Took a day trip to the Edinburgh Zoo yesterday on the bus. Nice ride over, and the zoo is lovely. Not a huge one, but much larger than it looks from the outside. If the wind had not been blowing the temperature would have been great. It was a bit blustery, so a lot of the animals from warmer climates were in their houses, but we could still see most of them. Nice little collection - and a really good penguin section. It had some seriously challenging hills in the zoo, though - it's built up the side of a hill. Made it to the top and the view was lovely. (My knees are paying for it today, though!) The animals looked very well cared for and the grounds were spotless. A nice touch - when we were entering they asked if we had any mobility needs. They have a buggy to take you around, if so.
Lunch was a cup of mushroom soup (very good) and the Daughter had the "kiddie" half-pizza and salad. Came with a huge salad. Cost us less than 10 pounds for lunch. The gift shop was surprisingly inexpensive. Having gone to the San Diego Zoo many times where the merch is just painfully expensive, it was a nice surprise. Assumed we'd be going back, so I didn't buy anything, although there was a cute little tea mug with penguins on it for 5 pounds that I liked.
All-in-all a nice day, although a slight glitch on the bus home. The Citilink 900 was due at 16:08 and we had reservations on it. We were at the stop at 15:45, and at about 5 til the hour a 900 came by, and ignored our flagdown. Ok, we thought it might have been an earlier on that was just running late. One came by at about 16:15 and ignored our flagdown. It was getting pretty chilly out and threatening rain, so I was starting to get a little panicky. Another one came by shortly thereafter and did not stop, but motioned to us to stop the next bus. Which came about 5 minutes later and did stop. I was starting to wonder what we were going to do, stuck on foot in another city if we could not get a bus to stop. But thankfully it did - a half-hour late. And we made it to Glasgow Buchannan Station and made our connection onward with 10 minutes to spare.
Looking forward to going back again. And will be sure to take the phone number for the bus line with me then!
