Whenever I would tell anyone I was planning to go to Scotland they would inevitably say "you have to go to Edinburgh!" And generally it was yelled in the fashion of a courier issuing a royal mandate. As if under some unlikely circumstance I was confronted with the Scottish police and it was discovered that I hadn't been to Edinburgh, I would be facing inevitable fines, imprisonment or worse. But their outspoken concern was moot as I had long decided to visit Edinburgh. Which, by the way, is pronounced "Ed-in-braa!" Extra emphasis on the exclamation.
What I hadn't anticipated was that I would be arriving in the middle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival- the largest art festival in the world with something like 2,600 performances in around 270 venues over the nearly month-long term. Nearly every pub in the city has been designated as a venue and in addition to actual performance venues a number of random stages have been set up along the streets.
Initially, the Edinburgh International festival was the premier (and only) festival, however, the English felt they weren't getting a fare shake so they came up and started the Fringe Festival as an alternative. Now the Fringe dwarfs the International Festival. I found out about it through James and Michelle who I met in York and they coincidentally happened to be going to Edinburgh at the exact same time and staying in the exact same hostel I was. So it made perfect sense for me to just tag along with them since they had done all the legwork on what to see and do.
Dragging myself off the train around noon into Edinburgh, however, it was all I could do to muster the energy to walk up the hill to the hostel. As I staggered sluggishly toward my destination, I immediately noticed the striking look of the buildings in Edinburgh. When describing Edinburgh to me people used adjectives like "charming" or "medieval" or... "old." Generally the actuality rarely lives up to the billing, but I'm pleased to announce that Edinburgh can be accurately described as charming, medieval, and old.
The short walk to the hostel complete, I was informed that I couldn't check in until 1pm. Having nothing better to do, I deposited my bag and decided to investigate what this "Fringe Festival" was all about. Fortunately, the main outdoor performance portion of it was just up our street, Cockburn Street, along the Royal Mile. Yes, I said Cockburn Street. And, for you Jon, right across from our hostel was this:
I'll never grow up. The Royal Mile was absolutely packed with a dizzying array of tourists, performers, people advertising for performances, vendors hawking wears, and people who seemed to be simply reveling in the chaos.
The festival itself is comprised of music, plays, other performance art, but more than anything is predominantly comedy. Many comics have been "discovered" while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe it's thus considered an excellent place to launch your fledgling comedy career. Or just act like an idiot with your friends. During the day most of the street venues are occupied by various performing artists, magicians, comedians, or sometimes weird dudes happy to just do their thing.
There was one guy in particular who fell distinctly into the latter category. Apparently his performance entailed looking like Zach Galifinakis, dressing in a leotard and nipple tassels, and riding a really tall unicycle while heckling kids and juggling knives. I'm serious. And the thing is, he killed!
Sexy. Glad I came to Edinburgh. In his defense, he was pretty skilled at riding that unicycle. And juggling. And keeping those nipple tassels a twirlin. Needing a break from the sensory overload, I took refuge in what appeared to be a church. Why you ask? Did I suddenly come down with an overpowering urge to envelop myself in the everlasting love of Christ? Actually it was because they advertised broadcasting all Olympic sports and I really wanted to catch the USA men's basketball team play for a gold medal. Hey, hey, don't judge- basketball is a religion where I grew up. But when I got inside it wasn't a church at all. It was a bar! Where was this concept when I had to go to church during my formative adult years??
Despite the awesome concept, the thought of having a drink nearly brought me to tears so I opted for a Coke. Then I was informed it was three pounds, which did bring me tears. Egregious! That's more offensive robbery than the indomitable collection plate. And beers were only two pounds- what a day to quit drinking! To make matters worse, they opted to show boxing instead of basketball. Again?!? Who cares about two former USSR nations' chunky dudes bashing each other in the face when the USA is taking on Spain for a gold medal in the greatest sport on earth! So I chugged my $4.50 coke and got the heck out of there, back to the hostel, and powered up the computer to watch the game.
