GREEN!!!
The joy of the monday night pub crawl:
After Bible study over tasty Chicken Tikka paninis at Elephant House (21 George IV Bridge) I headed over to Three Sisters (139 Cowgate) to meet flatmates in anticipation of hardcore karaeoke. I saw people I recognized from the Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence (AKA The Church of Scientology of Scotland, AKA the site where I had a staring contest with a Scientologist and won - a major achievement) who I avoided in order to bypass communication. Liz and James arrived quickly to save me, with several others dawdling somewhere on the streets. After carefully scouring the song catalogue (and having a heated internal debate over "Dear Prudence" by Siouxie and the Banshees and "Big Mistake" by Natalie Imbruglia) I saw that many of my peeps were calling it a very early night and others were sitting about dourly, fighting off illness.
I declared that I was out to get pissed, and James agreed, so we left and headed off to The Left Bank (Guthrie Street) where we found £1 pints of Baltika and open mic night! The first act up was this beautiful bloke Louis, who James had roomed with in his freshman year at the Uni. James gave the best description of him ever: "you know how there are gay people, and then there are GAY PEOPLE? Louis is straight, but one of the GAY PEOPLE. He owns seventy pairs of perscription glasses and could have every beautiful woman in this bar!" Tall Skinny Indie Boy Louis played two songs, Elliot Smith-esque minus blood or teeth. James and I snickered rudely and mocked him over our cute little Baltika glasses. After the second act (another tall, skinny indie boy, with heavy hippie influences) started rhyming "pain-o" with "brain-o" we knew we had to leave. On the way out, James pilfered one of the Baltika glasses as a memento, which I'm hugely glad about.
In the search for more live music, we headed to The Royal Oak (1 Infirmary Street), this very authentic traditional folk bar. We were by far the youngest in there, but nobody seemed to care - the crowd was old and drunk, and several men sat in corners with guitars singing silly folk songs that everyone sang along with. After two pints of Caledonian we were singing along with "ey hey hey"s, not knowing any of the words. We had deep discussion about the depression inherent in Scottish life and the insanity of the countrywide smoking ban which goes into effect in early 2006. When the clock struck midnight, we grabbed our coats and hit the streets.
After a brief interlude in Scotmid for a cigarette reload (in which we realized how drunk we were) we dropped into The Blind Poet (31 Nicholson Street) for quick shots of whiskey and a loo break. After the waitress overheard James calling her "tall and mannish" we knew we had to leave, and stumbled out onto the street.
As we walked in Old Town, we were suddenly struck with the intense desire to play pool, so we ducked into Teviot Bar (Uni campus) to grab Snakebites and shoot billiards in the student center. An extremely heated game followed with a great deal of trash-talking and a very narrow-margin win by James. We then left, trying to steal the Snakebite glasses and getting caught by a security guard who was somewhat annoyed until we reassured him that he was "a king amongst men" and dashed away.
The walk home was spent marveling at how pissed we were - it was the whiskey and snakebite that threw us over the edge - and walked down the mound and onto Princes Street shouting and yelling about greenness and what defined a man, a king, and a god. We marveled at the "flowers! upon flowers! UPON FLOWERS!" of Princes Street Gardens and yelled at the trees to remind them that they were lords and kings of the greenness. Finally, we stumbled back to Randolph Crescent and somehow made our way up the stairs and into the flat.
There, we discovered that one of our flatmates left her living will for me so that she wouldn't be put on life support if something happened to her during her holiday! Extremely Drunk James and Extremely Drunk Me were co-horrified at the thought of pulling the plug on this beloved housemate, but decided to be good young Libertarians and do it if requested. Soon afterwards, I passed out.
Today, no hangover, no notable tiredness (after a bacon roll, some sausage, and a large white coffee at least), and a lovely little Baltika glass to boot! A great night out indeed. Tonight: Falun Gong at the Quaker Meeting House (Victoria Terrace), late dinner with an Irishman, and reading Give Me: Songs for Lovers by Irina Denezhkina (£2 at Bargain Books). Life is, indeed, sweet, dear reader.
