the Great Edinburgh Pub Crawl

Five hundred yards from our hostel, wedged onto the corner of Queensferry Street and Shandwick Place, a half-mile from the Haymarket Rail Station, lies a little bar named Mathers.

It's an unassuming place: stony façade, brass lettering, long wooden bar with an oblong room in front of it. Standing room only, unless you grab a bench in the corner. High ceiling. Some television sets. Flags from all the soccer-playing nations strung up across the walls. Regular patrons having a sip of ale or cider. Two hooch-mongers meandering slowly up and down behind the bar, like ducks at a shooting gallery.

It was here at Mathers that Jeff and I decided to start our Great Pub Crawl on the evening of June 20, 2010. Showered, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we waltzed into the establishment at about five o'clock to start our pregame warm-up. As the sun set slowly over the New Town, Jeff and I sipped some Strongbow and watched the World Cup, omnipresent as always, twinkling away on every TV screen in every pub in the U.K.

We only stuck around for a little sip, though. We gulped down our glasses and gave a satisfying burp apiece. When we felt the first blurry tendrils of the alcohol begin to tickle our brains, we adjourned across the street to Ryan's Bar, a distinctly larger and more energetic establishment.

And more touristy. Billing itself as "Edinburgh's Busiest West End Bar, Cellar Bar and Coffee Shop," Ryan's was situated quite conveniently on the opposite corner of Queensferry and Shandwick, right where Shandwick met Princes Street. Simply put, the place was on the outskirts of the largest tourist trap in Scotland. It was only later that we found out that Ryan's was also a "tied house," and thereby required to buy at least some of its beer from the breweries which owned it. The general feeling in the U.K. is that a tied house can never be superior to a "free house" which, as the name suggests, is allowed to buy its beer from anywhere. Selection, as you may guess, is generally better at a free house. Free houses also preserve more of the character of an "authentic" British pub. The atmosphere at Ryan's, I noticed, was almost akin to a grill or a classy fast-food joint.

Ryan's was, indeed, a gastropub. That was something of a consolation. Undaunted, Jeff and I sat down, ordered some Tennent's, a roast for Jeff and some nachos for yours truly, and watched as Brazil literally kicked the crap out of the Ivory Coast on the numerous TV screens.

I should point out that Ryan's was our second and last stop. (Some pub crawl, eh?) Certain events transpired which prevented us from leaving. Number one, they were late in bringing Jeff's roast. I got my nachos on time, and they were incredible. They didn't have quite the same flavor as (finger quotes) authentic nachos. I'd say they were lacking in certain irreplaceable spices, unique to the Mexican culinary hemisphere. But nonetheless they were tasty, with adequate amounts of salsa and sour cream to go around.

But Jeff's roast had gotten lost in the shuffle. When we called this to the attention of the barmaid, she apologized, took the offending item off the bill, and brought a sizzling, delectable beef roast to our table and set it down in front of Jeff, lickety-split.

Now that's service.

Number two, we wanted to see how the Ivory Coast-Brazil game ended. That was a foregone conclusion. We should've known better. The Africans are renowned for their expertise in the sport (as they would prove a few days later, when I was back in Newcastle); but the Brazilians are among the top five on the planet, consistently making it into the final rounds of every championship. It was still a pretty good game, though. So Jeff and I waited it out and watched the rest of it. That's what we had come to the U.K. for, after all. 

And number three...

There was a rather pretty girl standing up at the bar.

(Try and guess where this is going. I think you can figure it out.)

I noticed her about halfway through my nachos. She was of medium height, neither skinny nor plump, with a tactical stockpile of curves. Her skin was fair, and lightly freckled. Her nose was assertive and lent an angular sort of seriousness to her otherwise round and innocent face. Her hair was bobbed short, and either dirty-blonde or brown with golden highlights. Her wardrobe was modest, a top and jacket over jeans and tennis shoes. A woolen scarf completed the ensemble. I perceived her charms at a glance; the effect only grew with each successive look.

After a little thought, some more beer, and a few more Brazilian goals, I made up my mind.

