Just what time is it any way?

The one thing we lack is a watch.  Back home, Grace and I both use our cellphones to check the time, but our Verizon phones do not work here...at all.  We are constantly looking for a clock or watch on some stranger's arm to tell the time.  8:05PM in the U.S., but the middle of the night here.  If you look outside, you can tell it is just before sunrise, which comes around 4:30AM.  Birds are chirping, giving further proof sunrise is near.  I am up with the birds.

The front of Jill's house (our second floor...their first floor, as they count the actual first floor as the ground floor) has two large windows overlooking the street.  An ancient ivy vine grows up from the street level, its truck thick and gnarled.  It frames the bottom half of the large windows.  In front of one window, right up close to it and where we would call the window ledge, is a duck's nest.  No ordinary duck, no sir.  A nesting duck with 2 large eggs.  Mrs. Duck is not on her nest at this moment, she is out and about.  Possibly she is in the park down the street or in the small creek near by in search of breakfast.  Her eggs are covered in duck down, warm I'm sure.  She won't be gone long and when she returns she will stand over eggs and roll them between her feet before giving a little duck butt wiggle and setting down on them.  Mrs Duck and I have something in common.  We are not asleep in the early dawn.

Yesterday, Grace and I went in search of an electric outlet adapter plug.  The one we brought met with an unfortunate fuse blowout when Grace plugged in her hair straightener.  At first it seemed no big deal, but then we realized that without it, we cannot charge computers, camera batteries, or ipods.  Disaster.  The whole electric outlet thing is a pain, but so far our only challenge of note.

We walked down to Princes Street to Curries Electronic store to find a new plug adapter.  We found that unlike our Fashion Fair Mall Apple store, they have the ipad in stock and ready to sell.  Adam (the young clerk) explained that we could replace the UK plug and SIM card once we got back to the U.S.  Poor Adam did not realize that our morning had included the electric plug disaster and anything that required taking the UK plug home with us was a complete deal breaker.

Mrs. Duck has returned.  She is disturbed by the light coming from this laptop and stood for a few moments giving me the stink eye before settling on her nest.  She knows I should be in bed asleep.

Princes Street runs along a large park in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.  It is huge and runs along the hill for what seems like a mile or two.  The Queen's flag is not flying, so we know she is not home.

We come to Scott's Memorial, which is an imposing tribute to Sir Walter Scott and his stories.  That is it in the photo above on the left.  Grace and I pay 3 pounds each for the honor of climbing 287 stairs to the top.  I should note here that Grace climbed the entire 287 stairs, I made it up about 200 of the tiny, winding stone steps to the area at the top of the spires that circle it about 2/3s of the way up, but no further.  Youth is on her side.  From here, we see amazing views of the city and Edinburgh Castle.