Edinburgh, Scotland

Just before we hit the tarmac at Edinburgh airport, we flew over this water body. You can see the disparate colors of the water – somewhat clean to totally muddy. If you see carefully (my picture does not do it any justice), you can see a bridge over the water. Actually, there are two bridges.

I learnt later from my driver friend James (more on him later) that the white one is a new bridge.

“So, is that the North Sea?”

“Well, it leads into the North Sea.”

“So, what is it called?”

My friend responded to my question. But I could not understand a word of what he said. I asked him to repeat it but that did not help either. I noticed that here people do not pronounce the “t”. We do the same in the USA with words like “dentist” and “Atlanta” but only when there is a “n” preceding the “t”. Here it is “beyer” (not “better), “splee up” (not “split up”). This part of the world spends half their time focusing on their “tea”s and the other half ignoring their “t”s.

In any case, James ultimately spelt it out for me – “Firth of Forth”.

That is a funny name. Almost sounded like somebody with a very bad dental plan was put in charge of naming waterbodies in Scotland.

Till you realize that Firth means an estuary. (derived from Gaellic?)

But why name the river Forth?

Ah, well! Firth of Forth it is!!

We came down fast thru the clouds and I caught my first glimpse of Scotland! I was a bit reluctant to consider this as my country #52 because in the UN, Scotland is represented as part of the UK. However, internet would have you believe that Scotland (like Wales for example) is a country unto itself and the UK is a union. Which goes to show that there is no water tight definition of what makes a country, a country, I guess.

Here is a quiz question for all of you… I am trying to remember which i2 colleague of mine from UK had taught me this…

Which is bigger – Great Britain or the UK? What is the difference between the two? And what is the difference between those and the British Isles?

There is something vaguely disconcerting about watching two maintenance guys going up and down the aisle with nothing but a lot of duct tape in their hand!!!

They actually used some of that on the floor near the galley and then went to the rear of the plane.

Traveling Delta over the pond after a long time. Actually, traveling to Europe after a long time.

that the length of check in queue is strictly less than or equal to the length of the security queue which is vastly less than the queue at the Starbucks near the gate.

Now I realize customers queuing up to get new flights after missing their flights on a weather-devastated airline schedule totally trumps the Starbucks.

The queue inside Terminal E at Atlanta airport was unbelievable. And this is near midnight!! The queue went as far as my eyes could see. I could not even capture that in my phone with max zoom out. Had to use the Pano mode.

Why don’t people simply try changing the flights on their apps or at least call up and then let them call back? The Delta app is incredibly good at making all sorts of changes for disrupted flights.

The flight is scheduled to take off from Terminal E. But I went to Terminal F to settle down in the bigger Skyclub there.

Moment I entered, I ran into Manu and his daughter! Turns out they are also headed to Edinburgh!! That is a real coincidence. We might not have met had they decided to go to the normal Skyclub that would make logical sense!

Manu reminded me of the time when I apparently had played with his daughter when she was very young in the billiard room of their housing complex community hall. I could not remember that. I am really getting old.

Looks like when taking the selfie, I manage to place the camera just in the right place for the shadow to make Manu look like the old pirates with an eye patch over his right eye!!

This was going to be the third successive day of flying. Except that now my much delayed Delta flight to Scotland is technically leaving “tomorrow”.

I have never been to Scotland. Can’t wait to check it out. Delayed or otherwise!!