This is part of a series of entries. ← The adventure starts thataway!!
Where was I? Oh yes, back in my adorable apartment in Edinburgh, falling asleep after a wild night at the fancy bar next door!
I do want to back up for a moment. I don’t want to forget to mention that while I was at the pub the day before, getting my bearings on Edinburgh and sipping whisky, I’d also clicked around on Tinder…just to see who might be out there. This is VERY pertinent to this story!! You’ll see.
Turns out, a LOT of folks in Scotland are on Tinder! A lot of very handsome and eligible men. Some of them kilted!
Oh! And I also wanted to mention that just getting off the train in Edinburgh and walking through the crowd I felt like I fit in…like these were my people. I looked like 2/3rds of the people here as literally 2 out of 3 people had red hair and pale skin just like me! This is my heritage!!
Anyway, back to Tinder. The cool thing is that I matched with every guy I thought looked interesting. Apparently, when you look like the tribe, the tribe is also INTO you!! This was amazing! I belonged!
I connected with several very handsome Scotsmen, but there was one who reached out immediately, and he was perhaps the most handsome of them all. I will refer to him as The Scot from here on out. His real name is music to my ears - think of the most Scottish name you can imagine…and that’s what his name is!
Anyway, he and I sent a few texts back and forth the day/evening before…before things got wild at the cocktail bar and before I’d agreed to hike the volcano with John, the New Zealander. He asked me what I was doing the next day and I told him I was going to hike up to Arthur’s Seat and he told me to have fun…thought maybe perhaps we could meet afterwards. Might be really fun to meet a Scottish guy for a real live DATE!!
So I slept like the dead and then started my morning slowly, making coffee and porridge in the apartment (they supplied a couple of days worth of oatmeal, plus milk in the fridge!) and watching the news. I was actually surprised that I didn’t feel any kind of hangover…no headache, no aches and pains after the fun night before!
Got moving - put on warm active apparel for both the chill in the air and the moving I was going to have to be doing that day.
Then got a message from John telling me he’d forgotten that one of his alcohol distributors was at his bar that day and he had a mandatory class/meeting until 4pm and asked me if I still wanted to hike after his meeting?
Well, of course I did. In fact, the timing was actually better because that meant I had the whole morning and most of the afternoon to just wander around and do my thing! The day was working out perfectly!
And it really was truly perfect. The weather was stunning and surprisingly warm in the sun. The whole time I was in Edinburgh, people kept telling me how lucky I’d gotten with the weather, and I agree because the forecast had been calling for rain, rain and more dreary rain while I was there. But it was mostly sunny - a few clouds crept in from time to time, but it was beyond gorgeous and comfortable that day.
I walked all over the Old Town and all the way up towards the castle. However, when I got to the castle, I decided against going in and taking a tour because I felt like I had many other sights I wanted to see.
I think I got the most out of something that most others miss in this area - a kind of self-guided tour through a tartan fabric mill! This is the stuff that makes me so happy and that others sort of glaze over because they’re too busy trying to get into the castle! The little mill was in the basement of a building that was next to the castle, but again, hardly anyone was there and I had the whole place to myself…watching the old looms shuttle the gorgeous brightly colored yarns back and forth making fabric for, say…a kilt for a hot Scot?! Heh.
After the tartan place I let myself wander around the tiny streets and alleyways, up and down stairs and side streets, getting a little lost, but sort of knowing the general direction I was moving.
I’d read that the National Museum of Scotland has amazing panoramic views of the Old Town from the rooftop, so I got my bearings and realized that I was walking in that general direction and headed that way - took the long, roundabout way to the top and got great photos! Here’s just an idea. Pretty magical.
Walked back through the museum and wandered around the beautiful exhibits …and found out that Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned mammal, had been cloned in Edinburgh and the museum was her resting place! I took this photo. I can’t decide if it’s weird or sad to have posted a taxidermied, cloned sheep? But it was a memory from my younger days and I thought it was fascinating. Maybe it’s me?
Anyway, walked and walked…more and more…until I got hungry. It was much later than lunchtime, and I can’t remember what I did for lunch that day, but I ended up at my apartment by around 3pm, which gave me an hour to chill and wait for Hot Bartender John to be done with his training.
