So it goes.

After a lot of arguing, I convinced my dad to drive through Edinburgh on the way back to England because I just HAD to see the city. The night before leaving Thurso, my dad booked this hotel about a block away from Edinburgh castle. There was a bit of traffic on the way into the city and my dad was just unreasonably stressed out. He kept muttering “I don’t know where to park” and “I don’t know where the hotel is” and “CHARLIE WHERE DO I GO”, and I was just sitting there trying to calmly direct him. I was having a hard time sympathizing with him because we were driving through the streets of this fucking BEAUTIFUL city. I told him to just park in the street and we’d figure out what to do after we dropped our stuff at the hotel. He literally was following me everywhere, almost completely inept at navigating through the city streets. He kept his ipad under his arm and his iphone in his hand and told me to “keep a lookout for a wifi hotspot we need wifi” and when I asked why he said “we NEED it”. I caught sight of a pub that was next to our hotel and bought us some beer which made him calm down a little bit. Then I just sent him to our room so he would calm the fuck down. All the while he was desperately trying to connect to the internet. For no fucking reason. We didn’t NEED internet, there was no reason to have it. He couldn’t even understand the Scottish accents. He would give me this look every time someone asked him something and I would have to “translate”. It was just really weird. He’s definitely not a traveller. But I guess that’s what happens when your wife/the military/the internet are pretty much always guiding the way. 

So yeah, don’t know what typing that was all about. Anyways, Edinburgh is AMAZING. It fucking sucks that I only got one night there. After locking my dad in our hotel room I walked around the city, slightly buzzed from the beer. This was around the time that the sun was going down. The castle is just gorgeous and pretty much dominates the skyline, and they lit it up after it went dark which was crazy beautiful. The city is admittedly pretty confusing, there are a ton of different levels to it and absolutely no organization that I could tell. Ancient buildings next to brand new buildings next to old buildings. Which made me love it all the more. I got completely and totally lost for about an hour. But the castle is a great reference point. Next time I’m in the UK, London and Edinburgh are both must-visit cities. And I need to dedicate AT LEAST a week to each. 

Oh yeah, and while I was sitting on this bridge having a cigarette there were these two asians holding up a plastic godzilla toy and taking perspective photos so that it looked as if a giant reptillian monster was attacking Edinburgh Castle. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen. 

Cigarette on the beach in the northernmost village of Scotland? Fuck yes.