I was exhausted after arriving to my hotel in Edinburgh because I had to pull all my luggage from the train station and up the hill to the Royal Mile near St Giles Cathedral. As soon as I washed my face and drank some water, I walked around Edinburgh one last time. A large crowd was just outside the hotel, and I asked the hotel concierge what was about to happen. He had no idea. He said a couple days earlier there was a huge parade, but today he had no idea. I asked some of the people waiting beside the street, but no one there knew. They were all tourists who saw other people gathering here and decided to see if something was about to happen. Someone said something about horses because she saw a sign, but that's all she really knew. I went into a tourist shop full of postcards and shirts with 'Scotland' on them, and a lady behind the counter told me that last year there was a horse parade with hundreds of horses walking up the Royal Mile towards the castle. She didn't know much else, like who would be riding the horses or why. I figured I'd stay and watch. Even now I'm not really sure what happened, but there were lots and lots of horses that were trotting along but not together like a military parade. It seemed as if these riders had won some competition or were part of some association that allowed them to participate in this parade, so riding their horse through Old Town was their reward. Nevertheless, I waited about an hour to see them finally pass by me in only a few minutes, and then the crowd dispersed as a street sweeper drove up the road and tried to clean up the manure. The sweeper's bristles just smeared it into the road more. The smell was blatant. Only a good rain would really clean up the street. I'm not sure why the horses weren't wearing bags to catch the droppings.
After the parade I found a restaurant that had a good Sunday meal deal that included a roast, haggis, and bread pudding. I figured that would be a good last meal for my year in Scotland. Across the street from my window in the restaurant was a group of unkempt men who seemed to have not washed in a couple days smoking outside the pub. I find that when I eat alone in restaurants I people-watch a lot more. I probably eavesdrop too much. It's fun, though. I can enter their world for a little bit and see how other people live. Some people don't feel comfortable eating alone. The waitress looked at me odd when I came in alone and asked for a dinner menu at 4 pm but didn't wait for anyone else. Everyone else in the restaurant was there with a significant other or a friend of some type, and they were probably drinking and watching a football match. Not many tourists travel alone, but I don't really feel like a tourist anymore. I'm a vagabond of sorts. I got comfortable eating alone while living and traveling in France. It's pretty much par for the course, and it is actually enjoyable to sit there alone and just watch everything. It's relaxing to just sit and think. The weirdest thought was that in 24 or so hours I would be in Texas and five thousand miles away from everyone that was around me. I had no idea when I would be back, but I assumed it would be a while since I would be unemployed. I've gotten used to these types of goodbyes, not only to people I may or may not see sooner or later but also to the places. Soon enough I would be in a new place and would have to force my way through another maze of not only unknown streets and grocery stores and apartment complexes, but also new friends and relationships. I couldn't think about that upcoming adventure as I sat in that restaurant. I just had to put one foot in front of the other and finish all the tasks that were at hand. Next, I had to pay for the bill. Then I had to leave the restaurant. There was a scotch store between the restaurant and hotel, so my next step was to buy a small sample of whisky I had never tasted but had heard mentioned. Then I had to go back to my hotel, tell the front desk to give me a wake-up call at 3 am so that I could make my flight by 6 am, and then I packed my bags and threw away all the extra clothes that either had holes or were unnecessary. I figured it'd be better to buy cheap underwear back in the US of A than to pay for excess baggage weight. Just before bed at 9 pm, my last step for the day was to open that small sample bottle of Ardberg 10 Year and taste the smoky flavor, which is the most bizarre taste I've ever found in a whisky. That was how I said goodbye to Scotland, with a glass of smoky whisky.
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