This boy is on fire!

Man, actually, and to tell the truth it was just the bagpipe – and even that wasn’t ON fire. It shot flames though and that was pretty good. Our train was late from Inverness, and everyone was sad about it because we had all loved Edinburgh so much we wanted every possible minute on our return. We were technically only there to catch a plane back to Ireland, but were looking forward to a few more hours there.

We walked out to our hotel – forgetting that Edinburgh is a slow walking town. I don’t even know what I mean by that except that it takes forever to get anywhere. We walk everywhere, we all like to walk, and all walk at a pretty good pace usually – except in Edinburgh! It was only a couple of miles, but it took every bit of an hour! After checking in we headed back to the Royal Mile in quest of that obscenely decadent caramel shortbread and that was where we saw the flaming bagpipe. I can understand that it must be exceedingly difficult to distinguish yourself from the massive herds of pipers with which the tourist district abounds. The Royal Mile is like Garibaldi Plaza in Mexico City – they are everywhere. This guy is definitely winning at standing out – for the minute. I cannot imagine where you go from here though.

A block or so down, we saw the competition! A young boy, about 9 or 10, fully kitted out, was absolutely slaying the crowd. He was adorable, and again, we wondered, “How do you top that? A six year old girl with bright coppery curls and brilliant blue eyes?” Not sure, but if we could be back next weekend we might see!

We walked back to begin the luggage engineering challenge where we repacked everything over and over again until we could meet Ryan Air’s exacting requirements. We are sorry to leave Scotland so soon. What a lovely place!