I’ve never been a huge drinker. I’m not the girl to go out and get shit-faced six nights a week. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy drinking because I do. I just don’t need to consume three handles a week to be happy. Like any newly turned 21-year-old though, I figured I had to go on at least one pub crawl. They’re like a rite of passage. Can you even call yourself legal if you’ve never done one? The only difference between my pub crawl and a normal pub crawl was that mine was in a different country, two days after I turned twenty-one.
Having just got off the plane in Edinburgh, I found myself on a school sponsored pub crawl only forty-eight hours later. Yes, I did say school sponsored. Welcome to Scotland. I had slept most of the first day so I only had a few hours of sightseeing under my belt at this point. Needless to say, I was a complete stranger to the winding alleyways and cobblestone buildings. Everything looked the same. Sober Me was already lost. Sadly, I didn’t consider how Drunk Me was going to cope. Still, I put on a pair of flat-heeled boots (the only good decision I made that night) and headed to the pub with my American flatmate.
We met up with two Australian girls and a Scottish girl and decided we would stay together for the entire thing. Spoiler: that plan went to shit after pub #3. The night started out well enough. Since none of us drank beer, we settled on mixed drinks. Looking back, that probably wasn’t the best decision but we were young and stupid and already tipsy from the pregame.
The first two pubs were great. There was music and dancing and more hot international boys than you could count. Then we got to the third pub. Two of the girls had to pee, naturally, so they went off to stand in line for the rest of eternity. One had disappeared out of thin air. We found out later she found a guy to flirt with and buy her drinks. So that left me and my Australian friend. At that point, we shrugged and said fuck it. We were here to get drunk and absolutely nothing was going to stop us.
To be honest, I don’t remember the last three pubs. The whole town was blurry by that point and I was just barely hanging onto my new best friend with the killer accent. It’s a miracle we even made it to the finish line. After the bartender took our empty glasses, we stumbled out into the street. The conversation that followed was pathetic and incoherent. I couldn’t understand her Aussie drawl anymore. All I wanted to do was lay down and sleep and maybe cry a little bit. By the grace of some international student god, we made it back to our street.
Now you have to understand. I was jetlagged and drunk. The two don’t really go well together. My feet were killing me but I knew my bed was only about 500 yards away. So, like any logically thinking drunk girl, I plopped down on the ground and started to crawl. It was not a pretty sight to see. The guys sitting outside of the pub next to my apartment enjoyed the view, I’m sure. I finally made it to the front door and up two flights of stairs. If I hadn’t been so tired I would have cried tears of joy.
I’m not sure how many people can say they’ve physically crawled home from a pub crawl but I’m proud to be able to say I’m one of them. And you know what? The splitting headache and grass stains the next morning were totally worth it. .
Nice Move252
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WineFirst_AskLater
WineFirst likes her wine white, chilled, and alone, although she's been known to share on rare occasions. In an attempt to not grow up, she procrastinates all things adult, such as not paying off her credit card bill and watching re-runs of Sex and the City. If you have any funny stories or new leads (or videos of kids falling down) e-mail her at: winefirst.asklater@gmail.com
@meg_lee_eliza
@meg_lee_eliza