He actually got done early, so right before 4 he texted me to tell me he was waiting for me outside my building. It was ON. There was no turning back! I was excited! Had no idea what the afternoon might bring, but I did know that I wanted to get whisky to take on our hike!
So HB (Hot Bartender) John met me at the door and we started walking. And he was sooooooo adorable. Actually, super sexy is a better word to describe him…tall, long-ish blond hair that he’d pull up into a topknot kind of thing (which I loathe, but it worked very nicely on him), blue eyes, scruffy beard. And truth be told, I wasn’t looking at this as something with any kind of like sexy potential - I was just thrilled that this guy would volunteer to take me on a hike on his day off!
The story of HB John is that he’s a traveling bartender from New Zealand. He’s been in Edinburgh since June and before that, I think he said he’d been traveling for over a year, tending bar in various cities in Greece, Morocco, France…who knows where else? He’s staying in Edinburgh in a flat close to the university with something like 6 other guys…just living the hot, young bartender life.
We stopped at a Sainsbury’s at the train station to pick up a good bottle of whisky (got a bottle of Glenlivet - mainly because it’s the only one I’d heard of and the guy behind the counter recommended it!) and to get the poor guy as sandwich (he hadn’t eaten all day!) and some beer (Tennent’s because it’s typical Scottish and HB John said it’s kind of ironic to drink Tennent’s in the streets of Edinburgh) because you can actually walk around and drink on the street. I’d brought my tote bag because I figured we’d need a way to hold all of our goods!
He said he was going to take me on a tour, but to bear with him because he wasn’t the BEST tour guide…he knew the things that he’d learned during his time there so far. But what he knew was pretty great! We walked past the train station and over the Old Town and around through the back streets. He showed me monuments and different areas, including Cowgate, which is a low-lying area, almost underground in the city, that houses all of the nightclubs, nightspots, and the city’s homeless and then back and around to a park called The Meadows, which is a HUGE city park where people gather and have barbeques and play games and relax. It was gorgeous, and HB John lived just on the other side of the park. No, we didn’t go to his flat!
But that was the way over towards Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags. We kept walking further and further towards the big volcano and as we started up the hill, HB John recommended that we climb up the crags instead of all the way up Arthur’s Seat. It’s not as far/hard, the views are better, and he thought we’d both like it better up there.
YOU GUYS, THIS WAS WHERE WE WENT!!! We walked all the way up to this point, and it was absolutely phenomenal!! It was a bit rocky going on the way up, and I stumbled a bit. After all, I was carrying a tote full of whisky and beer! But HB John told me that we were going down a different way that’s a lot easier.
Anyway, once up on the top of the crags, we could look down alllll over the city in all directions! Could see the old and new towns from one side and then North Sea and Firth of Forth on the other side and we could look down on the Hollyrood Palace…just amazing. AMAZING! Someone did a good job of photographing this experience, here.
Also, once we were on the top of the Crags, we took a seat at the edge of the cliff and opened the bottle of whisky. About a dozen other people were up there with us, chilling out, playing guitar, singing, drinking, laughing….
It was truly a dreamlike day. HB John and I took photos of each other - he took photos of me for my FB and IG profile pics. We even took some selfies together and some videos showing just how hard the wind was BLOWING up there! It was SUCH A RUSH!!! I’ve never experienced anything like this! And then whisky, of course, went down smoothly.
While we were walking back down, HB John asked me what I was doing for the rest of the evening. I thought briefly about maybe seeing The Scot, but I was having soooooo much fun with HB John that I asked what he recommended. He said he knew many of the bars in town as he lived with other bartenders and there were some cool places he’d love to show me.
I was IN. ALL IN.
So we kept walking back around towards the city. We walked and talked just like old friends. It was very, very comfortable. I liked this guy.
And then, at one point, he turned to me and asked me if I wondered how old he is. Honestly, it never really dawned on me to ask him. I was SURE he was older than his counterpart bartender at the fancy bar where he works simply because he seemed much more mature and offered to hang out with me.
But then he outed himself and said, “I’m twenty-two.”
