Oskar's Edinburgh

Oskar’s Edinburgh

Travel to a new land is like looking at the world through the eyes of a child. So what better guide to a new city can there be, than an actual two year old child?

It’s apparently easy enough to pick up a toddler at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden. They’re quite numerous and their fees are quite reasonable. Our guide was two year old Oskar. A Swedish / American who’s lived in Scotland for his WHOLE LIFE, so clearly he knows the area. His reasonable fees included the drawing of fire trucks and hands, an ongoing game of “that’s MY pillow”, and a local “peekaboo” derivation centered around the phrase “BOOGADABOOGADA!”

Oskar’s tour began in the Botanic Garden itself, or “Tanic Arrrenn” as the locals seem to call it. A tour of the “Duck House” turned out to be a beautiful Asian pagoda bordering a pond which housed a variety of the promised waterfowl. The Scottish accent is a bit rough on American understanding, and one might have thought that our guide was referring to said waterfowl as he demanded we visit the “Wafaaaa”. But that attraction turned out to be a pleasant artificial waterfall. Our wonderful tour of the gardens ended where the Royal Botanic Garden is in the early stages of building a new visitor’s center. At that site we saw a variety of “Digger” that Oskar was quite delighted with. Apparently the Scottish “D” is a bit soft, and until I saw the heavy machinery, I was afraid that our tour guide was quite an outspoken racist. Particularly with the frequency and vehemence by which he repeated that word.

With a “Bye Bye! Ocah sweep!” we realized the main part of our tour had come to an end. The Toddler Tour isn’t long, but it’s intense and our guide left us with some sage wisdom with which we could explore some more of the Scottish Capitol:

“Beep Beep!” Oskar reminded us that though we were in Britain, only SOME of the residents walk on the sidewalk as if they were driving on the left side of the road. This made navigation a bit difficult, especially as we were loaded up with out big rucksacks.

“Hewecopa”. Though it took a bit of demonstration and game playing to realize our Shirpa-baby was declaring “Helicopter”, it was wonderful advice that we ought to climb the hill to the Castle and get some height over the city. I’d been inside the castle previously, and an additional “Beep Beep” from Oskar assured us that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for us to brave the throngs of fellow tourists and high entry fee.

“Wob dwink!” Indeed it was necessary for Wob to sample a bit of the national brew. Wob isn’t typically a Scotch drinker, but it’s not called Scotch here, it’s just whisky. Or is it just whiskey? Hmm, there’s a point I’ll have to check in with my guide about. Apparently Wob is most fond of the single malts from the Islay region, when it’s imperative to drink scotch, but I’m not likely to make a habit of it.

I did actually just email Oskar to get a clarification on the “E” in whisky / whiskey. Unfortunately his typed response is as follows:

U;ouihioioiooujujfujiwsiojdklj;lnksijopsdipjsdaf34
777UJHN JHUYJHNJHYUHJN HYHN HYHNHYHN HYTGHJKJUYTRFEDWSEDRFTGYHU.

I’ll have to double check that in a book.