The next day I met James and Michelle who last night, while I was laying low, worked out all the acts we would be seeing for the fringe over the next two nights. But the most pressing matter of the morning was, you guessed it, joining up with the free walking tour. I love these tours! And grilled cheese sandwiches... but that's another story for another blog. We started up the Royal mile with our group to the first stopping point and because of all the early am Fringe activity we lost the group within 200 meters. So we had to slink back down and join a new group until we could ultimately rendezvous with the old group and rejoin. Consequently we missed the first 2000 years or so of Scottish history. Tough titty. It's also worth noting that even at 11am, the Fring-ites were already out in full on crazy force.
Makes sense. One of the downsides of doing the tour during the Fringe was that most of the open areas where we would typically recess to learn about what it is we're looking at were dominated by street performers doing their acts. A great example is this shot of a man wearing a kilt balancing on a ladder in front of St. Giles Cathedral. I'd love to tell you about St. Giles but I couldn't focus on anything other than this pant-less man hopping about on his ladder.
I'm not going to post any more shots of the rest of the tour, so feel free to scoot on over to flickr if you're so inclined. We did end up seeing most of the famous things in Edinburgh: the writer's museum, the statue of Hume (who I remember falling asleep while attempting to read in my intro philosophy class at UNC), Greyfriars and Bobby, Victoria Street, and one of the most visited tourist sites in Scotland- Edinburgh Castle. Below is the best shot I have of the castle because the other side was covered in scaffolding and seating for the Military Tattoo (an exhibition of marching and military formations of historical significance taking place on the castle greens). If you're counting, that's three major festivals in Edinburgh at the same time.
The castle itself is very expensive to enter (16 pounds I believe) so we collectively elected to spend that money on Fringe Festival acts and save the castle for another time. I also heard that it's one of the lesser impressive castles compared to the many others scattered about Scotland. During the middle of the tour we were given a 20 minute break and James suggested that we use it to try our first single malt ("scotch") whisky of our time in Scotland. "But it's only 12:30" I initially thought, however, I quickly reasoned that since we're in Scotland where it's common to begin the day with a drink, a mid-day scotch was perfectly reasonable. I countered that we would need to get something else so that I didn't have just whisky on my stomach and so we compromised on an ale. :/ Now this, THIS, is a true full Scottish breakfast.
If you're curious we went with the single malt of the day: the 12 year Old Pulteney. After the tour we did do something very note and picture worthy: we ate haggis. For those of you who don't know what haggis is, it's the innards of a sheep (heart, lungs, liver, and brains in pre-mad cow days) diced up, seasoned, mixed with oatmeal and a bunch of other stuff, then cooked inside a sheep stomach. Yummy!
These days they've modernized it quite a bit. It's usually a combination of beef, pork, and sheep. It is usually not cooked in a stomach. And it's often dressed up and served with neeps and tatties (turnips and mashed potatoes). I'll be completely honest here- I was a bit hesitant to give this a go until I saw it on the plate. And my eyes didn't deceive me. It was good. Really good. As in, I'd eat this on a regular basis and order it in restaurants good. It really gets a bad rep- but it tastes like a more seasoned shepherd's pie but without the vegis. Doesn't it look delicious?
That night we had tickets to Alan Davies who is apparently a big deal in the UK and Commonwealth. He's probably most famous for being on a show called QI with Stephen Frye if that means anything to you. To kill some time before the show we stopped into this bar called Lebowski's, themed like the film including a cocktail menu with around 40 types of white russians. I never thought I'd see a bar dedicated to white russians. Well done. Davies' show was pretty good- he was all over the place, hitting on a myriad of topics. He did a dated bit on learning how to use Facebook and then a racy bit on Russian porn actors followed by a bit on his wife having his first child. A little bit for everyone I suppose. Watching the looks of discomfort and borderline horror on the faces of the 65+ demographic during the porn segment was actually more amusing to me than the bit itself.
