how it feels to sit behind the wheel. I rather don´t think about it because then I feel like an old lady to my younger, eighteen years old, I. I´m not saying wiser, that information could be actually misleading. So here we go, to skip the bus, we finally decided to go to Scotland, Edinburgh, for one week.

Basically, I made the decision because my grandma always doesn´t mind about the place and I´m pretty sure that she would be happy even in cities or towns where you´re scared to go out from your flat and the architecture there reminds you times during communism. We got some good examples in my country and I bet you don´t even know these places. Well, you don´t need it. Prague belongs to the safest and the most beautiful city anyway, no worries!

But we´ve chosen to go to Edinburgh. If you are not ready wearing a coat and an umbrella during summer, weaving around everywhere because of many festivals going on that time or not meeting your friends because you don´t have any there, don´t go there. But if you can handle it, you should definitely go! I promise you will have a good time there. And here we go again… unless you don´t have problems while walking.

I need to highlight one fact. To speak metaphorically, my grandma is a real warrior! She always experiences many different situations with me, she never gives up and she is keen to push her limits no matter how big her limitations are. In my opinion, she deserves at least nine of ten points and the award: The most courageous grandma.

So as I said before, I don´t have any car and my driving license serves as a bookmark for several years. So even going to the airport from my hometown Pribram can be a little bit challenging. Especially when you use sticks for walking as my grandma does. You need to take a bus to Prague, then another one to the airport (you can also use the underground but I prefer to change as less as possible to save energy of my grandma´s legs).

But as soon as you arrive at the airport, you can take a deep breath and rest…

I´m not considering myself as a person who holds out for routine but I found out that I had created few rituals in my life, such as having a coffee at the airport. We also took something to eat. Well, we drank a coffee, talked… we looked into the crystal ball and predicted the future for all human beings in the world. I´m just kidding, after the coffee, we moved forward to the checking passport zone.

Nothing special happened but we actually met one of our friends with her daughter who we´ve not seen for a long time. They went to Turkey for holiday. Yes, to enjoy these sunny days I was talking about.

Unfortunately, we didn´t have much time and we almost needed to run. Or jumping very fast on sticks. I felt how my grandma started to be angry at me and I waited until she hits me with one of her stick. Luckily we got to the control zone where our gate was. Although I knew from previous trips, flights with Ryanair are always late, we helped ourselves by jumping the queue…

You aren´t probably these people who were waiting in the line but I´m really sorry about it. I didn´t want to hurt you. All the more so, because the flight was delayed. Again. But you know, karma has no menu so I´ll get served what I deserve if I don´t get it already in Edinburgh during all these rainy days.

My grandma always needs to be checked because her hips were operated and it makes a sound every time she passes through the control door. She has also the old version of identity card so it takes a little bit more time to check it. She always explains the situation no matter the language of people who are controlling her and she always feels a bit of injustice during the whole process.

“Have you seen it again?” she asked.

“What?” I answered.

“With your ID it went so fast, while with mine…” she said.

And then I always explain that it´s because I have the new version of ID card (the spanking new issue at least every year because either I lose it or someone takes it… well, steels it) and that she still has the old version that will last forever (unless somebody steals it). And the date of expiry doesn´t show anything except for the word “neobmedzeně” (in Slovakian language: unlimited). Because of that, she needs to wait longer. Not because of any zodiacal constellation or black points.

Ahh, black points.

There is one page on the internet that shows you if you have the black point any day of the week. If you´re lucky, there is no point and you´ll be successful this day. If not, you´re fucked up.

I actually don´t know which page it is and I´m not really into this theory but my grandma looks on it every day. I guess that going through the control zone at the airport means always a bad day for her. I mean the black point.

The next challenging test showed up after arriving at Edinburgh´s airport. To walk until the exit takes a while and there is no chair. It was 8pm which is almost the midnight for many elderly people. I went to buy tickets and we took a bus. After a while, I noticed that we took the wrong one. Holy shit, damn these stupid mistakes.

We arrived at the Old town, near to Waverley station. The weather wasn´t too bad but it was drizzling outside and our accommodation was way too far for tired legs. One and a half mile. If I´m alone, I wouldn´t go for this option but for the comfort of my granny, I proposed to take a taxi. The strength of the warrior came alive and she refused to call the cab. So we were walking and I was asking her every minute if she was all right. I already had the mom´s instinct, it made me bit worried. After several meters and no hope to arrive there on foot, she finally accepted my proposition.

I asked a guy on the street how it works to be completely sure to have the taxi for us. One taxi just appeared, however, my grandma didn´t notice anything and marched quickly. Should I run to catch her or get into the cab? After a few seconds of indecisive dance, I finally jumped in. We caught her up while she was looking for me with a worried face. She got into the taxi and we were approaching our accommodation. Suddenly I noticed that we had missed it because there are two places with a similar name close by. Luckily I got it immediately and we finally arrived at our hotel.

Well, I say our hotel but I actually mean a campus. Yes, because it´s cheaper! And because there is a kitchen where you can cook. It still doesn´t amount to low prices of hostels but it´s more affordable than any hotel. The best option for both of us.

But actually, you should have seen the situation one or two days before our departure.

“Where are we going to sleep? In the tent?” my grandma asked me.

“What? Youuuu? Do you want to sleep in the tent? Really?” I answered by asking.

Sometimes I´m surprised how my granny acts. She probably wants to awake her younger I and she knows that with me she has the perfect opportunity to do some crazy stuff. But this time I didn´t agree with this option.

I didn´t even agree with going to the hostel although she mentioned it too. I couldn´t imagine her there but she spoke about it quite often. Little by little, maybe next time we´re gonna rock some hostel!

