Edinburgh
May/June 2019
Yet another weekend in Edinburgh – this time for the Edinburgh Marathon Festival, as Amy was running her first half-marathon in Scotland. Prior to the race, however, we got to enjoy catching up with our friend Laura, her mother Diemut, and uncle Markus. The weekend travelled rather quickly, so this is a rather short entry, mostly for me to get my thoughts down.
Having Saturday morning to ourselves and having seen much of Edinburgh already, Amy and I went to see the Surgeon’s Hall Museum, a dorky and utterly niche museum for those with the interest. Filled from wall to wall with pathology, anatomy, and peculiar specimens, we both found it quite interesting. That being said, like Charité in Berlin, it wouldn’t be for everyone...
After spending the afternoon catching up with Laura, Diemut, and Markus, we sat down for dinner at a rather odd, yet surprisingly tasty Italian/Turkish fusion restaurant. A mix of hummus, labne, pizzas, and pide made for excellent pre-race food.
The following day began rather early with Amy starting at 8am sharp. Seeing her off at the starting line, I then made my way to Edinburgh central for breakfast, and to catch my train to Wallyford, where the race finished. After enjoying a delightfully unhealthy scrambled egg and tattie scone roll at Snax Cafe, I set off.
The weather was typically Scottish; cool, somewhat dreary, with light rain throughout the day - "dreich" being the entirely appropriate Scots word for it. Meeting an exhausted Amy at the finish line, we soon made our way back to Edinburgh and The City Café, for an emergency sugar hit: pancakes.
Our weekend finished with a walk around Edinburgh – namely to see the vintage shops of Cockburn street. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find anything that worked for me, but enjoyed the chance to peruse many a terrible Hawaiian shirt, hipster overalls, and overpriced trainers. We took the long way home to check out the Edinburgh Meadows. It was a still, warm, and somewhat eerily calm afternoon.
As I needed to head home that evening for work the next day, we had a simple pub dinner at The Advocate on Blair street. I enjoyed the chance to spend more time with the extended Holz family family and to talk about the state of modern Germany - particularly their thoughts on the ongoing MEP elections, given the ongoing saga of Brexit. From memory, Markus had his 2nd or 3rd serving of fish and chips in as many days, which I found rather amusing - but to be fair, when you run a marathon you can eat what you want.
Unfortunately that was all the time I had, as the weekend quickly passed me by. Amy was able to stay another day, but I headed home on the 11.32PM to Glasgow. Back to real life.
… and yet several weeks later we were back again to attend the Royal Highland Show – basically like the Perth Royal Show, but in Kilts. I found myself surprisingly swept up in the pageantry of everything, and at different times found myself transfixed on show jumping, cheering for sheep shearers, or being awed by an aerial show with proud eagles and surprisingly sassy vultures.
As we were leaving, we received a message from one of Amy’s football friends, Emer, who was here with her family and friends who were over from Ireland. We then proceeded to Edinburgh and Malone's bar, where we had several drinks before the Ceilidh kicked off up stairs. Unfortunately, I had to endure the Australia vs Norway WWC semi-final, where we lost dismally on penalties.
Catching the night bus back in the wee hours of the morning, I returned to real life yet again – properly this time - and we had a well-earned week off from travel.
JC
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.”
Anais Nin
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