A friend, L, clued me in a few months ago about the Edinburgh Military Tattoo festival that happens in August. To be honest, I had never heard of it, but when I watched some pieces on youtube, I thought it might be cool to see. I also read in RS about something called the Fringe festival, which just happened to overlap, so I thought if nothing else, I can see that for one day and then maybe do a day trip out of Edinburgh on the other. I booked the trip at the beginning of March and thought 2 full days was plenty since I've been there before (refer to the coldest weekend of my life here). I was really looking forward to a warm few days in a beautiful city....little did I know that it would turn into my best solo trip to date (only topped by amazing weekend trips with friends (here), (here) and (here)).
I flew EasyJet late on Tuesday night, which of course was delayed. Lately, just going to the airport means a delay for me. I'm not sure how I got into that rut, but I'd like to get out very soon!
After landing, it was straight to the bus to a cab to the hotel. I stayed at the Abbey Hotel on Royal Terrace, which was more like a bed and breakfast - small number of rooms, great full breakfast in the morning and excellent staff. I could not have asked for a better experience.
In the morning after a fabulous real breakfast with eggs, bacon and toast (the Dutch are epically bad at breakfast), the hotel desk manager was nice enough to clue me in on how the Fringe works. He gave me this book, with every page having at least 10 different shows to see:
Essentially, this is a massive catalogue of comedy, theatre, films, musicals, music acts, spoken word, and children's shows going on everyday through a three week period. It's heaven. I had flipped through an online pdf before the trip, taking snapshots of shows I thought sounded good, but until you get the physical copy in your hands, you just don't understand the sheer volume of things to see. My copy is well worn and loved.
So I sat for a bit flipping through and planning out the day. I wish I had been a bit more organized before coming over for the shows, but what I learned later on was that just walking the streets nets you flyers for shows you would never think to see and are actually really good. I also learned that there is a job called a flyerer. Job description: Must be hungry college student who is using the money on beer and seeing shows, in that order.
Anyways, I have a huge love for the arts, particularly if they make you laugh...there is no better medicine than a good chuckle, so I focused on stand up and sketch comedy. I would say that I had about a 60% success rate with shows, which I think was pretty good given all the options.
I started off by heading to the Tattoo office to get my tickets for the evenings at the castle. If you ever decide to go to the Tattoo, book way in advance and get seats in section 7. Best view by far. I went to the Fringe box office where a very patient volunteer helped me for 30 minutes buy tickets for some of the shows that had a price (did I mention that a lot of them were free?!?!).
What happens after that deserves a new post....
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