Rock Stars and Zip Lines

We drove by this really cool playground from the airport to our flat. Since then the girls have been BEGGING to go there pretty much every waking minute! Cole looked it up on-line to make sure we knew how to get there and stumbled across another language barrier issue. You see, it's really hard to look things up when you're not really sure what they're called. In the US, we'd call this a playground. Well, here in Scotland, they call it a play park! With super sleuthing skills and the keen desire to make his girls happy, Cole located Meadows Park, which is a half mile or so south of our flat.  According to Wikipedia, it used to be a lake (er, loch) and was home to both of Edinburgh’s soccer teams.
 
We thought about going to see a game involving one of those soccer teams (Heart of Midlothian), but got off to a slow start as Claire adjusted to the lack of sleep and refused to budge out of bed until noon. Instead, we journeyed out to The Meadows, because the girls just had to go visit. Can’t say we blame them:  It looked really cool from the cab!

On the way in, we passed a guitar shop. Cole remarked that rock stars get their guitars from places like this, and incidentally, that he used to be a rock star. As usual, Katie wasn’t buying it. Just then, a couple in front of us turned around, and the lady said, “There he is!”  Cole turned to Katie and said, “See?” The man then told Cole that he was great back in the 80s and asked who it was that was opening for him. Van Halen, of course (but both agreed that they weren’t very good...the man referred to them as “rubbish,” which might have been harsh).
 
Despite the kindness of strangers, Katie still wasn’t buying it.
 

The kids had an absolute blast at the playground. There were all sorts of playsets and weird and fun contraptions. The jewel was a miniature zip wire (!) that spanned two posts about fifteen feet tall. Katie tried it a few times, and then Dani went next.

At night, we did only a little stroll through a rather crowded part of Edinburgh. We let them peek through a small bar window to see some musicians playing, and hope that we’ll get them some time at a real concert later, Claire-permitting.