DAY ELEVEN: HALOUMI IN EDINBURGH

PDT readers, where were you at 4 AM this morning?  Probably asleep in bed, or if you're Sandra Bullock, Sr., snapping awake to start your day.  EDT readers, where were you at 7?  Drinking coffee in the kitchen?  Riding the train to work?

Totally reasonable lunch.

Here's where I was at that time, noon here in Edinburgh, shortly after dropping both Sandra Bullocks at the Balmoral Hotel for (high? afternoon? late-morning?) tea: about 500 feet away, stuffing my face with haloumi fries and drinking a beer, watching a guy whose capo was about three frets from the top play Radiohead covers in some sort of food truck park.  For San Francisco locals, picture Off the Grid only you don't need a parka, and instead of 78 food trucks there's about 15, along with 5 bars.  

How did I end up here?  How did I fall so far from starting my day with push-ups, sit-ups, a banana and a glass of orange juice?  

Part of it's not my fault.  If you're walking around in a strange country and you have to go to the bathroom and you see a bunch of people sitting at picnic tables drinking beer and behind them is a sign that says "toilets" so you think, "Hey, good deal.  I can use those bathrooms!" except you don't get more than five steps inside the set-up when you see the guy playing the guitar and to your left a small food truck with the word CHEESE written on the side, what are you supposed to do?. Use the "willpower" Sandra Bullock (Jr.) so desperately wishes I have and struggles to understand why I don't?  As if.  

I was drawn to the word cheese like a foolish moth to a flame.  Before I could stop myself I'd already ordered the haloumi fries.  I'm lying.  I had to stand there for about five minutes while the two people working inside the truck finished up on the massive grilled cheese sandwiches they were making.

Okay, okay, full disclosure:  I stood there waiting, watched a woman pick up her order, asked another woman if I was in the right line and then ordered my stuff, which would "be ready in a few minutes," so even if I'd left the front of the Balmoral Hotel with the greatest intentions, namely to "walk for 75 minutes and log as many steps as possible while also scouting out A) the place we're supposed to meet our guide for tomorrow's Hadrian's Wall Tour and B) the place we're doing Whisky tasting at 5 PM today," clearly by the time I found myself standing in front of a bar with a five pound note in my hand these plans had been scrapped.

Next thing is me with the beer and the haloumi fries -- which are basically like fried mozzarella, sub haloumi, and not for nothing but there's NO WAY I'd waltz up to a food truck at noon and order fried mozzarella, what do you think I am, anyway? -- leaning casually

Not everyone is impressed by the unicycle

against a barrel laid on end, watching the guy with the capo butcher "Pink Plastic Trees."  "Jesus," I thought.  "I'm really going to kill myself here with the cheese.  I should start carrying around those EMT paddles along with my Blistex and pack of gum."  Then I glanced at the next table. There sat a group of Americans, southern subset, overweight with fu manchu moustaches and Dale, Jr. baseball caps, chowing burgers, drinking beer and smoking.  After that I felt better, and motivated to spend the remaining 45 minutes of my time/S.B.s' tea time hoofing up and down the streets of Old Town Edinburgh, which has nothing in common with Old Town Scottsdale besides a name and instead of western wear stores it has places to buy a kilt, climbing hills and dodging all the tourists who come to Pier 39 when they're in San Francisco, because that's where you can also see a guy make giant bubbles with a wand while riding a unicycle.

Meanwhile, the Bullocks were at the Balmoral, garbed up in their finest, recreating the tea experience we'd had at the Ritz only "not as grand," per S.B. Jr.  "And they had this cool way of pouring the tea."  She mimed holding a teapot in each hand, then raising each hand up over her head and bringing it back down to her side.  She got a kick out of that and you know what?  I get a kick out of Sandra Bullock getting a kick out stuff.  Then she showed me a picture of three small desserts and said, "One was chocolate mousse.  You would've like that."  Indeed I would've, though as an added bonus it would've put me one step closer to the heart attack I was already sprinting toward, propelled by haloumi fries. 

