Illusions & Potions

I took the kids down to the lobby. Noah found his ideal world: sunny-side-up eggs that were over medium, and a mixed juice he insisted reminded him of Gatorade. Layla worked through a small mountain of yogurt with dried fruit, and orange juice.

I talked Noah into trying haggis, then a green smoothie — spinach, cucumber, kiwi, lime. He didn't love either, but he tried both. I'm pretty sure he'd have enjoyed it if he hadn't seen it.

A short walk from the hotel, the kids' first real Edinburgh stop: an optical-illusions museum spread across five floors. A school group was working its way through too — every staff member quietly steered us around them. "Don't worry, I'm moving them up a floor in two minutes."

Noah went straight for the spinning tunnel and went through it five times. I tried it once and almost fell over. Layla, smaller and less committed to any single exhibit, was happy to lean on every glowing button she could find.

Of everything in the building, this was my favorite. Stand on one side of a tilted, false-perspective room and you tower; cross over, and the person who was huge a moment ago is suddenly half your size. Photos sell it. Watching it happen in real time, with Noah and me trading places, is funnier than it has any right to be.

We picked our potions from a printed menu. Kits arrived at the table — bottles, droppers, charms, a small instruction card per drink — and we got to work.

My favorite moment of the whole day: Noah dropping in his "magic orb that he's not supposed to touch." We didn't know it was loaded. Food coloring bloomed through the glass; dry-ice smoke poured over the rim. He giggled the second it plopped, then watched, eyes huge, as the cup did the rest.

Layla drank hers from a small terracotta flowerpot and decided this was now the only acceptable vessel for any beverage, anywhere, going forward.

Between Camera Obscura and Potions and dinner, we walked. Edinburgh's center is uphill in every direction at once — every cobbled rise has a different church, a different vista, a different busker. Bagpipes, jackhammers, a thousand voices in a dozen accents.

Lunch was at Makars Mash Bar — different meats over mashed potato, the sharp Scottish cheddar in the mash doing most of the heavy lifting. We ate outside, in the shade, in a wind tunnel; we left looking for shelter. We found it at The Milkman, on Cockburn Street: tiny, bright, exactly the warming-up we needed.

At one point Layla announced "I'm so tired" and was somehow asleep in the stroller a minute later, oblivious to the racket.