slowly she turned

On Thursday morning, we slept late and then took a taxi to our next hotel, the Apex Waterloo Place. That night we would meet our tour manager and group, have dinner together, and decide whether Sandy was up for doing the tour.

After leaving our luggage, we went to the corner cafe for brunch, where I had my first of many salmon dishes of the trip – a smoked salmon benedict.

Sandy wants to make our getting haircuts in other countries a tradition, so we walked down North Bridge then South Bridge Streets with a few stops to sit and found a barber shop with no customers and a walk-in sign. I wasn’t going to get my hair trimmed, but I ended up doing it and was glad of it.

It was a long walk for Sandy on even a good day, but I’m glad we both got out together in Edinburgh for a bit. It proved that Sandy could probably handle the tour, since most of it would be on buses and trains and boats anyway. After talking to both tour managers, we decided to go for it. Our room was very nice and dinner was excellent. We enjoyed meeting two other couples at dinner, and we’d end up hanging out with them quite a bit. I think I slept well for the first time. After breakfast at the hotel, we boarded a train and left for Glasgow.

We only had a brief stop in Glasgow with enough time to walk around the square in front of the train station. I would be interested in staying in Glasgow if we ever return, especially after talking to a couple of Glaswegians. Our bus driver was from Glasgow, and would only refer to Edinburgh as “that other city.”

I took a lot of blurry photos from the train to Fort William, where we would board our bus to Glenspean Lodge. I had taken a dramamine to ward off motion sickness and I struggled to stay awake. Later I figured out a solution for both problems.

The views from our corner bedroom at Glenspean Lodge were beautiful and dinner was fantastic. Our tour group members were all Americans and the hotel owners knew what we wanted, so they provided top flat sheets on the beds and washcloths. Yay!