I think I gulped really hard, but other than that it didn’t phase me…that much. Except for the fact that I was thinking that this is the same age as my friends’ kids. I didn’t really flinch in front of him. Acted like it was no biggie.
And then I asked him if he knew how old I was. Of course, he tried to flatter me with the 30’s bullshit and I said, no…don’t bullshit me…be honest. How old?
He said that he and his friends (he’d shown my photos to his roomies, I guess) thought that I was 40. That was fine with me. I accepted that. Ha!
Shortly after our conversation, the pub crawl began! Our first stop was a super scary bar that was really just a stop so I could use the loo. I had to pee so bad by the time we’d gotten there. After all, we’d had beers and whisky the whole afternoon!
Next stop was a place called The Voodoo Rooms which, I mean come on! Click on that link and look at the interior of the place! It is SPECTACULAR!!
We ordered drinks from his roomie bartender behind the bar (of course) and had a seat with some other friends of HB John’s. It was like he knew everyone there. At this point, we were getting pretty buzzed and lots of things were coming out of our conversations. Such as, the roomie bartender was not only a bartender, but a drug dealer as well. So I figured out why HB John pretty much sleeps all day and stays up all night - cocaine and booze. Horrible combination and no, we didn’t imbibe in anything other than the booze part. But yeah. I was out with a party boy.
The party continued at another super fancy place that HB John took me. It was down in the cellar of some restaurant. Would have never, ever guessed it to be there. And it was another super classy underground bar that served these elixirs of pre-measured special cocktails in little corked glass bottles. Super flavorful and interesting. The place was called The Permit Room. Loved. Romantic. Sexy.
Afterwards, we started walking towards my little apartment. There was one more stop on the way. It was another little underground place - kind of trendy with street food and games. Called Eastside. It was a brand new bar opened by one of HB John’s friends - I guess it had opened just a week earlier. And it was super fun!
No idea what time it was at that point - guessing around 1:30am? We’d started at 4pm, remember? We ordered drinks and went over to an area around the side that had pool tables and other games. We started playing a game of pool! It was actually very hilarious because we were both pretty schnockered and tired at that point. HB John was quite funny in that he came around me at the beginning of our ‘game’ and whispered in my ear, “I play a lot of pool in bars…” as if that was something to brag about.
WE SUCKED!! The both of us. We were so terrible and the game went on and on and finally we had to call it a draw because we were about to get kicked out of the place!
So we left and started walking back towards my apartment again.
And then one MORE last stop!! HB John’s bar! Yes, we couldn’t get to my place without walking past it!!
Went inside (even though we weren’t dressed for it) and said hello to all the bartender friends and ordered whatever. I think I got my last glass of bubbly for the night! HB John asked if I wanted to go sit in a kind of secluded area and I said yes. It’s blurry. I don’t remember much of this stop.
At that point, we were both done. He told me he’d walk me to my apartment and I think I must have invited him in to show him how cute it was (right?!). It’s all very, very blurry at that point, but what I do remember is just about polishing off the bottle of whisky, him pulling me to the sofa, turning on music, kissing…kissing…kissing….
And then he took my hand and asked me if I wanted to take it to the bedroom.
I paused.
I thought about it for maybe 2 long minutes. All of the things running through my head! He’s too young!! But we just had the most spectacular day!! We got along like best friends who turn each other on! It will be fun! You’ll never see each other again!!
So I said yes. And yes. And yes. And YES!!!
It was…a very nice release. It was fun. He was really good for a 22-year-old, if not slightly aggressive. It wasn’t a quiet event, and I’m not sure if my neighbors heard, nor did I care. Bottom line, had a very, very, VERY nice time.
It was 4am at that point. I told HB John that he was welcome to stay and sleep the morning away, but that I needed to get up in 2 hours to get ready for my Highlands tour! Yes, I was going to get on a bus in a few short hours!!
We slept for maybe 15 minutes and then HB John decided that he really should go - otherwise he’d be sleeping there until late in the afternoon and he didn’t feel comfortable doing that.
He gave me a sweet goodbye. A lovely kiss and a thanks for a really nice time. I think I thanked him as well, but I was also about 98% asleep.
What a day, what a day!! What a glorious day!
Next up: the Highlands and the Kilted Man!!
xox,
GS
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