Threatening skies

Both Bullocks described themselves as "uncomfortably full," so we walked back through Edinburgh skies as threatening as Joe Pesci after someone's called him a funny guy.  All day they'd been full of wicked promise, dark, heavy clouds hanging low, climate vacillating between warm and sunny and cool and windy.  Finally, after we'd reached our Stockbridge pad and prepped for "another walk, only not in this direction," the weather delivered a taste of what our weather apps tell us we'll be "enjoying" for the next week (and maybe beyond).  Big drops fell on us while we walked along the Water of Leith to Dean Village, which has always been a village, will never be anything more than a village, is much smaller than it looked on the map, but still had some cool buildings built in the 18th and 19th centuries and yet way more sophisticated than the Croft House in Shetland, which was built at the same time.

Speaking of Shetland, I haven't completely shed my Shetland state of mind (apologies to Billy Joel).  Every time we pass a nice restaurant or specialty retail store, I think, "Oh, wow, they have that here!"  immediately followed by "Oh, that's right; we're in Edinburgh now."

Edinburgh:  population 489,000.

One other thing they do not have in Dean Village: any sort of retail shops, including shops that sell postcards, which are Sandra Bullock Sr.'s preferred method of storing visual memories.  While her daughter vigorously snaps away, gathering dozens of images from which to choose 10 (no more, no less) for her daily Facebook post (so far not censored by Mark Zuckerberg), Sr. stands pat, arms folded, phone stored safely in her bag, not even tempted by the historic and pastoral scenery all around.  "I prefer postcards," she'll say simply if asked.

I just glanced outside.  No rain.  Ahead of us today is the whiskey tasting.  Not a one of us knows fact one about whiskey.  We're going in cold, sponges waiting to soak up whatever knowledge we can glean from our hosts/teachers/whatever other tourists are queued up for the "authentic Scotland experience."  I, of course, am already way over my limit per spirits learning, thanks to the tiny bearded bartender at the Tin of Sardines in Durham and feel, on some cellular level, like a newly-minted "gin guy."  I mean, as much of a "gin guy" as a Jewish guy can be.  There is a glass ceiling for non-WASPS, of course.  And S.B. senior is skeptical, muttering earlier today that she "can't tell the difference" between scotches when her husband Former Boeing Employee trots them out at home.

No worry.  I'm confident that we will, again, ride the breathtaking wave of my wife's enthusiasm and emerge an hour later full of scotch, scotch knowledge and a new appreciation for people like my friend Kimel, who totes scotch along on the golf course, carefully pours shots on the 11th tee and tosses them back, making blissful faces and calling the shots "swing lube."

Then we'll go to dinner.  

How about some numbers?

4,052 -- Scots wearing Birkenstocks downtown today.  Too many, if you ask me.  Of all the things to export.  Birkenstocks.  

2 -- cost, in pounds, to rent a lawn chair for an hour in Princes Garden.  Plenty of locals taking advantage of that deal today, getting in their sun time before the rain hits.

77 -- children surrounding the guy making bubbles in Old Town.  On a unicycle.  While making jokes about his own kids.

19,834 -- steps so far for me today, on knees that are becoming more and more balky for the first time in my life.  No matter.  As I told SB Jr. yesterday, "What am I going to do?  Go to the doctor?  Nope.  Are my knees are KD's achilles right now: at the edge, ready to go> I'm going to play anyway.  I play hurt.

59 -- cost, in dollars of the JBL bluetooth speaker we bought at Target before leaving San Francisco.  Great deal.  Every day, after our walk: the Dwight Yoakam station on satellite.

The head of a pin -- where you can fit everything I know about scotch.  That's about to change. 

In closing, thanks to everyone who mysteriously was able to post my link on Facebook.  I still cannot post it or even message it to anyone.  Maybe it's not the link Mark finds objectionable...?