Exploring a Slushy City

We woke up to learn that not much had changed over night, although the good news was that the conference was still at “go” and the opening dinner and social would still be held at the Science museum. The “gritters” had been out treating the streets overnight, but the bus service was still not running.  The “snow wardens” were apparently shoveling streets in places, but not in any places we visited.  I was a bit appalled that no one would bother to clear off their side walks, after all, the front of each house only has about 40 ft of narrow sidewalk in front of it, which even if you only have a broom is not hard to clear off.  But the walks were all a churned up mess of slush which was getting wetter and slushier as the day warmed a bit.

The one bright side to the day was the lovely Full Scottish Breakfast that our host prepared for us:  eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, stewed tomato, toast.  One student remarked on the second morn

ing “I’ve been looking forward to this breakfast since breakfast yesterday”.

Even though Holyrood Palace was closed, we decided to start the day down there and walk up the Royal Mile to explore further (I was hoping Mary King’s Close would be open since it was an indoor attraction and shouldn’t be bothered by the snow...no luck).  We asked our hostess to call two cabs and were told it would be at least an hour, so the group settled back down in their rooms to relax.  Then 10 minutes later our hostess knocked on the door and said the cabs were coming now.  We scrambled to get our warm gear together and get out the door. 

In a very short time we got dropped at the Palace, got some outdoor pictures, got a refund for our tickets (the ticket office was open, but not the Palace), and headed up the Royal Mile.  We stopped in souvenir and whiskey shops along the way, make our way up the street to St. Gils cathedral.   We eventually came across an open cafe (nearly empty, yea!) with traditional meals – Mash (potatos) with other things.  Meals were great, one member of the group tried haggis (which soon became a group favorite by the end of the trip).  We also ordered a toffee pudding and shared it for dessert. 

The original plan was to swing by conference registration in the afternoon and then head back to the B and B, but my feet were wet and cold enough that I decided just to grab our registration pack at the opening social in the evening.  The good news was that the bus system started running a limited service at noon, so we hopped on our first city bus and returned to clean up and get ready for our Scottish formal.