After the show we decided to do our own impromptu pub crawl and ended up at this really great place called the Banshee Laybrinth which holds itself out as the city's most haunted bar. I don't know about haunted, but it's certainly the most potentially devastating to your health. We started off with a couple of their signature shots: the Black Death. It's equal parts absinthe, black sambuca, aftershock, and tequila. I assuming you just vomited onto your computer so I'll give you a minute to clean up... take your time... better?
The place itself is massive with 6 or 7 rooms, three of which were being used as active Fringe venues when we were there. Since the shows were already in progress we opted to watch Ghostbusters II which was being screened in one of the rooms. Later, when I went to get a beer I noticed they had a drink called the Ghostbuster on the cocktail menu, and more importantly, that such beverage could be had in pitcher form. Oh baby. The only thing haunting this place as far as I can tell are the ghosts of dead livers. As you might imagine, the night got pretty wild. We ended up seeing a three man "comedy" play in that bar (and all of us nodding off during it), then hanging out with some Aussies on a Contiki tour (who were not surprisingly getting "out of their faces"), then going to the club up the street called The Hive with them.
It was so hot in this club that everyone was literally dripping sweat. Saturated. The floors were covered in a film of sweat and booze. It seemed to be oozing from the walls, pouring over the chairs, spilling into the entryways. The place pulsated and moved- like we were dancing in a live beating heart. When we emerged around 3 in the morning I felt as if I had been rebirthed into the cool evening air, damp hair and clothing clinging to my person. The clubber's afterbirth. From there Michelle got her second piggyback ride- up the street, diagonally across oncoming traffic, and down to the hostel where we all crashed hard.
The next morning I was tender to life. Sunshine, noise, walking, it all pained me. Breaking my usually staunchly adhered to Budhist-level principle, I met Michelle for breakfast. If I was going to eat breakfast I thought, I might as well do it properly. So I got a roll with bacon, sausage, egg, and butter. And a large coffee. Afterward I felt uncomfortably full for that hour of the day but otherwise about 9x better than I had just moments before. I'm going to have to do some experimenting with this whole "breakfast" thing.
Once James was up and about we decided to climb up Arthur's Seat, a rock formation standing imposingly over the southeast portion of the city. On the way up you get an excellent view of the other main hill in the immediate Edinburgh vicinity, Calton Hill.
I won't post all the pictures from on top of the hill but it was a fantastic hike and I highly recommend flipping through them on flickr if you're bored or, like me, love views from mountains. Here is one of me at the very top gnawing on some straw like a good southern boy should.
One of the reasons I love climbing is that it provides me with a better perspective on life. Literally and figuratively. Gazing across the horizon from astride a mountain makes the trials and tribulations of the day feel utterly trite and insignificant. When you look out and there is nothing in your view higher than you- it's celestial. Zeus on Olympus. Observing the happenings below but completely indifferent to their outcomes. It makes you feel alive. Makes you feel bigger than life.
After conquering the mountain we decided to celebrate in the most logical way: by climbing the other main hill! You thought I was going to say by having a beer didn't you? Fair, enough. As I proofread this I was expecting it to say that too. Back on topic, Calton Hill is loaded with historic monuments but the real thing to see is the view of Edinburgh below.
Having conquered all hills in reasonable proximity it was time to celebrate for real by indulging the angry hermit in our stomachs with a smothering of food. We accomplished this at a little pub on Rose Street in the New Town where, for the first time, I finally tried the British staple fish n chips. They were outstanding (except for the mushy peas which look like wasabi and taste like... mush), but the real star of the show was my choice of beverage: Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer. It tastes just like ginger beer but has 4% alcohol. Dangerous. And, now that I think about it, basically defeats the whole purpose of ginger beer to begin with. But don't let that stop you from crushing them more vigorously than Big Punisher crushed, well, everything. Michelle opted for this gigantic burger that was almost as big as her head. I thought there was no chance of her finishing it but she polished if off along with her fries and some of my fish. The girl can eat.
An interesting note about Crabbie's: on the label there is a picture of the thistle, Scotland's national flower. According to our tour guide, when the agreement between England and Scotland was formed (thereby creating the UK), each country had to pick its national flower. England picked the rose. Growing all over Scotland are thistles which are known to choke out roses, so naturally, the Scottish chose the thistle. Anything to take a jab at the English.
