appreciating edinburgh weather

Today was classic Edinburgh. Cold, blustery and rainy all morning. I worried that Lynn and the kids got doused on the way to school, since I saw Lynn didn't take an umbrella. By early afternoon, the sun came out and my office got uncomfortably warm. By nightfall, the wind had picked up, the rain returned, and I got partly drenched on the way home, because the wind rendered my umbrella nearly useless. I fully appreciated the Edinburgh mindset of: "I'll just get there and dry off." The wind is still blowing hard, and the rain is so odd it is funny. Nothing for a while, then a rapid patter on the windows and skylights, lasting as long as 5 minutes but often as short at 5 seconds. It is not unusual to walk through town and find a 50ft length of wet pavement surrounded by dryness. That's where it rained.

I leave for Venice tomorrow morning. The more I do this the more I realize I'm just not a good international traveller. It's rather embarrassing, really-- but it makes me anxious. I don't like changing money, or trying to figure out transportation. Sometimes I worry I should really just stick to the US, Canada, and the UK (I wouldn't have previously put the UK in there, but I can hardly claim to be anxious about traveling around here now).

The UK Border Agency gave us most of our VAT tax back. Rather, they sent us a letter saying they would, which is probably pretty much a guarantee. Everything takes longer here-- and just when you think nothing is going to happen, it finally gets sorted.

Lynn's social calendar is amazing. There's stuff for her and the kids to do constantly. I'm exhausted just looking at it all. I'm also exhausted working on this manuscript resubmission. As usual, I underestimated the work required to just get it done. I'll be spending all of my 5 hours in Schipol tomorrow on that.

Cheers from dark and stormy Dunedin!

From Wikipedia:
"Edinburgh has also been known as Dunedin, deriving from the Scottish Gaelic, Dùn Èideann. Dunedin, New Zealand, was originally called "New Edinburgh" and is still nicknamed the "Edinburgh of the South". The Scots poets Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson sometimes used the city's Latin name, Edina. Ben Jonson described it as Britain's other eye,[32] and Sir Walter Scott referred to the city as yon Empress of the North.[33]"

Here's my personal favorite:
"Robert Louis Stevenson, also a son of the city, wrote, 'Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be'."