A bit of a suprise, ol’ chap. Walking into ‘EDIN-burra’ and finding that we are in the midst of the opening weekend of the three-week long Fringe Festival. Actors are everywhere, plays are everywhere, handout pamphlets are everywhere. The paper reported 150,000 people were in town yesterday for the opening and, I must say, we believe it.
The Edinburgh Tattoo sold out at the castle arena on Friday night… and that is a darn big arena.
We attended four different plays on Saturday, all definitely small theater amateur hour. The first was a single person drama about a poet who lost his muse. The second was a Monty Python-esque revue that was the best thing we saw presented by a very enthusiastic set of university actors. (Something about people dancing across the stage singing about undertaking is, well, kinda funny. God knows why.) Our third choice was an hour long two person play pitting IKEA (furniture store) against the German world of knik-knack stores. (It was almost good.) And finally, we ended up in a weird venue (the upper deck of a double decker bus with ambient blue lighting) for a stand up comedy routine that for all but the first-third of the hour, sort of was flat like a blown tire.
Yes, we tried the Haggis (seems rather like a relative of corn beef hash) with some Guiness to wash it down. And we tucked into a atmospheric meal at The Witchery for a unique lunch by candlelight in a 400 year old building…Salt Cod anyone?
It has been a pleasant stop, rather sunny and all. Good drumming and bagpiping on the streets by Scottish men in kilts. Lots of smiling people. Ah, but this morning… the weather is back “Heavy Thundery Showers this afternoon” has been declared by those horrid BBC local forcasters. The skies are turning gray and starting to drip, so they probably have prediction correct, even though they used the word ‘Thundery’ on public television. Must be a sign to move on…
