Edinburrrraaa

I didn't write the title because it is cold here, quite the opposite--it is rather pleasant. Instead this is how it is said. I don't know what happened to the "gh." It apparently went the way of the "d" in ceilidh.
We had a good day yesterday, very relaxing for the most part. We saw Dolly the sheep. She is in a glass case and she spins around. Why does it have to spin? You can walk all the way around it.
We also did a tour of Mary King's Close. There is a whole underground city in Edinburgh. The decapitated buildings to use the buildings as a foundation for a new government building. The lower levels are where all the poor people lived and most died due to the plague and all sorts of other difficulties, most of which included human and animal waste. The tour was a bit cheesey but fun. However, they didn't really touch on the social ills that were reflected in the system. But I guess most people wouldn't want to hear about how they basically locked all the poor people in so that they could die without infecting the rich. Oh well.
Then last night we went back to the gay bar where we were told that we were boring by a drunk woman. And here is what I realized: I will never be the bar boy in the tight t-shirt. I will always be the one who is slightly awkward. And at first I thought life is full of grief. We are always grieving something: I'll never be that gay boy. I'll never have the relationship with my family that I want. I'll never be the kind of twin that people think of when they think of twins. But then I thought well why does it have to be grief at all, why can't it be a constant celebration of who I am rather than grieving what I am not. I recognize that it is largely semantic, but it is also a reframing of how I and we see life. Rather than thinking of what we have lost we instead think of what we have been gifted with.
So today we are going to probably go to the modern art museum and maybe see the Queen's ship the Britania that is berthed and being decomissioned here in Edinburgh. But I'm a big groggy today because of all the drinking last night so we'll see how much we do today. Neither of us are the pack all sorts of things into a schedule anyway. Then tomorrow we head back to New York and then Wednesday it is home. I'll be glad to be home where I can sleep in my own bed and wash clothes. All my clothes stink just a little now.
Cheers!