When I arrived at Waverley station, my two buddy boys fought over whom I would stay with. (Fought nothing. I informed them I would stay with the new buddy boy – nbb – because we would have lunch at the old buddy boy's – n.b.'s – place on Sunday, so this way I would get to see both boys' version of the city. To this brilliant piece of reasoned logic they said, Oh. I said you win, new buddy boy! They said.. Ho hum.. We dinnow we were competing.. whatever. Hmph.) Then we went on to drink me a whiskey and drink them some beers before going to The Three Sisters on Cowgate. Cowgate is studentland, containing Edinburgh’s equivalent of the studenty places in Covent Garden. Of course the fact that the Old Town's sexy topography produces massive level differences between adjacent streets makes it a lot less naff. The Three Sisters had a street facing courtyard with a big media screen - good transition from the narrow Cowgate, which is basically a ditch parallel to the Royal Mile and just to its south. It’s lined by the backs of high buildings on both sides of the street, and straight and curving closes come down to it from the High Street (just to confuse you, that's another name for the Royal Mile). 'Neds', by the way, are what chavs are called in Scotland. N.b. was meeting some friends at The Three Sisters, and we went into this hive of scum and villiany with good spirits and open hearts; we'll try anything once. It turned out to be the hen night capital of the UK, this place. Actually the whole city seemed to be celebrating its friend's wedding on the weekend with innumerable grooms wearing silly noses and innumerable bridal bunches of women in pink bunny ears and matching t-shirts. A set of t-shirts in The Three Sisters had alliterating names printed on them - horny Helen, kinky Kate, teasy Tina. That sort. Nbb was horrified and behaved like a proper yuppie from the new town, sitting on a high bench and laughing incredulously at me as I got into the spirit of things (and as more spirits got into me) and showed off some of my dance moves. He is a snob. He got his wish when we decided to leave and make our way to venues on the other side of the great chasm at the centre of the city containing the railway lines, Waverley station and Princes Street Gardens - once long ago a loch. The fact that Princes Street is parallel to the Royal Mile (or high street) is an excellent piece of urban design. If you know where you are in relation to Princes Street, you are at once orientated to the grain of the city.
Edinburgh is the kind of city that makes me want to sketch sections all the time - all scales! one showing the seven surrounding hills and how everything dips down to the train lines under the bridges in the heart of the city, another showing how Wynds and Closes work, another showing the dynamic between earth, building and water in the bits of the city where residential buildings on both sides slope steeply down to the banks of the Water of Leith. Oh and an elevation to show how the Old Town looks from Princes Street - vertical layers and layers of slightly different coloured tenement buildings crowding up against the skyline, climbing jostling units of high density living that stop abruptly across the central chasm of Princes Street Gardens, providing a face to the New Town.
After Nbb prised us all away from The Three Sisters, there was a short stop in a quiet, old man pub with too much light, and then we found 'Fingers piano bar' somewhere near Hanover Street. There was a guy on a piano doing fairly poor vocals of songs from all sorts of eras... N.b.'s face splitting grin made several appearances, especially as the piano was fingered over Don McLean's American Pie. then I stopped counting grins, songs, women sidling up to Nbb (he has Pull!) and old horny men sidling up to me, as we drowned ourselves in some Black Sambuca shots. (I have recently become a magnet for old weird men. wtf?) Somehow at 3 am we were back on the street (the party went on inside - places in Edinburgh stay open properly late!) and Nbb and me bade the others goodnight and went to his cool digs in the Colonies. For some reason it seemed like a good idea to open a nice bottle of white wine and lie about in the living room. The wine level in my glass stayed constant, I’m proud to admit, but Nbb gave it a good shot, given the circumstances. Until 6 am we chatted, bitched and drunkenly raved. He has forgotten most of the conversation, but I have an amazingly good memory for the things other people tell you when they're very drunk. bwahahaha... At some point I remember saying, 'look the sky's getting lighter instead of darker, how funny!'... and then the move to sleep was finally made. Not without giggling fits in the dark of course. I can still be girlie with guy friends.
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