Ahh, Edinburgh

What will I miss about you?

• The rain that’s just harder than a mist, dampening and streaking the towering gray buildings, themselves darkened with decades of black soot. The feeling of being surrounded with damp, solid stone, even underfoot.
• The sound of black cabs rushing over wet cobbled streets, taillights red in the darkness.
• The spikey spires of weird gothic churches thrusting over the rooftops.
• Wandering in the maze of narrow streets and towering old buildings, under stone overpasses, down hidden staircases, through haunted passageways in basements, past tight tunnel-like closes, into bright dead-end courtyards, always finding another level up in this city-built-on-a-city.
• Sitting in a pub, having a pint of real ale, looking out over a real castle.
• Scottish accents, especially after a couple of those pints.
• The clean, fresh, damp cold. I usually hate being cold, but this is different.
• Looking up sometimes at the bleak gray sky, and realizing just how far north I really am, what an outpost this city is.
• Watching out the window as the drunken punters weave and scream their way home at midnight (the bars close), 1am (the other bars close), and 3 am (those other bars close).
• Knowing you’re walking around on some of the oldest rocks in Europe, with some of the strangest histories. Scotland started off near the South Pole, originally attached to North America; drifted up through phases as a rainforest, a desert, and a glacier-covered tundra; and finally broke off and bashed into Europe, eating part of England’s northern end in subduction, spitting it out in giant volcanoes–the eroded plugs of which you can walk around on: Castle Hill and Arthur’s Seat. Hadrian’s Wall was built pretty near where the two countries collided, centuries before anyone had ever heard of “continental drift”.
• The wonderful people I’ve met here, Scottish and otherwise–Alice, Paul, Olivia, Simone, Barry, the Neils, Christine, Mike, Anne, Yvonne, Steve, Vicki, Dave, George, Topper. They come from everywhere, from Brazil to Australia, from France to America. It’s a cool mix.
• Bagpipes. Seriously, it grows on you.
• Trying to forget that haggis is made of lungs and scraps, mixed with meal, and boiled in a stomach. Why does it taste good? Why??

Related Posts

• Badassical
  That is all....
• Ich habe mit meinem Herz hämmerte
  "We're in a road movie to Berlin Can't drive out the way we drove in So sneak out this glass of bourbon And we'll go "We were once so close to heaven Peter came out and gave us medals Declar...
• Inauguration Countdown, Day Seven: Europe Version
  I was in France when the tide started turning. Sunday, August 28, 2005: My 27th birthday. Katrina became a category 5 hurricane at ten a.m., and aimed itself at the Gulf Coast. I was packed, sittin...