Blustery walks

It was an early morning start (not intentionally, one of the perks of sharing a wall with a youngin). After a quick meal of toast and jam, we headed off on our walk towards the National Gallery. The sky was overcast and spitting, so we swung by a Starbucks (much to D’s chagrin) and grabbed coffee and hot chocolate to warm us up. It was a leisurely walk down the street, and we discovered what looked to be some good fresh fish markets on the way. We made our way down to South Bridge and crossed over to Princes Street, one of the main shopping streets in Edinburgh. We headed over to the gallery, whose promenade afforded a great view of the city. The nice thing about UK museums and galleries is that they’re free, so we were soon admiring the bevy of landscape-filled paintings and tartan-clad portraits that lined the hushed halls of the gallery. Jet lag was weirdly starting to creep in, and both D and I were feeling distinctly drowsy as we wandered through. We hit the Scottish collection and checked-out some works by Robert Burns before heading out to find some lunch.

It had gotten distinctly colder since we went inside, and we were eager to find a place to eat to get out of the blustery cold. We finally found an Italian joint known as Ciao Roma (apparently Sean Connery had been there), which looked tasty. Apparently Mr. Connery was right to patronize the place, as we had a delicious lunch of carbonara and gnocchi. We headed to the University of Edinburgh to check-out a language and informatics poster session being held. We were seriously slowing down, so we managed to track down Chung-hye to grab a key for the apartment and head home for a nap. On the way back, we stopped off and got groceries along with fresh trout and shrimp so we could make dinner. We were out not long after we arrived back at the apartment, and napped for a couple hours before starting dinner. D made his delicious béchamel sauce and trout for Chung-hye and Anoop, and tried a “Sweetheart Stout” beer along with it. Evidently, the beer had gotten the “sweet” part right, and with only 2% alcohol, tasted pretty much like soda. We finished off a leisurely evening planning the weekend (which will possibly include our renting a car and driving out to the West Highlands).