Today is a down day - much writing and some reading and feeling vaguely ill. Perhaps it’s the sudden reintroduction of caffeine to my system, or the jet lag or the recovery from long-term sleep deprivation. Or the French yogurt. We are eating very late: it’s light til 10 PM here (we’re closer to the Arctic Circle than Moscow), so we keep being startled that it’s 9:30 and we’re just thinking of dinner. Good practice for our brief time in Spain coming up next week.

I was almost killed by a Mercedes yesterday, as I was the last time I was here. As I approach intersections, I check both directions about four times because you never know where the car will be coming from. Half the streets are one way, but I’ve got to cover the wrong-side traffic issue AND the turning into the wrong-lane traffic issue on the one-ways. I do not manage this as well as you might think. I check and then I go and then I check again instinctively - this time the wrong direction - as one does when in mid-crossing. Good luck. With the near-death and the getting lost, you’d think I’d stay in the hotel more, but I press forward.

Spent six hours in a cafe? writing, joined up with R. and, after a rough day, he braved haggis at a nice pub we found. It was so finely ground and so not served in the actual sheep’s stomach in which it is traditionally cooked - as the waiter noted, “It’s cooked in a plastic dish.” - that it was actually very tasty and looked remarkably like grainy meatloaf. R.’s braver than I am in matters culinary and we love him for it.