That night we had tickets to see Mark Watson and an Irish guy whose name escapes me. Mark Watson was outstanding. He started the show hiding in a box on the stage and listening to people's conversations which he later commented on. He's known for his use of interactive technology- for example, he encourages you to leave your phones on and text him things during the show. He will also joke around with the audience. One girl went to the bathroom and he hid and did the show backstage until she came out and was confused as to why no one was on stage.
Later a guy texted him saying he had a urinary tract infection and asking if he could go to the bathroom. Mark read it aloud, gave the guy permission and this guy in the front row (right in front of us) jumps up and runs out. So he asks the guy's friends if it's true which apparently it was. So he's like "that really sucks... we should mess with him anyway." He takes the guy's chair and hides it and everyone in the row scoots in so it appears the seat never existed. Guy comes back, is really confused and ends up sitting on the floor while all of us are cracking up. The Irish guy was pretty funny but nothing really worth noting. While we were waiting for the shows I made James (an Australian) drink a Fosters with me. If you don't know, Australians abhor Fosters.
After the show we went to a beer garden where James was meeting up with one of his friends from University. The beer garden itself had an awesome layout but maybe a bit too loud and too posh for Michelle and I. Plus it was really expensive.
Michelle and I started talking about our favorite drinks and she mentioned a great affinity for Bacardi. An affinity that I share. When she divulged that she had some back at the hostel, our frugal sides got the better of us and we retreated to the hostel lounge for a night cap and chat about the grand merits of teaching. Done while enjoying Bacardi as it's meant to be enjoyed- warm and straight up out of the bottle.
By the time we knocked it out the staff was ready to close up the lounge so we retired for the evening, capping off an impressive fun-filled stretch at the Edinburgh Fringe. As with any city during a festival or high tourist season or... Olympics... the vibe of the city you're left with isn't what you would usually expect to encounter. Thus, I always have a desire to return and experience said environs bereft of such calamities. Stripped down to its most bare, most casual existence. Edinburgh was three hoots and a hoot but you can be sure it's high on my list of places to return when the crowds have subsided, the madness has calmed, and relative normalcy holds sway.
What I hadn't anticipated was that I would be arriving in the middle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival- the largest art festival in the world with something like 2,600 performances in around 270 venues over the nearly month-long term. Nearly every pub in the city has been designated as a venue and in addition to actual performance venues a number of random stages have been set up along the streets.
Initially, the Edinburgh International festival was the premier (and only) festival, however, the English felt they weren't getting a fare shake so they came up and started the Fringe Festival as an alternative. Now the Fringe dwarfs the International Festival. I found out about it through James and Michelle who I met in York and they coincidentally happened to be going to Edinburgh at the exact same time and staying in the exact same hostel I was. So it made perfect sense for me to just tag along with them since they had done all the legwork on what to see and do.
Dragging myself off the train around noon into Edinburgh, however, it was all I could do to muster the energy to walk up the hill to the hostel. As I staggered sluggishly toward my destination, I immediately noticed the striking look of the buildings in Edinburgh. When describing Edinburgh to me people used adjectives like "charming" or "medieval" or... "old." Generally the actuality rarely lives up to the billing, but I'm pleased to announce that Edinburgh can be accurately described as charming, medieval, and old.
The short walk to the hostel complete, I was informed that I couldn't check in until 1pm. Having nothing better to do, I deposited my bag and decided to investigate what this "Fringe Festival" was all about. Fortunately, the main outdoor performance portion of it was just up our street, Cockburn Street, along the Royal Mile. Yes, I said Cockburn Street. And, for you Jon, right across from our hostel was this:
I'll never grow up. The Royal Mile was absolutely packed with a dizzying array of tourists, performers, people advertising for performances, vendors hawking wears, and people who seemed to be simply reveling in the chaos.
