And as all good things must come to an end, so did the business part of the trip.  After 2.5 days of presentations on data curation, data science, research data management and all the hallway discussions that went with them, my brain was full.  It was time to move on and the weather agreed:  it decided to snow during our last few hours in Edinburgh so we got well and truly soaked.

All in all it was a good few days.  Other than business travel and the occasional odd day in town while visiting family in Stirling, I never really get to Edinburgh.  We did a lot of walking – this is a 3D city:  no Google map can really do justice to the layers of buildings and roadways.  Our hotel was on Southbridge and the floor you entered the lobby at was at road level in the front but was the 4th floor.  The back of the building went down another 3 floors to the Cowgate which looks on a map like it crosses Southbridge but in fact it goes underneath it.  The hotel was fine: fabulous location, respectable albeit small room (although the plug placement and lack of clock in the room means I won’t rave about it) and very inexpensive:  the whole 5 days only cost $400.  Now breakfast wasn’t included in that rate so we did cough up an extra £10 each on the first few days for the buffet so that added a bit more.  But it was all you can eat and they had gluten free bread for me so I had bacon sandwiches on more than one occasion.  Then we found the lovely little cafe across the street where I could get bacon, fried eggs and beans for £4!  Yummy!

We did have some lovely meals and great pub time although we never did get to the local BBQ place. 😀 Our dinner at Cafe Rouge on our first night was very nice especially since there were GF items clearly marked on the menu and we were still to jetlagged to figure things out ourselves.  I had a very nice lunch with my friend Peter at Mother India Cafe where I experienced Indian tapas (and spicy haddock!) for the first time. The best meal by far and the one I would recommend most highly was dinner at Angels with Bagpipes, a place I normally would have overlooked because it’s on the Royal Mile which usually means that it’s a tourist stop. Not so!  We were joined by another friend for a lovely dinner (lamb for me, venison for Frank and Bill with haggis to start!) with wine and whisky with the haggis for the boys and all the trimmings.

We also had the chance to check out a few pubs.  We made a quick stop at the Edinburgh installation of Brew Dog where they had just tapped the keg of their gluten free beer – which means that Bill has the honor of having been with me both times that I have been able to have GF beer on draft.  Two other pubs worth a mention are local landmarks.  We had drinks with our friend Stuart at the Sandy Bells, self described world renowned folk bar.  Indeed, we sat at the back of the bar and were quickly displaced by half a dozen folks with fiddles who proceeded to sit and play.  Not necessarily as a performance but just as a group of people playing traditional fiddle music. First time that’s ever happened! We also made a quick stop at the Royal Oak, another folk bar right by the hotel.  It can’t hold more than two dozen people and there was a solo guitarist playing everything from Dylan to Bowie while we were there but it was still quite entertaining.  I’d love to find the equivalent in KC!

Now that we are on the “visit” portion of the trip, we are far less likely to have such experiences.  On one hand it’s a welcome change because we are staying in an AirBnB flat that we’ve stayed in before so even that feels like home.  We made tea and did some laundry before heading to Cambusbarron for the annual knees up and “box of curry” which has been described repeatedly in the travel blog and has yet again resulted in the need for lots of ibuprofen and coffee this morning.  I’d like to think we’ll learn our lesson some day but somehow I doubt it. 🙂