After Bible study over tasty Chicken Tikka paninis at Elephant House (21 George IV Bridge) I headed over to Three Sisters (139 Cowgate) to meet flatmates in anticipation of hardcore karaeoke. I saw people I recognized from the Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence (AKA The Church of Scientology of Scotland, AKA the site where I had a staring contest with a Scientologist and won - a major achievement) who I avoided in order to bypass communication. Liz and James arrived quickly to save me, with several others dawdling somewhere on the streets. After carefully scouring the song catalogue (and having a heated internal debate over "Dear Prudence" by Siouxie and the Banshees and "Big Mistake" by Natalie Imbruglia) I saw that many of my peeps were calling it a very early night and others were sitting about dourly, fighting off illness.
I declared that I was out to get pissed, and James agreed, so we left and headed off to The Left Bank (Guthrie Street) where we found £1 pints of Baltika and open mic night! The first act up was this beautiful bloke Louis, who James had roomed with in his freshman year at the Uni. James gave the best description of him ever: "you know how there are gay people, and then there are GAY PEOPLE? Louis is straight, but one of the GAY PEOPLE. He owns seventy pairs of perscription glasses and could have every beautiful woman in this bar!" Tall Skinny Indie Boy Louis played two songs, Elliot Smith-esque minus blood or teeth. James and I snickered rudely and mocked him over our cute little Baltika glasses. After the second act (another tall, skinny indie boy, with heavy hippie influences) started rhyming "pain-o" with "brain-o" we knew we had to leave. On the way out, James pilfered one of the Baltika glasses as a memento, which I'm hugely glad about.
In the search for more live music, we headed to The Royal Oak (1 Infirmary Street), this very authentic traditional folk bar. We were by far the youngest in there, but nobody seemed to care - the crowd was old and drunk, and several men sat in corners with guitars singing silly folk songs that everyone sang along with. After two pints of Caledonian we were singing along with "ey hey hey"s, not knowing any of the words. We had deep discussion about the depression inherent in Scottish life and the insanity of the countrywide smoking ban which goes into effect in early 2006. When the clock struck midnight, we grabbed our coats and hit the streets.
After a brief interlude in Scotmid for a cigarette reload (in which we realized how drunk we were) we dropped into The Blind Poet (31 Nicholson Street) for quick shots of whiskey and a loo break. After the waitress overheard James calling her "tall and mannish" we knew we had to leave, and stumbled out onto the street.
As we walked in Old Town, we were suddenly struck with the intense desire to play pool, so we ducked into Teviot Bar (Uni campus) to grab Snakebites and shoot billiards in the student center. An extremely heated game followed with a great deal of trash-talking and a very narrow-margin win by James. We then left, trying to steal the Snakebite glasses and getting caught by a security guard who was somewhat annoyed until we reassured him that he was "a king amongst men" and dashed away.
The walk home was spent marveling at how pissed we were - it was the whiskey and snakebite that threw us over the edge - and walked down the mound and onto Princes Street shouting and yelling about greenness and what defined a man, a king, and a god. We marveled at the "flowers! upon flowers! UPON FLOWERS!" of Princes Street Gardens and yelled at the trees to remind them that they were lords and kings of the greenness. Finally, we stumbled back to Randolph Crescent and somehow made our way up the stairs and into the flat.
There, we discovered that one of our flatmates left her living will for me so that she wouldn't be put on life support if something happened to her during her holiday! Extremely Drunk James and Extremely Drunk Me were co-horrified at the thought of pulling the plug on this beloved housemate, but decided to be good young Libertarians and do it if requested. Soon afterwards, I passed out.
Today, no hangover, no notable tiredness (after a bacon roll, some sausage, and a large white coffee at least), and a lovely little Baltika glass to boot! A great night out indeed. Tonight: Falun Gong at the Quaker Meeting House (Victoria Terrace), late dinner with an Irishman, and reading Give Me: Songs for Lovers by Irina Denezhkina (£2 at Bargain Books). Life is, indeed, sweet, dear reader.