Edinburgh: It Nearly Kilt Me

This is where I found the beautiful people. I was here for five days, mostly to attend the Fringe Festival, which is a festival where literally hundreds of plays and comedy acts come to perform in a given city (Edinburgh, Dublin, Adelaide, Des Moines etc.) The shows are usually under an hour, very low budget and pretty cheap and millions of people come to see, so it's a great place for people to get their break. Most of the stuff I saw there wasn't thrilling. That's about as far as I'll go. What's more important is that a huge amount of tourists come into the city for the Fringe—its population doubles—and in Europe, apparently all tourists are beautiful, or at least 1 in 6. That's my estimate.

Even the lesbians were kind of hot.

Of course, being awash in a sea of beauty has its downsides. Walking along the Royal Mile, Edinburgh's major strip, there are dozens upon dozens of people with little postcards trying to get you to come to their company's show. Naturally, the theater company always sends out their sexiest member(s), which is great if you're looking to stay and chat with lots of people. Fortunately for me, I often was, since I was traveling alone and didn't have any real friends or acquaintances around, and attractive strangers are a good second choice.

However, sometimes you don't want to spend hours wandering aimlessly from one garish postcard to the next. If, like most city dwellers, you've ever brushed off a homeless person, you know denial of eye contact is your best weapon in avoiding people on the street. But, if someone is attractive, it is a natural instinct to stare at them, and once a pretty girl has caught your eye, it's really hard to pretend you didn't see her.

One time, a pretty girl on the street tried to convince me to see a show I'd already heard about from a much less attractive person a day earlier. I duly heard her out, even throwing in a question here and there, and when she tried to give me a postcard, in the interest of going green I had to tell her I really didn't need it, I already had an identical postcard, and I'd just wanted to talk to her. I combined that with a devilish grin. Didn't really stick around to see if my forthrightness had charmed her pants off.

It was in Edinburgh I first started to get the hang of cars driving on the left side of the street, albeit after a few near-death experiences. To be fair, it's a little mean to ask someone to pay attention to stupid wrong-way driving cars while walking through one of the most attractive cities he's ever been to.

Also one of the most expensive cities I've been to. The price of restaurants here is very high, and I was in a constant state of being slightly hungry. In any other city I would have regarded this a bad thing, but considering all the pretty girls around, it was something of a blessing that I couldn't afford food. It saved me the trouble of constantly sucking in my stomach.

Seeing as I was on my own, there were times when I got somewhat lonely and started to feel a bit down on myself. This was especially compounded on my first night in Edinburgh. The city lights were sparkling in the crisp night air and all the beautiful people were out at bars, enjoying beverages and noisy conversations. Everyone was with their mates. All right, I said to myself, I'll have myself a beer or two, doesn't matter where, I just want a beer. Now, I'm 20 and the drinking age in Scotland is 18. Splendid.

I did make my way to a couple bars, but here's the one I remember. I walked up to the door and there was a guy at the top of the steps checking ID's. Aglow with the pleasure of being not just of age, but two years past it, I casually slipped him my official New York driver's license with a wink and a smile. He scrutinized it, his brow furrowing with effort, then looked down at me and said, furrowing with all his might,

"I canna take this."

"What?"

"I canna accept this. Sorry."

My retort was an incredulous glare (hard to pull off, but worth it). I took the card back and said, "Okay, but for future reference this is what they look like. This is real." Then I walked away, furiously pondering (also hard, but still worth it) what kind of crazy human would buy a fake American license and fake an American accent just to get into a Scottish bar. Or, if he assumed I was in fact American and was using a fake ID, first off, who gives a fuck, and second, why would I buy a fake ID that says, in big red letters, "UNDER 21."

That guy pissed me off.

Later on I was walking past a bar when a pair of pretty girls smiled and waved at me through the window. For a second, my desperate mind snatched at a chance that I knew one of them from some place, and I waved back, a bit skeptical. Meanwhile, her companion laughed and photographed me, which probably should have been my first warning sign. As any normal person would do, I went inside to meet them. When I did, they were gone. Up and disappeared. So I left the bar and went back around to the window to see if they'd resumed their seats. They had. I stood there for a while until they noticed me and then I did a sort of "What the hell guys" shrug, thinking That Would Show Them. The girl who hadn't been taking my picture smiled ruefully and shooed me away. Beautiful people can be so cruel.

When I wasn't busy looking for love in all the wrong places, I wandered the streets. Ducked into a Tesco, which is one of the biggest supermarkets in the U.K. They have some wonderful stuff there. They have their own store-brand liquors and beer. I wish they had that in the states. I could go for some Stop & Shop scotch. Also, I don't know if this came to America or what, but Jack Daniels has their own canned product that's just whiskey and cola. Jack and Coke in a can. That really demands a special kind of laziness on the consumer's part. I know mixed drinks are tough, but I would trust a monkey or an infant child with the task of combining Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola in a cup. Wouldn't let them drink it though. That would be irresponsible, if hilarious.

