Drizzles
I was up and out the door at a decent hour, as there was a set of talks at the conference that were particularly relevant for my work (pretty much the only set of talks). I trekked up in the direction of the conference, stopping briefly at the supermarket to pick up a sandwich for breakfast (cheese & onion, which isn’t a combination I’d really encountered before I got here). The talks were good, and certainly extremely pertinent to my dissertation proposal. Along with my advisor, I stayed behind to chat with one of the presenters about some of his findings before heading to the poster session. D is not a fan of crowds normally; however, he looked to be in fine form at his poster, chatting animatedly. It did appear to be less crowded and not quite as suffocatingly hot today. Plus, D’s poster was sandwiched between two posters belonging to people he knew (his advisor on one side).
I made a several laps of the poster session, chatting with a few poster presenters that were relevant to my interests before finding a quiet corner to get some work in. I stayed in the afternoon to listen to the plenary talk on bilingual language processing, while D went a few doors down to tour the Scottish Portrait Gallery. We were both feeling hungry and a little beat and decided to head off in search of food. Seeing as it was only just after 4 pm, we stopped in at Bramble before a drink. D opted for the eponymous drink, Bramble, which was basically a boozy blackberry snow cone, and I had a delicious Mint 500 (gin, lime juice, apple juice and peach bitters, amongst other things). D had heard about a good pub a bit further south called Blue Blazers, so we headed off in the drizzle in search of it.
We popped into TopShop on Princes Street to get me another scarf, where David tried on the pointiest pair of shoes he’d ever worn (which he dubbed to be city goblin shoes, as distinct from rural goblins). After a brief panic that we’d miss the turn off, we finally found the pub. It was packed and bustling with who looked to be boisterous locals having after-work drinks. We managed to squeeze in and find a small table, though it quickly became apparent that they did not serve food. Nevertheless, D grabbed himself a pint and a dram of whisky from the Isle of Mull (absolutely delicious apparently), and I had a split of Prosecco (also lovely). After much waffling, we ultimately decided on heading back to La P’tite Folie for dinner, which was only about 10 minutes away.
Thankfully, the restaurant had 2 levels, where people with reservations went up to the top floor and those without stayed on the ground level, so we didn’t have to fight for a table. I quickly spied gnocchi in a rosemary cream sauce for an appetizer, along with a roast pork filet with caramelized apples and light Dijon cream sauce. David opted for the soup of the day, roasted red peppers and tomato, along with a rump of lamb with gratin Dauphinois. David ordered a Ricard, a classic French aperitif, and our waitress was highly amused/aghast to see him pour water into it (which D said was traditionally how they’re drank in France). Our food was delicious–I had been craving mashed potatoes, and they certainly delivered. We were full of tasty goodness for our bus ride home on Edinburgh’s double-deckers back to the apartment.