Scotland, Part Deux {from the archives}

First night in Edinburgh....Our hotel is on a street (Coates Garden) of older, bay-windowed buildings, all connected town-house style. (This is pretty much true of all streets of housing in the parts of the nation that I saw.) The houses vary between hotels, flats, and empty buildings. The street is cobble-stone, which adds to the charm of it all. Clearly the building is kind of old, but with modern additions, like the fire-escape right outside the bay window of our room--we're below street level, floor zero. Oh, yes--and the stack of empty kegs adds to the lovely view as well, of course! Once we'd freshened up a bit, we hit the streets in our rental car. It wasn't but a moment before the first sign I'd love Edinburgh arrived: we were on the first street we'd turned off to, waiting in que at the inevitable round-about. The building next to us was a "Youth Hostel." Two guys were dancing about in the window, with more people to be made out behind them. One of the gents waves, so naturally I, being full of holiday spirit, wave back. Next thing I know, both guys are engaged in waving, dancing, basically putting on a show for the city in general and myself in particular. The latter young man decides to drop trou and moon us, showing off a bright green shamrock freshly inked on his exposed arse! ((WHY didn't I snap a picture?!)) As traffic begins to move forward, the entertaining boy-men proceed to mime "call me," placing the international(?) hand-phone to their faces. Full of laughter, I blew them a kiss, which they abundantly returned--mutualizing our window-fling, and off our car went! We drove around the city a bit, Dad getting used to the whole right-side of the car driving in the left lane and myself snapping photos of any and everything around town. A different chap gives me the "naughty, naughty" finger-wave after I snap one of an old clock...?? Finally, we park the car nearer to the city centre to find a place to eat. We settle on "Old Fellows Pub." The food was insanely delicious; super rich smoked salmon on a bed of greens that still tasted refreshingly of earth...mmm:) The atmosphere was quite interesting, as music videos were playing loudly from a few telly screens; mostly American videos circa ten years or more ago...interesting. So many people walked by the window near our table, and as we strolled about the streets a bit after dinner, we met even more faces. There is a variety, but also my first glimpse of what the average Edinburgh citizen looks like. However, at that time of the first night I was so wiped out from travelling across countless time zones that we headed back to the hotel soon, where I promptly fell into a deep sleep...at 7:30 pm...:)