The festival itself is comprised of music, plays, other performance art, but more than anything is predominantly comedy. Many comics have been "discovered" while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe it's thus considered an excellent place to launch your fledgling comedy career. Or just act like an idiot with your friends. During the day most of the street venues are occupied by various performing artists, magicians, comedians, or sometimes weird dudes happy to just do their thing.
There was one guy in particular who fell distinctly into the latter category. Apparently his performance entailed looking like Zach Galifinakis, dressing in a leotard and nipple tassels, and riding a really tall unicycle while heckling kids and juggling knives. I'm serious. And the thing is, he killed!
Sexy. Glad I came to Edinburgh. In his defense, he was pretty skilled at riding that unicycle. And juggling. And keeping those nipple tassels a twirlin. Needing a break from the sensory overload, I took refuge in what appeared to be a church. Why you ask? Did I suddenly come down with an overpowering urge to envelop myself in the everlasting love of Christ? Actually it was because they advertised broadcasting all Olympic sports and I really wanted to catch the USA men's basketball team play for a gold medal. Hey, hey, don't judge- basketball is a religion where I grew up. But when I got inside it wasn't a church at all. It was a bar! Where was this concept when I had to go to church during my formative adult years??
Despite the awesome concept, the thought of having a drink nearly brought me to tears so I opted for a Coke. Then I was informed it was three pounds, which did bring me tears. Egregious! That's more offensive robbery than the indomitable collection plate. And beers were only two pounds- what a day to quit drinking! To make matters worse, they opted to show boxing instead of basketball. Again?!? Who cares about two former USSR nations' chunky dudes bashing each other in the face when the USA is taking on Spain for a gold medal in the greatest sport on earth! So I chugged my $4.50 coke and got the heck out of there, back to the hostel, and powered up the computer to watch the game.
The next day I met James and Michelle who last night, while I was laying low, worked out all the acts we would be seeing for the fringe over the next two nights. But the most pressing matter of the morning was, you guessed it, joining up with the free walking tour. I love these tours! And grilled cheese sandwiches... but that's another story for another blog. We started up the Royal mile with our group to the first stopping point and because of all the early am Fringe activity we lost the group within 200 meters. So we had to slink back down and join a new group until we could ultimately rendezvous with the old group and rejoin. Consequently we missed the first 2000 years or so of Scottish history. Tough titty. It's also worth noting that even at 11am, the Fring-ites were already out in full on crazy force.
Makes sense. One of the downsides of doing the tour during the Fringe was that most of the open areas where we would typically recess to learn about what it is we're looking at were dominated by street performers doing their acts. A great example is this shot of a man wearing a kilt balancing on a ladder in front of St. Giles Cathedral. I'd love to tell you about St. Giles but I couldn't focus on anything other than this pant-less man hopping about on his ladder.
I'm not going to post any more shots of the rest of the tour, so feel free to scoot on over to flickr if you're so inclined. We did end up seeing most of the famous things in Edinburgh: the writer's museum, the statue of Hume (who I remember falling asleep while attempting to read in my intro philosophy class at UNC), Greyfriars and Bobby, Victoria Street, and one of the most visited tourist sites in Scotland- Edinburgh Castle. Below is the best shot I have of the castle because the other side was covered in scaffolding and seating for the Military Tattoo (an exhibition of marching and military formations of historical significance taking place on the castle greens). If you're counting, that's three major festivals in Edinburgh at the same time.
The castle itself is very expensive to enter (16 pounds I believe) so we collectively elected to spend that money on Fringe Festival acts and save the castle for another time. I also heard that it's one of the lesser impressive castles compared to the many others scattered about Scotland. During the middle of the tour we were given a 20 minute break and James suggested that we use it to try our first single malt ("scotch") whisky of our time in Scotland. "But it's only 12:30" I initially thought, however, I quickly reasoned that since we're in Scotland where it's common to begin the day with a drink, a mid-day scotch was perfectly reasonable. I countered that we would need to get something else so that I didn't have just whisky on my stomach and so we compromised on an ale. :/ Now this, THIS, is a true full Scottish breakfast.
