Thursday, September 20: Missions Accomplished

After 10 hours of sleep, which made a huge difference.  I had two major things I wanted to do in Edinburgh and today I managed them both.  In the morning, after buying a SIM card for my phone, I went to Wm. Cadenhead’s on the Royal Mile.  Ron and I “discovered” them on our first trip in 2001.  They sell, among other things, whiskies that come straight from the casks of major distillers:  single cask, no dilution, no filtering, not even water added.  You can’t buy it in the US.  I bought 3 bottles- over the US Customs limit of one, but have always gone over, declared them when coming home, and have never been charged duty.  I left a little under the influence, having tasted samples of all three only shortly after having my breakfast.

I'm happy to report that all 3 bottles made it home safely and I wasn't charged any duty!

I came home, had lunch and got out the new SIM card.   The devil was in the details; I needed to insert something the thickness of a bent paper clip into a tiny hole in the side of my phone so the SIM card “drawer” would pop out.  It took nearly half an hour of testing various implements (of course there wasn’t a paper clip in sight) until I finally found that a the wire in a small spiral notebook worked after I straightened it out.  My phone was now operating like a local phone and I have 2gb of data usage- for about $13!  (And, as promised, it later worked in France.)

View from the top.

The second important thing:  climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat (elevation 250 meters or about 750 feet) and discreetly leave some of Ron’s ashes there.  It was a good day for the climb; cloudy but no rain forecasted, cool but not too windy.  The climb was about an hour and the paths were full of locals who RUN up to the peak every day (some in shorts) and tourists, mostly German.  It was work, but not overwhelming.  My biggest challenge was keeping my balance in some places. Several times on the way down I choose to descend while sitting rather than risk slipping and falling.  I don’t remember doing that 17 years ago.  Oh, well.

I also stopped at an ancient chapel partway down the mountain, where Ron and I had had lunch on our climb.

You never get the top of the mountain to yourself!

Ron at the top, 2001.