It is an absolutely gorgeous mid-morning as we land in Edinburgh.  Perfect blue skies, warm temps.  Couldn’t ask for better. 

Off the plane, we walk the length of the terminal to get to immigration which is an absolute breeze.  We are through the electronic scanners in no time, with no real back up.  The only time it has paid to be non-EU passports!  That EU passport line was crazy.  Baggage comes relatively quickly, and we are on the bus to Haymarket in a jiffy.  Smooth as silk. 

Off the bus in Haymarket, it is a quick 8-minute walk to our flat, but unfortunately, we are 45 minutes too early to check in.  The cool thing about this place is it has an electronic keypad that is programmed for check-in and checkout time.  The bad thing about this place is the electronic keypad!  There’s no way to get in early.  So off we go to the little coffee shop we saw a few blocks back to cool our heels, have a lovely little cappuccino and wait for our 2pm check-in time.  Just like clockwork, we are back at our door at 2 and the lock works.  Hallelujah.  The flat is an adorable, little space with everything we need strategically placed around the small footprint. 

After dumping our luggage and reorganizing the day bag, we hit the streets again on our way to the National Museum of Scotland, the 3-story museum packed with exhibits ranging from the Natural World to World Cultures to Science and Technology to Scotland history.  It is a wide variety of historic and interesting items spread across myriads of rooms and galleries.  There is one of the first Meissen porcelain lions commissioned by Agustus the Strong in 1710 (with that sad face – you just want to hug it!), weird ceramic plates with molded parts in the shape of an eel (looking all the world like a snake) and various fish around it from the late16^thC, Asian cultural displays with incredible, life size porcelain warriors, a lacquer box with dragons, an Egyptian section with the most amazing mummified woman who had scarab amulets embedded in the sarcophagus (to help her reach the afterlife) – we’ve never seen anything like it.

At end of the museum building, on each floor, there are open balconies that overlook the ground floor exhibit.  It is a really cool design – and one that allows us to totally avoid the prehistoric animal world section that is filled with children.  Yeah, fun to look at from above, we aren’t going down there though! At the opposite end of the building is the science and technology area which has some fabulous real life planes suspended from the ceiling. Again, we don’t go down to the main floor – but there is supposedly a life size Dolly the cloned sheep down there.

One of the highlights though was the rooftop with amazing scenic views across the city and over to the Castle, where we will be fulling exploring tomorrow.  Great visit.

Walking back to the apartment, we stop at Lidl for supplies, picking up some fun beer – Hobgoblin anyone?  Then relax a bit before heading over to dinner at First Coast Restaurant, a fabulous seafood place minutes walk from the apartment.  Sharing an excellent starter of Scallops and Romesco, we moved on to the main courses of Beer Battered Haddock (of course, how can we resist?) and Grilled Octopus in Romesco sauce.  Fantastic.  

Back at the apartment, we manage to stay awake long enough to watch some tv, then collapse into bed for a wonderful night’s sleep.