“Someone” Needs to Get It Together

            We’re here in Edinburgh and it’s not raining!  After months of anticipating / worrying about cold and rainy conditions, we’ve lucked into a stretch of intensely sunny, warm days and pleasantly cool nights. The forecast shows just one hour of rain coming this morning; I’ll be surprised if it really happens.

Our journey here was mostly smooth, but I’ve learned that it isn’t a true vacation unless its logistics are threatened in some way by the airline industry.  In this case, it was that our long flight from Chicago to Dublin was delayed by over an hour because “someone locked the hangar door where the plane was.”  When we finally did arrive in Dublin, we had to wait on board awhile because “someone had to be called to extend the jetway” for us to walk through to the terminal. Luckily, we made our last connection, but after we landed in Edinburgh, we again waited on the tarmac while “someone” scrambled to roll over the exit stairs.

All I can say is “someone” is screwing up bigly. I mean, really, how can “someone” not anticipate that exit ramps are going to be needed after the plane lands, or that a plane needs to move from the hangar to the gate in time for boarding?  Or that luggage needs to be transferred to connecting flights, which – surprise – “someone” failed to do in our case (more on this in the pedalar report below). 

Still and all, we are happy to be here. We spent our first morning taking a long walk along the lovely and shaded Water of Leith Walkway, and then into the old town and then through Edinburgh’s spectacular and pristine Botanical Garden. Later, we took the Real Mary King’s Close tour followed by beers and conversation at The World’s End pub on the Royal Mile.  Today, we’re scheduled for more tourist stuff before meeting up with our Backroads bike tour tomorrow.

        A few beers and some pleasant conversation with a British man, who may have been full of blarney, made everything OK

        Buskers on The Royal Mile

 

Pedaler Report

              That’s right; our luggage, containing all of our bike gear (pedals, clip-in shoes, kit, etc.), not to mention our regular clothes, did not make the Dublin-to-Edinburgh connection. We could see from our airtags that both suitcases were stalled at the Dublin airport so we filled out the delayed-baggage paperwork and hoped for the best.  It turned out ok – the airline delivered our luggage the next day – but it made for some stress as we tried to devise a recovery plan just in case. I’m glad we don’t have to spend today looking for a bike shop to try and replace lost gear.