Heathrow. Passport control. Underground at the height of the morning rush. Finally, King’s Cross for our train to Edinburgh. We had reserved seats on the “Flying Scotsman” (which is British funny talk for “Amtrak Metroliner”); the tweedy, tartan, wood-paneled image conjured by the title is proudly flaunted by the next train over. Ours looks as if has just arrived, non-stop, from nineteen seventy-eight, but it’s comfortable enough. The English countryside, viewed from the Great North-Eastern Railway, is about as tamed as land can get. The occasional surprises are architectural—the manors, the towns, the ruins, the nuclear power plants—exactly the opposite of New Zealand, which looks as if it ordered its buildings out of the Sears catalog and plunked them down on the most stunning landscape known to man. But as we cross into Scotland, the natural beauty is apparent. I find myself scanning for “For Sale” signs on the lonely stone houses overlooking the roiling North Sea.

Edinburgh springs up out of nowhere. You’re in the countryside, you see a few scattered houses, and all of a sudden you’re downtown. Rob and I are too preoccupied with navigating our bags up all the stairs and orienting ourselves via the street signs to take in much of the breathtaking cityscape. It’s midafternoon, and we’ve been going since what is now yesterday morning; we leave sightseeing for later and focus on finding our bed and breakfast. Against all odds, I have memorized the map from their web site and manage to steer us down the busy streets (completely unmarked, by American standards) to the “gay-owned, straight-friendly” bed and breakfast Rob found in a guidebook. It is in a row of two hundred other beds and breakfast with alternating “Vacancies” and “No Vacancies” signs. I wonder what sorts of feelings exist between the various proprietors . . . on this street, everyone’s neighbors are in the exact same business and are, in fact, direct competitors. In America, they’d drag out the neon, but everything here is quite tasteful.

After checking in, Rob and I take the longest half-hour power nap in the history of the universe (it’s a fact that a half hour in American time is two hours Scottish) and decide to go out for dinner. Unfortunately, in the interim, night has fallen and it has begun raining: not a drizzle, not a downpour, but a steady, cold shower that soaks me to the bone, pools in my newly swabbed ears, and freezes the inside of my head. The other pedestrians do not seem affected. No one here walks with an umbrella so I don’t regret not having mine, but I wish I’d thought to pack a jacket with a hood. I’m blinded by the rain on my glasses, my jaw has seized up from the cold, and I’m irritable from discomfort. Luckily, Rob’s ears are clogged and he doesn’t perceive this. I want him to have a good time.

We cross the city, peruse a bookstore, and end up in a restaurant on the Royal Mile, where the friendly waitresses cluck over our waterlogged clothes and make us feel like long-lost friends. It’s warm, the food is delicious (I think Rob’s clothes get more of it than his mouth does), and after a bottle of wine and a scandalous dessert, we feel no pain. Even the smoke (these people seem not to have heard of smoke-free establishments) is not as problematic for my sickly lungs as it might be. Afterward, we drag ourselves back to the room and discover to our happy surprise that the bed and breakfast offers a wireless Internet connection, but we’re too tired to get much use out of it. Melatonin to smooth over any lingering jet lag, then luxurious sleep.

Note: This is my seven hundreth entry on this web log since it began. According to nine out of ten Edinburghers, that is officially a great many.