August 8 - Rome, Italy TO Edinburgh, UK

I assume it is hot again, but really didn’t spend any time outside as today is TRAVEL DAY – we are off to Edinburgh, Scotland. As it turned out when we got to Edinburgh around 8:00 it was clear and about 15 and when coming home around 1:00 it was probably 10.

must have been tasty

Breakfast at the hotel, followed by packing and a trip to the airport started the day, things were going smoothly until we tried getting our VAT (tax paid by non-Europeans) back at the airport. When we bought the item we tried getting the tax back on the sales person gave us a few instructions as to how to go about it. Then we read about the procedure on line and thought we knew what we had to do…ha…NO we did NOT. The instructions and EVERYTHING we read did not indicate anything about needing a boarding pass. It makes complete sense that we did in fact need a boarding pass as whenever buying anything duty free you need a boarding pass - HOWEVER…I am a complete rookie when it comes to getting the VAT

back, so I didn’t think of it and NOWHERE did it say online and in the instructions before then line up at the VAT place. So we tried me keeping my place, Chris get the boarding passes – that didn’t work…then we went to get boarding passes and were told we were too early (no earlier than 3 hrs is adhered to in Italy apparently)…grrrrr, in the end we were able to get the boarding passes, but had to keep our luggage to drop off later. OK…back to the VAT line and were told because this wasn’t our last point in the EU before going home we couldn’t do it until we were on our way to Canada. To say the least a few no-so-nice words were uttered…of course after we left the VAT office!

Once that ordeal was over we dropped our bags and got through security super fast and were sitting down to our last meal in Italy. We have discovered there are pizzas in Rome and there are pizzas – we discovered this the hard way. Unless the place says wood fired oven DON’T GET PIZZA THERE. Otherwise it’s comes on what seems like a pre-made crust and the toppings aren’t great either. I’ve eaten my fair share of thin-crust, European, have to eat the entire thing with a fork and knife, in and out of Italy…I guess jut not in Rome. Once we learned how to spot the kind we wanted with the wood oven we were set…didn’t think it could be that complicated. Anyway, apparently we had to come to the airport to get a decent pizza – it was better than decent – it was awesome.

really is Craig Ferguson

We were flying to Edinburgh on a Spanish airline, so there were some very interesting food choices on the plane – all at a cost, in fact even water and coffee were at a cost. I wasn’t hungry after that delicious pizza, but when I’m offered gazpacho on a plane I’m getting it.

The main reason we were in Edinburgh is to take in the Edinburgh Festival. Once we were checked into the hotel we thought we’d try catching a show. We know before coming here that Craig Ferguson would be here broadcasting his radio show each night and we planned to see it. We were able to get there just before it started. It was pretty great. We figure we might see it every night it’s on here – he has different guests each night, so presumably it’ll be different.  By the time the show was out it was about 1 in the morning, and we hadn’t eaten dinner. We got some street food of dumplings and mac and cheese and ate it in the room before passing out!