Edinburgh is, to me at least, a surprisingly international city. I’ve heard French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Korean (I think?), and more I can’t identify. Getting here was terrifying (M and A were good sports about me nearly killing us on the road). The GPS in the rental car was telling us to go down streets that were closed. The architecture is stately, stern, less whimsical than Llandudno, less village-y than Hay-on-Wye, kind of how you imagine courts and the exterior of barrister offices to look. But then, after saying all that, at the ground level are, in this order: a chintzy shop that sells 80 variations of Nessie magnets, a warm and cozy pub with a quaint name, a tweed and wool store, and then repeat, as far as the eye can see, on both sides of the road. The Royal Mile’s full name is “The Royal Mile of Pubs.”

We breakfasted at a cafe that was the workshop of a man who was hanged for copying people’s keys and breaking into their houses. It was so cozy for a felon’s lair! I’m including the picture of the little Christmas scene diorama they had.

It all blurs together, man. We walk so much while we’re here, which I’m grateful for. Those FSBs are no joke. Like 1,500 calories in one go. I feel like I need to be flipping tractor tires or whatever farmers do.

M let me buy a bag of super-greens. I feel like a grease kitchen if I don’t get enough greens.

Last night was cool and spooky. We went to a witchcraft museum that had a desiccated cat from the 1700s (apparently it was a tradition to burry a cat in the walls to ward off bad vibes, which seems like the opposite to me). The incense was thick, like how I imagine professor Trelawney’s classroom to smell. Then we went to a Harry Potter escape room that was in the basement of an old public house, I think. After that we went to a traditional pub and got traditional pub food. Bro, the smell of fish and chips is so fortifying. After that, A went back to the roost and M and I went out to chase that flighty mistress: Adventure. We went to a literal Frankenstein bar. They play Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein on repeat and the whole place is decorated like a mad scientist’s dieselpunk laboratory. Its three stories: a converted 19th century deconsecrated church. Thunderstruck was riffing when I got M’s and my brew and I thought to myself “I have arrived.” Then, we walked to another spooky pub called The Banshee’s Labyrinth. It was grungy and filled with characters and just delightful. The deeper you go into it, the more it starts looking like hewn out catacombs or prison cells. A Scottish gen Xr with long Eddie Vedder hair needed a place to sit so we gave him one of our chairs.

Then, like at around 9pm, which felt like 14pm because it gets dark here at 4pm, we went to a big Christmas fair in the local park. I got dessert: a haggis pie. M looked for a sweet treat but didn’t find anything that appealed to her. All the Christmas music was Christmas funk classics. It was sublime.