If you're curious we went with the single malt of the day: the 12 year Old Pulteney. After the tour we did do something very note and picture worthy: we ate haggis. For those of you who don't know what haggis is, it's the innards of a sheep (heart, lungs, liver, and brains in pre-mad cow days) diced up, seasoned, mixed with oatmeal and a bunch of other stuff, then cooked inside a sheep stomach. Yummy!
These days they've modernized it quite a bit. It's usually a combination of beef, pork, and sheep. It is usually not cooked in a stomach. And it's often dressed up and served with neeps and tatties (turnips and mashed potatoes). I'll be completely honest here- I was a bit hesitant to give this a go until I saw it on the plate. And my eyes didn't deceive me. It was good. Really good. As in, I'd eat this on a regular basis and order it in restaurants good. It really gets a bad rep- but it tastes like a more seasoned shepherd's pie but without the vegis. Doesn't it look delicious?
That night we had tickets to Alan Davies who is apparently a big deal in the UK and Commonwealth. He's probably most famous for being on a show called QI with Stephen Frye if that means anything to you. To kill some time before the show we stopped into this bar called Lebowski's, themed like the film including a cocktail menu with around 40 types of white russians. I never thought I'd see a bar dedicated to white russians. Well done. Davies' show was pretty good- he was all over the place, hitting on a myriad of topics. He did a dated bit on learning how to use Facebook and then a racy bit on Russian porn actors followed by a bit on his wife having his first child. A little bit for everyone I suppose. Watching the looks of discomfort and borderline horror on the faces of the 65+ demographic during the porn segment was actually more amusing to me than the bit itself.
After the show we decided to do our own impromptu pub crawl and ended up at this really great place called the Banshee Laybrinth which holds itself out as the city's most haunted bar. I don't know about haunted, but it's certainly the most potentially devastating to your health. We started off with a couple of their signature shots: the Black Death. It's equal parts absinthe, black sambuca, aftershock, and tequila. I assuming you just vomited onto your computer so I'll give you a minute to clean up... take your time... better?
The place itself is massive with 6 or 7 rooms, three of which were being used as active Fringe venues when we were there. Since the shows were already in progress we opted to watch Ghostbusters II which was being screened in one of the rooms. Later, when I went to get a beer I noticed they had a drink called the Ghostbuster on the cocktail menu, and more importantly, that such beverage could be had in pitcher form. Oh baby. The only thing haunting this place as far as I can tell are the ghosts of dead livers. As you might imagine, the night got pretty wild. We ended up seeing a three man "comedy" play in that bar (and all of us nodding off during it), then hanging out with some Aussies on a Contiki tour (who were not surprisingly getting "out of their faces"), then going to the club up the street called The Hive with them.
It was so hot in this club that everyone was literally dripping sweat. Saturated. The floors were covered in a film of sweat and booze. It seemed to be oozing from the walls, pouring over the chairs, spilling into the entryways. The place pulsated and moved- like we were dancing in a live beating heart. When we emerged around 3 in the morning I felt as if I had been rebirthed into the cool evening air, damp hair and clothing clinging to my person. The clubber's afterbirth. From there Michelle got her second piggyback ride- up the street, diagonally across oncoming traffic, and down to the hostel where we all crashed hard.
The next morning I was tender to life. Sunshine, noise, walking, it all pained me. Breaking my usually staunchly adhered to Budhist-level principle, I met Michelle for breakfast. If I was going to eat breakfast I thought, I might as well do it properly. So I got a roll with bacon, sausage, egg, and butter. And a large coffee. Afterward I felt uncomfortably full for that hour of the day but otherwise about 9x better than I had just moments before. I'm going to have to do some experimenting with this whole "breakfast" thing.
Once James was up and about we decided to climb up Arthur's Seat, a rock formation standing imposingly over the southeast portion of the city. On the way up you get an excellent view of the other main hill in the immediate Edinburgh vicinity, Calton Hill.