There is also a product named Nicky Elite, which is about the coolest thing to find in a store when your name is Nicky and you have in fact, always considered yourself elite. Not as cool when said product is extra fluffy paper towels and the mascot, presumably the aforementioned Nicky, is a soft, fuzzy bunny.

Also, they have a restaurant here, I guess it's part of a chain. It's called Chiquito: The original Mexican Grill & Bar. To which I must say, No. I don't think that's true.

On the other hand they do have drinks "served with 'ice cold' milk." What do the quotes around "ice cold" mean? I don't know. Perhaps they want to be absolutely sure you understand that the milk is not literally as cold as ice, because then it would actually be ice. Or maybe "ice cold" is one of those expressions we've been using in America for years and years and they've just discovered it and find it charming. I don't know.

Finally, at one point I found myself walking down a cobblestone street next to a mom pushing her little girl in a stroller. The violent bumping of the stroller on the cobblestones seemed somewhat unpleasant to me and I had to point out,

"She'd probably have a smoother ride on the sidewalk."

The woman replied, "It gets her off."

Fair enough, mom. Fair enough.

After that, it was time to take the train to London.

-Nicky

Dublin First Impressions

I left my home in Brooklyn towards the end of August. The plan was to touch down in Dublin long enough to stash my biggest suitcase and walk around a little, then set out on the first real leg of my continental tour. Over the course of the next two weeks, I would be traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland for five days, London for three, and Paris for seven, then returning to Dublin to begin my fall semester.

The following is based on notes I took during my first day in Dublin. I meant to write this out a lot earlier and now I'm burdened with the judgment of hindsight. I will try to relate these notes with the wide-eyed, breathless enthusiasm that originally accompanied them so many weeks ago.

The first thing that strikes you about Dublin is how small it is. My first meaning here is that the buildings themselves are generally no more than a few stories. There certainly are tall buildings here and there but they're much more the exception than the rule. But the city itself is also very small. In earlier days I had studied my map of Dublin, hoping I would be able to navigate the twisty streets. When you actually get there you realize that the map is actually larger than the city itself. It's very cool, though.

Among the stereotypical narrow streets and cobblestones there are strange touches of American culture reflected back. For anyone who's been to the Americana diner chain Johnny Rocket's, they have a joint called Eddie Rocket's. According to the in-restaurant literature, Eddie is Johnny's Irish cousin. The diners are not actually affiliated in any way. Guess he's an illegitimate cousin.

I was also pleased to find a gentleman's club that quaintly offers "lap dancing." I picture this as a sort of country amusement akin to square dancing that involves fiddles, jollity and a roaring hearth fire.

I noticed that while the city is quite beautiful, the people seemed to skew toward the, well, ugly side. I don't mean to be cruel, but this was my observation and I am not here to feed you sugarcoated words. Admittedly the average caliber of woman seems to have improved since the start of the Dublin college season.

Wandering the streets and listening to Irish chatter (replete with actual withered, bucktoothed old ladies standing on the street singing the prices of their fruit) was fun for a while, but after a time the accents got to be a bit too much and I had to duck into an Asian convenience store just to hear some voices that would reminded me of New York. There, amongst the Sriracha hot sauce and galangal powder, I was home, if just for a brief moment.

They also have a barbershop called Bedford Stuy Barber's. It makes me feel comforted that no matter where in the world I go, I can be assured of an urban haircut Spike Lee would be proud of.

The final note I wrote in my little notepad was "I'm going to own this town". Not quite sure what to make of that one.

After my day and a half in Dublin, I boarded an airplane to Edinburgh, Scotland.

-Nicky

Greetings From Dublin.

Hey there, my name is Nicky Young. Usually I would be concerned about providing an auspicious and eloquent start for any literary endeavor, but after all this is a blog, and any good blog quickly fills up with so many posts that no one will ever, ever concern themselves with the first one.

If you're reading this, you probably already know me, but in case you don't, I'm a New York University student from Brooklyn, and I'm studying abroad in Dublin this semester. I'm taking a screenwriting course with the goal of churning out a feature length screenplay in three months. There are 20 students here in Dublin. Half of us are writing screenplays, and the other half are taking a course in producing music videos.

In the month that I've been here, friendships have budded and I've proceeded through the most tedious parts of producing a screenplay that you have to complete before you actually get to write a screenplay.

I arrived here in Ireland two weeks before the program started so that I could take a tour around some of Europe. It was pretty cool. I'll have some accounts from those travels in a bit. Hopefully I will make some amusing or poignant observations about my trip all the while the blog some content in order to indicate that I am taking this seriously.

-Nicky