04.07.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 21:06

Today started out, just like yesterday: A misty sprinkle with thick fog. I made the mistake of going to find breakfast without taking my umbrella. By the time I got back to the hostel, I was soaking wet. Because of this, I spent most of the morning inside- I got some more reading done, and managed to get some of my things together so that I’m not running around tomorrow morning before I have to check out.

I stayed inside as long as I could, then I was starting to feel what I would call Cabin Fever. I just needed to get out, rain or shine. This time, with umbrella in hand, I made my way over to New Town and saw a matinee of The Hole in the Ground. The film was good, but I wanted it to be longer, and I wished they would have gone into more detail. I was so engrossed in the storyline- then suddenly it had ended.

On my way back to the hostel, the rain had stopped just long enough so I could take a few pictures of Cockburn Street (pronounced Co-Burn). Like Victoria Street, Cockburn winds it’s way up to the Royal Mile, but does so on the north side (Victoria on the south side), and is longer than Victoria Street.

04.06.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 23:46

As I walked to get my breakfast, I could tell it would be a rainy day. This isn’t just rain. It’s that misty rain so that no umbrella is going to help at all. It just blows in your face- not so good for those of us who wear glasses. I decided that I would declare this my last laundry day of the trip. Yes, it is true- My time in Scotland is drawing to a close. It is a sad thing, but unfortunately, life must go on.

Other than laundry, I spent the bulk of the day reading and listening to podcasts. In the evening, I did brave the misty fog and went to the cinema to see Shazam!. I thought the movie was a lot better than the previews looked- I’ll definitely add it to my wishlist as soon as the price drops, of course.

04.03.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 22:19

Today I changed it up- just a bit. When I was walking to Leith the other day, I noticed that the musical Matilda was playing. I decided to check online if there were any tickets left. As luck would have it, the Edinburgh Playhouse had exactly two tickets left for the matinee, so I decided to get one of them. It was a really great seat, too! I was about six rows from the front.

It was a fun show! I miss seeing live performances so much! My only criticism is that a lot of the main character’s words were hard to understand. She was trying to enunciate, but the little girl had such a thick English accent, that it made it difficult. Luckily, the storyline was pretty easy to follow along with.

04.02.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 23:54

Tonight was such a cool night! I went on a City of the Dead tour. This tour, which I also went on a few years ago, is all about Edinburgh’s haunted past. Paranormal stuff has always fascinated me. To be honest, I don’t believe in so much of it, but it still fascinates me.

Before the tour, I got myself in a spooky mood by listening to the Sweeney Todd soundtrack, while taking some pictures. I used them. “Noir” filter on my phone to give the pics a scary feel.

There were a few moments on the tour where I was legitimately frightened, but that was only when the tour guide would shout or try to scare us. So I guess ‘frightened’ is the wrong word. It’s more like I was startled.

The tour actually takes you into some underground places in Edinburgh that had actually been sealed up for centuries. One if the places are supposedly haunted by a young boy called Jack. Freaky stuff!

03.31.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 21:54

I don’t have a whole lot to report today. Since it’s Sunday today, I wanted to have a day of relaxing. I was able to make it out to church. I was planning on walking, but as I set out to start the walk, I noticed my phone had stopped working. It was on but wasn’t responding to my touch. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to respond. I ran back inside and up to my room, hooked it up to my laptop and reinstalled the software. This worked like a charm but made it to where I would have been late for church. I decided to summon an Uber and made it just in time.

After church, I walked back to the hostel, took a nap, and worked on some postcards to send back to the states. I listened to some podcasts for a bit and ended up getting my dinner at Mum’s. Later, I walked over to Greyfriar’s and walked around the cemetery, finding family names. I did a live stream from the sight, nothing too exciting, just something to show the friends back home what I was up to. For those of you who like to watch the live streams, I’m occasionally on Periscope with the nickname @DavTravels.

03.30.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 21:00

The bad news: I spent a good part of the morning talking with a very rude employee at kiwi.com. He first told me his name was Steve. I could tell, however, that he was sitting in a call center somewhere in India. Yes, there is a chance his name is Steve, but when I asked him he confessed that his name wasn’t Steve after all. It was Mohinder (I think that’s how it’s spelled).

So the situation is this- Wow Air has ceased its operations due to bankruptcy. Since I was planning on taking three flights home, and that was simply my middle flight, I can’t take either of the flights. The only refund coming to me is the portion for the second flight, I think I’ll be getting around $130 back. Kiwi.com wanted me to pay the €20 to pursue getting my money back from the other two airlines (easyJet and JetBlue) and even though I want those refunds, Kiwi.com’s website wasn’t taking my payment online.

I spoke with their customer service agent, hoping they could take my payment over the phone, but there was no way they could do that. They told me that the problem was on the side of my bank, not their system. So I requested to speak with a supervisor and he told me he’d have one call me back.

Next, I called my bank to see if it was indeed them stopping the payment. As I suspected, it wasn’t. About three hours later, I got the call back from the supervisor. By then, I was so frustrated and mad that I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. Buyer beware: Kiwi.com is a great site for looking for cheap flights, but they really don’t care if you get to your destination.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing. I needed to calm down, and I didn’t feel as though I had the mental capacity to explore Edinburgh Castle just yet. Instead, I read from my book, went for a couple of walks and even went to Oink for lunch. If you recall, Oink is the restaurant where they have a whole, dead hog in the window. I first had a sandwich there last year, and it was amazing!

The hostel is full this weekend because there is some big rugby game happening today. All the guys in my room are here from all over the U.K. with tickets to the game. They’re pretty stoked and they can’t believe that I didn’t know about it. Rugby is life, after all- or it should be according to the guy who is in the next bed over. I guess the right team won, and there is happy, drunk singing in the streets tonight.

03.29.19 | Edinburgh, Scotland | 23:35

Kiwi.com sent me an email last night. They wanted me to know that the airline Wow Air was no longer in business. I had read this in the news, and I feel bad that all those employees will lose their jobs, but sometimes this happens with airlines. Why were they letting me know this? Because they are one of the flights that I’d planned to fly home on.

I called Kiwi’s customer service line, and they told me that they would get back to me within 48 hours with a new plan. She told me that I can cancel the flight altogether, and they would try to get a refund from all three airlines, but the only guaranteed refund would be the leg I had booked on Wow Air.

One part of me just wants to book a whole new flight home and hopefully get a refund for the original flights (the agent told me that it could take up to 30 days to get that refund). Still, another part of me wants to take advantage of the situation and run off to some undisclosed location in Europe.

Then I overheard some people talking about the whole Brexit thing. Since they haven’t reached an agreement on the plan, this is likely to weaken the British Pound. If that happens, If it gets closer to the U.S. dollar, I could take advantage of this and get a killer deal somewhere within the U.K. Maybe I could jump down to London for a few days or something like that. For now, I think I’ll wait to hear back from Kiwi and then make the decision when it’s time. If I was a “normal” person, this would probably stress me out a bit- and even though it did at first, I’ll just count this whole thing as part of the adventure.

It’s been a relaxed day- I didn’t visit any castles but read and rested. I sometimes have to remind myself that I’m on vacation and it’s ok to take some downtime. I got some reading done and have been listening to the Serial Killers podcasts while walking around.