Adventures Of A Tester: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (Part 2 of 3)
I was sitting on the train, writing some, and editing articles when I realized I was pretty dizzy and really tired. I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t late at all. It was mid-afternoon, the sun was out, the countryside was rich in color and it had just finished raining. My curiosity was peaked.
I have one of those sports monitors on my phone. It came with it actually. I decided it might be interesting to check my stress, pulse and oxygen levels. I checked my pulse first and found it was indeed at a resting state. Lower than my usual pulse actually. I felt relaxed and even posted about it to friends how incredibly relaxed I felt, until I decided to check my stress levels. The stress meter measures pulse, oxygen and stress factors based on what the sensor in my phone picks up. I realized pretty quickly, while I was less stressed than I normally was, my oxygen levels had dropped pretty significantly. It was to the point of nearly passing out. (Normal is 96-98% SpO2 and mine registered at 79%.) I took a couple of deep breaths and everything shot up to normal levels for me. So much for relaxing euphoria of lacking oxygen. But that’s how Scotland sneaks up on you. You don’t know you are there until it’s literally taking your breath away.
When the train stopped in Edinburgh, I found myself to be pretty tired and hopped in a cab. I was disoriented at best, and really tired from having traveled all day at worse. I was looking forward to the small room I had rented on the east side of the city within a 30 minute walk of Holyrood Palace (Or Palace of Holyroodhouse - the internet was unhelpful in determining which one was more correct).
That evening, I seemed to have enough energy to walk about a mile to meet up with a friend for dinner. Many awesome bits of conversations were had over a pub dinner and beers at the Queen's Arms. I went back to my room on a similar cloud of euphoria as earlier, but it was probably due good conversation and alcohol.
The next two days in Scotland were pretty touristy. I walked and shopped and checked out bookstores along with using any available WiFi spot I could grab to answer emails and post on social media. I visited the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens and The Britannia, the former royal yacht. All of that was pretty interesting, especially walking to the botanical gardens through older parts of the city.
At one point on the second day, I took a bus ride out to the suburbs. I only wanted to see the countryside without someone yakking in my ear about this feature or that person or whatever was there. Maybe I should be more interested in the history, but for me, I was interested in what I could notice, what I could enjoy seeing on my own. When the bus reached it’s end point, the driver hopped out for a smoke. I got out too.
The driver informed me that this was the end of the line and he was going to turn around. I was OK with that I said. I wanted to ride the bus and see where it took me. His accent was Scots and not the British I had been hearing most of my trip. He had many of the easy manners and phrases that I couldn’t hope to repeat but made me laugh about one thing or another. He was surprised I wanted to ride the bus until the end of the line. I explained that I wasn’t much into tours, that I preferred to pay four quid to take my own tour. He told me it was a good idea. He continued smoking, and we talked about Texas, and then New Zealand where he vacationed the year before with his wife.
Scotland captured my imagination and I won’t soon forget it or the people I met while I was there. Three days was too short and it only made me want to go back and visit again. I boarded the train and headed to Brighton. My next adventure was the most exciting and scariest yet!
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