February 27th, 2006 | The lowdown by Xing Zhao

Cocktails Are for Grown Ups

Currently, I work at a Starbucks store in the city centre of Edinburgh. Although my working life isn’t that different from my student life before, the people I hang out with are different. I have been hanging out and partying with my work friends quite a lot since I started this job in April, but we mainly gather together at someone’s flat, and have a few drinks. Technically, we had never been out together ever before, until last week.

Last Saturday night, I was supposed to meet my work friends at 9 o’clock for drinks in bar called Tonic around the corner of Castle St and George St. George St is right behind the famous shopping street Prince St, and is an area of offices and posh bars. I had never been out in this area before and always thought it was too grown-up for me. Thus I had never been to Tonic before, even though it was only 50 meters from my work and lots of their staff come to get coffee from us everyday. It was already 9:30 when I arrived, the usual, I’m always late. Tonic looked like a normal pub from outside. It was in the basement, and had a porch as a smoking area. People are all amazingly following the rule since smoking was banned in Scotland early this year. There were a few people sitting or standing there, having their drinks and cigarettes.

I spotted my work friends Julie and Herbie standing right there, under a heating lamp. The temperature was freezing that night, so the lamps keep the smokers and fresh air takers warm. Julie was probably in her favorite outfit: black top, black trousers, plus black shoes. She had some light make-up on and her hair straightened. Herbie was in a casual suit and looked smart. She was holding a cocktail and he was drinking a Corona. After saying hi them, I squeezed through the people in the bar to go to the gents. It was a tiny little bar full of youngish people and through my quick glance I noticed they were all sort of nicely dressed. The male bathroom was awful. It was tiny, damp and smelt like piss. Trying very hard to squeeze through people again in order to get a drink, I noticed the bartenders were actually making cocktails. All of a sudden I realized it was a cocktail bar and the reason why the bar area was fully packed. Trying even harder to get the bartender’s attention, I got my gin and tonic for 3 pound something. Pricy.

Back outside, Jo arrived with her black coat. She’s the American girl from Seattle. Smart and full of “this is what I think, so whatever” attitude. Then Agnieszka flew in like a pretty butterfly. She’s one of the posh Polish people among the other five thousand “I don’t speak English but I need a job” Poles in the city. She was in a beautiful Tibetan blue coat, cute little skirt and her iconic make-up. She talked fast, crazy and always hyper. Adam arrived after Agnieszka. He’s a 23 year old Edinburgher who worked 2 years full-time at Starbucks and now doing a photography course in a college. He wears a Will Young style hair-cut with long black fringe, which covers one of his piercing blue eyes. He was wearing a black shirt with a yellow tie, and a stripy hoodie outside. “You’re wearing a tie? Is this part of your outfit?” I asked. He briefly said yes. I know he was happy that I noticed what he was wearing.

Finally, my friend Julien arrived. He’s a half French, half Indian guy from the island of Reunion. He lived in Shanghai for a year and speaks fluent Mandarin. Although living in Scotland, most of his friends are Chinese. He told me he rarely had a chance to speak English, so I told he to come along, to hang out. He was in a black zip jumper, jeans and white trainers, very casual and I’d also say sort of Chav style, which I wouldn’t compliment.
Then we all had a few drinks. Guys were having beers and the girls having cocktails, pretending we were grown-ups. I had a look at their cocktails menu, and most of the drinks were about 5 Quids. Even though the bar wasn’t very glamorous at all, I still think cocktails are for fully grown-ups, partly because of its price, I guess. Being not able to find a seat at Tonic, we decided to head somewhere else after a few drinks. Next to the lunge bar and restaurant Tiger Lily, it was a basement bar called Lulu. There were lots people queuing, but we still joined the queue. It was the typically Edinburgh night scene, queuing to get into an expensive bar and get pissed. The bouncer was walking around and examining what people were wearing. George St had its dressing code, I thought. Meanwhile, bouncers always make me nervous, because they often think I’m under age and I seldom carry my ID to prove it. “You are not gonna get in” the bouncer said, to Julien, and was pointing to his white trainers, “too casual.”

So we had to go somewhere else. Having a difficulty of agreeing on where we were gonna go, we walked around in the November Scottish cold weather for another 10 minutes. We decided to go back to Tonic. At that point, I sensed it wasn’t going to be a very creative night at all, but at least it’d be warm inside Tonic.

Back in Tonic, we finally found a table, but not enough for all of us. So, we were taking turns to sit while the other were taking 10 minutes to get to the bar and another 20 to take a drink. Somehow, Julien started to talk to a girl at table next to us. She invited us to sit over while her friend was getting a drink. That Welsh girl named Sara was apparently high and kept saying how “wikid” China was and how “wikid” that Julien could speak Chinese. Then Sara’s friend came back. I had to talk to her friend who was a fat sculptor and worked as a receptionist in a beauty spa while Julien was talking to Sara.

Getting frustrated by the way too busy atmosphere, my work friends decided to leave and go back to Jo’s place to hang out. Jo said she didn’t have any beer in her place, so we all bough a Corona from Tonic to take back. Sucks, huh? Before meeting Sara, I asked Julie if he wanted to go back with us. He said he’d go straight home, because he was tired. But now, he said he wanted to stay at Tonic. He even borrowed money from me because he had no money for more drinks. So I lent him a tener and went back to Jo’s with my other friends. That was my cocktail night out on Georget St.