Anyway, if you go with grandparents for a holiday, you need to satisfy their needs. They´re like babies sometimes (most of the time), unless they normally don´t cry too much and you can leave them alone for a while. Luckily, my granny is all right almost everywhere and doesn´t complain too much. I told you, she is the warrior, right.

The room was nice, quite small but sufficient. The bed was also little… I can imagine that students are very happy about that.

It was late and we both were quite hungry so I went to buy some food. We ate together and it was time to sleep. I put my grandma to bed. And for me, the night just started.

As I like to walk a lot, I went to the centre on foot. I just arrived at the place called Pleasance Courtyard where I saw a bunch of people going in and out of the venue. I peeked in, many people were holding a conversation, having a beer and apparently, something was going on there. I spot one hostess who was distributing some layovers…

“Hi, may I ask you. What is going on here?” I asked.

She looked confused.

So I added: “I just arrived at the city one hour ago. I wanted to explore the city but I´ve seen this…”

The festival Fringe lasts for almost one month and gives the opportunity to everyone to show his/her creativity. We speak about theatre, musicals, comedy, dance, poetry and spoken word, circus and much more. The shows are either paid or free and the whole city lives by this festival. You can check it here: https://www.edfringe.com/

“If you like, there is a brilliant comedian in a few minutes. Just buy your tickets there.” She said.

I was thinking if I want to watch the show or to go to the centre. Well, it´s until the Sunday, I can go tomorrow. That time I didn´t know how big festival it is and that I should maybe take the opportunity.

I went to the Old town and I was just walking criss-cross in Edinburgh. It was 11pm, a little bit cold, but the city looked gorgeous. Luckily I put long pants, a sweater and a jacket, so the walk was more than pleasant. I noticed many billboards for different types of shows, such as comedians, dancers, actors. I should learn more about this event and go for some show too.

Finally, I went to one of the pubs and had a beer. You know, sometimes I´m very talkative and social and I don´t mind to meet a group of strangers to speak with them. Sometimes I do mind and I´m shy. That evening, it was exactly the second case. I was drinking my beer and reading some guidebook of Edinburgh that I grabbed at the airport. Suddenly, somebody touched my shoulder and said… no, it was just one of my thoughts. I´m sitting here alone, have the beer, should I consider myself as an alcoholic?

For the first time, I was thinking about downloading Tinder. A few years ago it came to the Czech Republic but I´m still out of this game. Despite the fact that more and more people found the love of their life there and they got or are going to be married. It sounds awesome but it didn´t really persuade me to have it. Moreover, I like weddings but only as a spectator. I also listened to many spicy or funny stories from my friends. I find that interesting but never too much to download this lovely app. But maybe you wouldn´t sit and drink your beer alone right now. It somehow makes sense but I will still give the chance to the old style of meeting people.

Maybe I will download it later as I did it with Instagram. For many years it didn´t touch me at all. I saw it as an application for showing pictures with your partner when you travel together, eat together, run together, whatever you can imagine – you do together. Or that it is basically a factory for taking selfies. As I downloaded it a few months ago, I figured out that all these pictures you can find there…

And you know what? I´m doing the same thing. I also put selfies there or pictures with my imaginary and invisible boyfriend who I met while hiking one of many unknown hills where nobody is actually willing to climb. So basically I put selfies there. And because it´s not an easy task to take high-quality pictures when only you and your camera are present, I put also pictures with nobody on them. It doesn´t mean that they have good quality either.

Anyway, I didn´t download this tinder thing.

I was very thirsty so I finished the beer quite fast and read all pages from the guidebook. Twice. The guidebook actually looked like an exhaustive list of advertising. No lonely hearths included.

It was around midnight so I decided to go sleep. Tomorrow is another day. I was actually looking forward to going to the bed… but finally, I let myself to fascinate by colourful lights from afar. I decided to have a look there and I noticed many different bars. In the meanwhile, somebody joined me and we started to speak. I met one guy, originally from India, who works in New York and came to Edinburgh for one night to watch The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (https://www.edintattoo.co.uk/). Well… and I thought that one week wouldn´t be enough.

We went to The three sisters and got some beers and also whiskies. That time I wasn´t alone anymore but the question about the alcoholism fitted again.

I also met some people, I would say, from Edinburgh´s ghetto… but as long as it´s not very funny to share drunken nights because all of us experienced it at least once in our lives (sure, once), I don´t need to share it here. The night went just all right… in the end, I just appeared in the north of Edinburgh around four o´clock despite the fact that we were accommodated completely on the opposite side, on the south. Awesome. So I decided to walk again.

Walking in the morning is very refreshing and romantic. Especially if some couple of guys are doing stupid stuff, such as playing with rubbish bins and throwing them down. I didn´t pay attention to it too much and they finally disappeared from my view. Comparing to several hours before, streets were uncrowded, but I met a few people. Finally, I met another guy who accompanied me home. I don´t even remember about what we were talking. But I know that he tried to persuade me that he´s not the criminal and I can be completely calm although after walking the whole way alone I actually didn´t find anything to worry…

When I got home, my grandma was still sleeping. She always sleeps only until 4 o´clock but when she spends time with me, especially during travelling, she usually sleeps much better and longer. I fell down on the bed and was sleeping until my personal alarm started to beep.

“Hey Natálka, it´s time to wake up, girl.” My grandma exclaimed.

Surprisingly, I didn´t say anything and woke up. I also went to buy a breakfast to start our day more than pleased.

And how it continued? I´m gonna tell you next time :)