Edinburgh smells like I remember. Not the way it smelled when we left, but the way it smelled when we arrived.

The winter managed to kill off the wafts of beef stew that would seep into your flat and clothing and hair. The brewing hops that had welcomed us to Scotland lay stewing in their own juices during the relentless 50-degree-and-raining 9-month winter.

But as soon as we got off the plane, we could smell it. Thick and steamy and brought on by the chill of the warm summer breeze. The scent may seem like a small thing, but it has since rekindled the feeling of excitement moving here created last September. It reminds me of staying in a youth hostel. It reminds me of the first time I walked up the Royal Mile, jittery with tourist emotion and the knowledge that really, I wasn't a tourist here. I was just play acting. It reminds me of whipping out my camera at inappropriate times to get that perfect photo. It reminds me of the first gray day in the fall when we meandered out to the Zoo, and we had to bundle up against the chill to watch the otters play. It reminds me of the the Highlands, and the coming winter and the Wildlife Park and yelling "curb!" at appropriate intervals while Jonmikel learned to drive on the wrong side. It reminds me of all the hope and promise of the coming year and the coming classes at a university as old as the oldest city in the US.

But in the last year, some of the drudgery has gotten to me. I've become used to the surroundings, used to the accent, used to the conversion rate, used to looking right when crossing the road. I've become grouchy about the size of my flat, grouchy about how the pubs close at midnight, grouchy about the price of movie tickets, grouchy about the banks and bureaucracy and education. I stopped taking my camera out because that's what tourists do, and besides, I'd seen it all before, right? I became the quintessential, all knowing, condescending expatriate. And the beef stew smell disappeared.

I'm not saying there's some kind of symbolic or spiritual connection between the smell of Scotland and some existential need for excitement. But I am saying that in my imagination, the smell I first caught wind of as soon as I stepped off the plane in Edinburgh has returned, and with it a renewed sense of how much fun it is to be a tourist. How much fun it is to see new things in your own hometown.

It's a shame that feeling has taken this long to return. Bad-Autumn-Day-Like winters will do that to you. But as much as Scotland has NOT smelled like brewing hops, it will forever smell like it in my mind.