Today I took a bus (rush hour, very crowded) to the centre for an e-bike tour I signed up for on Airbnb. There were 4 people from Germany, 2 from North Dakota, one from Ottawa and me. The leader was Riccardo from Italy and his 1 year old dog, Lucy.
It was supposed to be a two hour tour but was three hours. The other Americans, a father and daughter (perhaps), dropped out after 2 hours and Riccardo had to lock their bikes to a lamppost.
It was fun but it took me a while to get the seat the right height and feel comfortable with the gears, and Riccardo yelled at me a bit harshly. And then there was lots of riding on the damn cobblestone, and his dog barking and running around, and one or two of his bikes failing, his constant use of "guys", and his thick Italian accent, making it hard to understand him even if I could hear him, which I often couldn't. So I can understand why the people from ND dropped out. I mostly enjoyed the tour, believe it or not, but my right hand was hurting a lot (arthritis) from gripping.
We bicycled 22 km (13.6 miles), went to the Portobello beach and we had coffee while Lucy ran free.
I liked Susan, the Canadian, who was about 50 and hadn't ridden a bike since she was 12! She did fall and I gasped when I thought I saw her foot at a right angle to her leg but it only turned out that the slip-on shoe she wore had, guess what, slipped off. Right after that the man from ND apologized to us for "ruining the trip" (I wasn't sure why the exaggeration but we did have to wait for them a lot and Riccardo had a long talk with them, though they seemed very happy at the Portobello café stop when I talked to him--the young woman hardly said a word the whole trip) and they left and when they went to the middle of the street tram stop to get tickets he fell, perhaps not seeing the curb. I gasped again but they were no longer part of the group and Riccardo hadn't even noticed.
Aren't groups fun?
Then I walked to the Palestinian shop and bought a bar of that wonderful Nablus olive oil soap. It was a very nice shop called Hadeel. * Scotland is very pro-Palestinian rights!
I wanted to walk up Calton Hill but had a hard time figuring out where it was. I asked for directions from a man putting on the whole Highlands costume, getting ready to perform music on the street, and he told me in a snotty way that to find Calton Hill I had to go in the direction of Calton Hill. Gee, thanks!
The weather wasn't great but if it's not raining, the Scottish consider it gorgeous! Lots of people were up on Calton Hill, busy trampling the meager grass, taking selfies. I went to the museum in the Nelson Monument about astronomy (₤3 entrance fee just for the museum, more to go up in the tower) and astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth and his wife, a geologist, Jessie Piazzi Smyth, and about the Battle of Trafalgar when Lord Nelson was killed.
Then I limped (hip pain) to the bus stop to take a welcome ride home. I had walked 7 miles!
View of old town from Calton Hill
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