I won't post all the pictures from on top of the hill but it was a fantastic hike and I highly recommend flipping through them on flickr if you're bored or, like me, love views from mountains. Here is one of me at the very top gnawing on some straw like a good southern boy should.
One of the reasons I love climbing is that it provides me with a better perspective on life. Literally and figuratively. Gazing across the horizon from astride a mountain makes the trials and tribulations of the day feel utterly trite and insignificant. When you look out and there is nothing in your view higher than you- it's celestial. Zeus on Olympus. Observing the happenings below but completely indifferent to their outcomes. It makes you feel alive. Makes you feel bigger than life.
After conquering the mountain we decided to celebrate in the most logical way: by climbing the other main hill! You thought I was going to say by having a beer didn't you? Fair, enough. As I proofread this I was expecting it to say that too. Back on topic, Calton Hill is loaded with historic monuments but the real thing to see is the view of Edinburgh below.
Having conquered all hills in reasonable proximity it was time to celebrate for real by indulging the angry hermit in our stomachs with a smothering of food. We accomplished this at a little pub on Rose Street in the New Town where, for the first time, I finally tried the British staple fish n chips. They were outstanding (except for the mushy peas which look like wasabi and taste like... mush), but the real star of the show was my choice of beverage: Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer. It tastes just like ginger beer but has 4% alcohol. Dangerous. And, now that I think about it, basically defeats the whole purpose of ginger beer to begin with. But don't let that stop you from crushing them more vigorously than Big Punisher crushed, well, everything. Michelle opted for this gigantic burger that was almost as big as her head. I thought there was no chance of her finishing it but she polished if off along with her fries and some of my fish. The girl can eat.
An interesting note about Crabbie's: on the label there is a picture of the thistle, Scotland's national flower. According to our tour guide, when the agreement between England and Scotland was formed (thereby creating the UK), each country had to pick its national flower. England picked the rose. Growing all over Scotland are thistles which are known to choke out roses, so naturally, the Scottish chose the thistle. Anything to take a jab at the English.
That night we had tickets to see Mark Watson and an Irish guy whose name escapes me. Mark Watson was outstanding. He started the show hiding in a box on the stage and listening to people's conversations which he later commented on. He's known for his use of interactive technology- for example, he encourages you to leave your phones on and text him things during the show. He will also joke around with the audience. One girl went to the bathroom and he hid and did the show backstage until she came out and was confused as to why no one was on stage.
Later a guy texted him saying he had a urinary tract infection and asking if he could go to the bathroom. Mark read it aloud, gave the guy permission and this guy in the front row (right in front of us) jumps up and runs out. So he asks the guy's friends if it's true which apparently it was. So he's like "that really sucks... we should mess with him anyway." He takes the guy's chair and hides it and everyone in the row scoots in so it appears the seat never existed. Guy comes back, is really confused and ends up sitting on the floor while all of us are cracking up. The Irish guy was pretty funny but nothing really worth noting. While we were waiting for the shows I made James (an Australian) drink a Fosters with me. If you don't know, Australians abhor Fosters.
After the show we went to a beer garden where James was meeting up with one of his friends from University. The beer garden itself had an awesome layout but maybe a bit too loud and too posh for Michelle and I. Plus it was really expensive.
Michelle and I started talking about our favorite drinks and she mentioned a great affinity for Bacardi. An affinity that I share. When she divulged that she had some back at the hostel, our frugal sides got the better of us and we retreated to the hostel lounge for a night cap and chat about the grand merits of teaching. Done while enjoying Bacardi as it's meant to be enjoyed- warm and straight up out of the bottle.
By the time we knocked it out the staff was ready to close up the lounge so we retired for the evening, capping off an impressive fun-filled stretch at the Edinburgh Fringe. As with any city during a festival or high tourist season or... Olympics... the vibe of the city you're left with isn't what you would usually expect to encounter. Thus, I always have a desire to return and experience said environs bereft of such calamities. Stripped down to its most bare, most casual existence. Edinburgh was three hoots and a hoot but you can be sure it's high on my list of places to return when the crowds have subsided, the madness has calmed, and relative normalcy holds sway.
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