"Jeff," I said, "I do believe I'm going to go talk to that girl at the bar."

Jeff gave me his blessing. That is to say, he knocked back another Scotch ale, and I took the gesture to mean "Go to it, buddy." It seemed like a favorable sign. I was a bit sozzled by now and everything was suddenly open to interpretation.

I swung myself out of my chair, sauntered up to the bar, and planted my elbows down upon it. I looked the bartender squarely in his two foreheads, and asked for a whisky. I chose the ten-year-old Springbank, distilled in the Campbeltown region—the only one I had yet to sample. Then I casually turned to the lady.

"Evening," I said, or something equally eloquent. (At least I managed to refrain from the cheesier pick-up lines, like "Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" or "Do you know karate? 'Cause your body's kickin'.")

"Evening," she replied, in heavily accented English. I couldn't quite place it. She introduced herself as Karla, a German student on holiday in the U.K. She was quite fluent in English (though with the noisy pub, her soft-spoken nature, and my own thick-headedness I sometimes found her hard to understand). Jeff joined the two of us at the bar and we whiled away a happy few hours laughing and joking. In between glances at the TV (which helped fill up the occasional awkward pause), we discussed everything from the number of fouls Côte d'Ivoire had committed against Brazil, to the demographics of Germany, to the general hostility felt toward the German people by most European nations. (I believed Karla when she said there was a lot of it still around.)

I enjoyed the conversation and the whisky immensely. I found the former to be rewarding, refreshing, just the ticket after a couple of days spent solely in the company of my erstwhile travel buddy; and the latter I thought very light, the lightest I had thus far sampled among single-malt Scotches. It had a sort of dry sweetness that was rife with vanilla, easy and mellow. The effects, however, crept up on me. If I'd had more money and the booze had cost less than four pounds a sip, then I probably would've had to be carried back to the hostel.

Our three-person party broke up around 11 or so, when Karla said she was getting tired. The poor woman had likely had enough of the rowdy foreigners badgering her. We parted on good terms, settled up at the till, and made our way home through the mild Scottish twilight.

Back at the hostel, I was on my way to the john when I spotted an attractive American brunette peering gingerly through the open door of the ladies' room.
"Oh, God," she groaned.
"What's up? I asked.
"There's no toilet paper."
I winced. "Oof. They forgot that, huh?"
"Yeah."
Being the chivalrous man I am, I went to the front desk. 
"Is he not here?" I asked the night watch, referring to the janitor.
"He's out smoking a cigarette."
"Well," I said, after explaining the problem, "let's go get 'im."
I poked my head outside.
"Need something?" he asked, between puffs. He was a short, dark-complected fellow with spiky black hair and a goatee.
"Looks like there's no toilet paper."
"Oh."
He came cheerfully inside, twirling his keys around his finger. The paper was refilled in minutes.
"Thanks," the brunette said to me. "I've been holding it for two hours."

Bedtime came, but not sleep. I lay in my bunk and stared for hours at the high vaulted ceiling, limned by the lights in the roofless hallways. The sky outside was not black, but purplish; I found it oddly comforting that the sun was not on the other side of the world, but merely hovering below the horizon and not far off. I gazed over the wooden buttresses and arched windows as a dying man might look upon his final sunset. I couldn't get enough. All was magic and wonder and Heaven itself. I was living high, in the midst of a dream, but I knew it wouldn't last. I used that last night in Edinburgh to soak up as much as I possibly could before the daily grind came back into my life. I strove to confine some shred of the marvels of my environment to memory, and carry it away with me into years and travels unknown. Drunkenness be damned. I was seeing with remembering eyes.

When sleep finally did come, it didn't last. Between the sagging mattress, the alcohol in my veins, the titanic snores of my fellow tenants, and my own tendency to rasp, I didn't get much rest.

But there was adventure even in that. On the morrow Jeff and I would go our separate ways: I back to Newcastle, and thence to California; and Jeff across the Channel into France, bound for all the major European capitals, and North Africa beyond.

For the moment, however, I threw myself onto my side, shut my eyes, rubbed my congested nose, and slept.