Lift My Head, I'm Still Yawning...

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Scotland watching How I Met Your Mother.

After a long day of travel, we finally made it to Edinburgh, Scotland. We arrived this morning at 8:30ish, Scotland time, which was 2:30 am according to our brains and bodies. Neither my mom nor me actually got much sleep on the flights, so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got our luggage, hopped a bus, and finally checked into our hotel around 11:00 am.

We were dirty, hungry, and extremely tired.

We’ve been told not to nap on our first day to help combat the jet lag, but we had to. I literally could not make my eyes focus and my brain refused to think for itself. We decided that we could take a short nap, and then we’d get up, shower, and find somewhere to eat.

We woke up about an hour and a half later to the loudest alarm I’d ever heard. It was one of those moments where you’re so disoriented when you wake up that you’re not really even sure you’re awake.

I walked into the hallway to see if the alarm was just in our room. I couldn’t hear anything, so Bonnie called the front desk, only to find out that it was the fire alarm and we were to evacuate the building while we wait on the “fire brigade.”

Talk about a wake up call… It was probably for the better. I’d already hit the snooze twice.

The fire brigade arrived. All was cleared. We all went back inside. But not before my mom took a few pictures, of course.

We finally got awake and got clean. We went a shopping centre close by that had a few restaurants and we were so hungry we didn’t care too much where we went. We ended up at Frankie & Benny’s… a “New York bar and grille”… Ha. Our first meal in Scotland at a “New York” bar.

At least I had the fish and chips.

Tomorrow, we plan to take a bus around the city and see the sights: Edinburgh Castle, Royal Botanic Garden, a million cheesy souvenir shops. I’m going to try to convince my mom to buy my nieces and nephews some bagpipes.

I’m off to figure out more things to do to keep myself awake. My goal: 8:00pm. Two and a half more hours of keeping myself awake. I think I can do it.

My mother, however…