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Waking up at 7 in the morning to walk up a hill is not most people think of when picturing fun. However, my little sister and I did just that on our first day in Edinburgh. According to the internet this was meant to be a “light hike”. Forty minutes in the only “light” thing was my head. We didn’t have a map so the only path we were following was Up. Most of the time we kept to clear trails but every once in awhile we’d end up facing a rock wall, since we weren’t about to turn back and try something else we climbed and kept going. It took us over an hour to reach the top, which was worth it for the (literally) breathtaking views. As I sat on the dirt trying to catch my breath I saw what all of us hope to see whenever we go out of the house: a dog. The dog was running up and down, coming to see what I was doing and then rushing back to his owner’s side. The man in question was the most scottish he could be without outright wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. He was old, probably in his seventies, wearing a tartan cap on his head. I obviously started petting the dog, along with my sister, cooing and telling the man just how adorable it was. He smiled at us and asked where we were from, since our accents are anything but scottish. After telling him we asked him how long he had been living in Edinburgh, to nobody’s surprise his family had been there for generations. He shared with us a story from one of his ancestors. The man had been a smuggler who worked with a wagon with a fake floor, he’d stash his merchandise on the bottom and them pass right through the controls without a hitch. As this things tend to do, it went south. The man needed to get out of the city fast, preferably without any officials seeing him. So what did he do? He employed the same tactic as with his goods, a fake bottom in the carriage. The thing was that he forgot to account for weight and half way through his great escape the carriage gave out from under him and he dropped right in front of the police who were searching the vehicle. The man was tried and hung, as was customary those days. When the old man told us the story he was laughing, enjoying the misfortunes of his great great grandfather and talking about his execution like a fact of life. My sister and I were enthralled by the story. There we were, at the top of Arthur’s Seat, with all of the city of Edinburgh at our feet, with a greyhound nipping at our hands and the wind blowing, hearing of the dark past of a true scotsman from his own mouth. The man was happy to share his history with such an engaged audience and we were concentrating one hundred percent so not to miss anything in the rough accent and scottish colloquialisms. When we finally made our way down we were late for a historical tour of the city but both of us felt like we had gotten a taste of the real history of the place from someone who lived it every day of his life. Making a local connection doesn’t need to be something planned or searched for, sometimes you stop to compliment a dog and you get a thrilling story of crime and death, sometimes you sit down on a pub and just buying someone a pint will unlock a world of stories you’d never hear while on a tour. For me, travel is all about these fortuitous encounters, the people who love their city so much they won’t hesitate to stop mid-hike to speak with two lost tourists. The best way to get to know a place is not necessarily through walking but actually through talking with its people.