Forgotten Post or Leaving Edinburgh by Car

A good traveler has no fixed plans and 
is not intent on arriving: 
LAO TZU
However, he does not always know which side of the road to drive on: John Pisano

I felt I should post about renting a car and driving in Scotland with the Sun as my co-pilot. We said our goodbyes at the Edinburgh B&B and prepared to take the bus to the train station to pick up our car. As we are standing there waiting, this lovely couple from that we chatted up at the B&B offered us a ride to the station. We gratefully excepted.

Arriving at the rental car place their was a short line. An attractive woman behind the counter began looking up our reservation and offered us a bigger car as a free upgrade. Now, normally in America this would have been a good thing however, here I wanted the smaller car knowing the difficulties in driving in Europe with tiny streets. To no avail, she was proud to offer me the upgrade and by the time she was through with me, I felt it was my god given right to take it. Now comes the good part where she pulls out a rate sheet with the collision damage wavier fees as she explains the worth of the car and how much is our liability if anything should happen. As it is expensive about 60% of the car rental, I had to think and talk it over with Bill. At that price, the insurance they offered us was what is known as Peace of Mind wavier, I swear that is what it is called and it means we have ZERO liability.
I said to Bill "What to you think" Bill laughs and says "ok." As we are walking toward the car I say to Bill, Wow, that wavier was expensive" he turns to me and says "What wavier." The one you agreed on and nodded your head. He said "I didn't hear a word you said but figured you knew what you were doing". Oh, ok, as I rolled my eyes heavenly. Be that as it may, off we went.

We picked up our nice, black 4 door car with hatchback from the lot. Now the fun begins, I get on the right side of the car because as you know the steering wheel is there but I am not used to having to worry about the left side of the car. After almost taking off our mirror, getting close enough to a few cars that Bill yell "watch out" and driving the wrong way and coming face to face with another car, and we had not left the parking lot yet, we were on our merry way. The street grid for this wonderful, old cities is fantastic to walk but a nightmare to drive your car. They also had the nerve without checking first with us to close certain streets that our directs told us to take out of the city. So around and around we went, and speaking off around and around, you know the funny English comedies that show cars going around and around the roundabouts well they are not so funny when you are attempting to drive for the first time. My simplistic mind says either go right, go left, straight ahead or stay home. But, no not here, I went around the first roundabout 3 times, cutting people off, not yielding the right of way and unable to get out because people were boxing me in. Locals yelled, shook their heads, gave us the finger and generally wish we never arrived on their shores.
We did finally make it out of the city and toward our Castle hotel which was a beautiful drive. As we came up to the hotel, a gentle for rolling in, it was like a scene out of Brigadoon, some unreal place coming to life.