Welcoming the Fringe and Saying Goodbye

We made lots of fun balloons, a hat from a basket, and a Norwegian flag from flyers.

On Friday, Nikki and I went to a Fringe show. This is hopefully my first of many. We went to “Hell Hath No Fury,” a one-woman show based on the story of Macbeth told from the perspective of Lady Macbeth. I thought it was pretty good for the first performance of a show that has never been performed before. Also, the ticket was only  £3, so I didn’t really know what to expect.

After the show, Nikki and I went to the Royal Mile to buy tickets to two more shows and it was crazy! Walking through that crowd felt like I was in a completely different city. There were so many people, stages set up everywhere with performers doing all kinds of things. I even saw a group of shirtless men with makeup and mohawks dancing. Luckily I got a picture to prove I didn’t just make that up!

We waited for quite a long time to get tickets, and then we wandered around a bit. First, we went to Mimi’s on the Royal Mile and got Red Velvet Cake ice cream. It was so good. We walked around and ate that and then we popped into this shop to look for a present for Nikki’s friend. Then we walked back to the flat.

We quickly ate dinner and then headed out for round two of our sunset quest. On Monday, we watched a beautiful sunset in Newhaven, so this time we wanted to watch the sun set from Arthur’s Seat. It was so cold up there, but definitely worth it. I got some pretty amazing pictures that evening.

Nikki thought it was really cold

On Saturday, I wanted to take a walk, so I walked through New Town to Inverleith Park. It takes about an hour to walk there, but it’s a really nice walk, especially once you get past the hordes of people on the Royal Mile and Princes Street.

Once I got to the park, I admired the panoramic view of Edinburgh. You can see Calton Hill, Holyrood Park, the Castle, and everything in between.

I decided then to lay down in the grass on the hill with that view and read my book about Scottish History. I was still getting through early Medieval history, so I may or may not have briefly dozed off, but anyway it was a nice relaxing thing to do on a Saturday afternoon.

After about an hour of reading I started walking back to the flat.

That evening Nikki and I had plans to watch the sunset on Blackford Hill, but about 10 minutes after we left the flat, it started raining pretty hard. We decided to walk around the Fringe venues set up on the university campus. It’s pretty crazy how they changed the main square of campus into a maze of bars and venues that feels like a carnival.

This is the street I walk down every day to go to class – it looks a bit different now

The next day we had originally planned to go to the Pentlands to hike for the day, but the weather forecast had gotten worse, so Nikki and I decided to go somewhere Nikki wanted to go while she was here, but wasn’t sure she’d have time to get to. We went to Lochleven, which was of interest, because Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned there for a little less than a year before eventually she was imprisoned in England for the rest of her life.

We slept in a bit and got the bus to Kinross at about noon. The bus dropped us off about a mile from the loch, so we walked over to get our tickets. We figured we’d be on the island about 2, but when we got there a little after 1:30, the guy selling tickets told us that there were no available boats until 3! We were shocked. We didn’t think there’d really be anyone there, but we’ve never been in Scotland in August. We’re so used to how things are during the winter. When Nikki went last fall, she was the only person on the island.

We made the best out of the situation and we walked around the edge of the loch and found a bench where we ate our lunch. While we sat there, Nikki told me all about the history surrounding this place and what happened to Mary before and after she came here. It’s been so interesting listening to what she’s learned over the past year or so and she’s pretty much the most informed guide you could ever get.

After we killed some time, we went to the dock to get on the boat. The ride over to the island was really nice and it was starting to clear up (after having rained on us while we ate our lunch).

When we got there, Nikki read what the guide book said and then pointed out any factual errors (which I was surprised to find!) and added any more information she could. The only downside was that there were a few families and lots of kids. They were kind of loud and all the kids were running around playing hide-and-seek, which made it really hard to be reverent and think of it as Mary’s prison.

We didn’t have much time before we had to catch the bus back to Edinburgh, so we couldn’t stay long. There’s honestly not that much there anyway, so that wasn’t a huge problem.

We took the boat back and then walked back to the bus stop. When we got there, there was a guy about our age waiting there. We only started to talk to him after I found some Polish currency on the ground and we started talking about that. We got talking and it turns out he had just come from work after picking up his paycheck and having booked a flight to Germany 2 hours previously. He hadn’t told anyone and was supposed to be at work by the time he was waiting for the bus. He had no place to stay arranged and just a bookbag with some clothes in it. I imagine he’s going to have an interesting time. Nikki and I talked about him on the way back trying to figure out what prompted that decision. It was certainly an interesting encounter.

Again, we had plans that changed that evening. We originally planned to go to Portobello beach that evening, but we were so tired when we got back and getting the bus would have been tight time-wise. So we cancelled those plans, but when we got home, our friend Hudson was over. We ate with him and Emma made apple pie and that was really nice. We made a last-minute decision to go out and walk around the Fringe venues on campus and look for our friend Catriona, who works there. We had no luck, so we were trying to figure out what to do.

Emma pulled up the Fringe app and looked for free shows that were going on that night. We found a free comedy gig just a few blocks away, so we went there. We got there about 15 minutes before it started and there was no one there. I was worried we would be the only ones and it would be really awkward, but a bunch of people turned up right before the show and we actually had to move the chairs so more people could come in and stand in the back. The show was called “Generation Why” and it was so good! I’m really glad we just went and did something. I feel like that’s a great way to do the Fringe, especially if you just check out free shows.

thanks for the photo, Emma

The next day, Monday, was a day I was really looking forward to. I made a special dinner for me, Emma, and Nikki – risotto, halloumi, and broccoli (all Nikki’s requests) – and then Nikki and I went to the Tattoo! I can’t express how thankful and grateful I am that I got to go, because it truly is amazing. It starts and ends with Scottish performances, but the idea is that it’s a celebration of internationalism and it’s actually a military display in origin. So there are huge pipes and drum bands and then there were displays from fiddlers from Shetland, the US Air Force, the Chinese military band and later a more traditional dance, a Bollywood dance, a Swiss drum core, and then a giant finale with everyone together. The most amazing things were probably the sheer scale of the performances, with hundreds of performers working together, and the projections on the castle that changed according to each performance.

I didn’t take too many pictures and I really tried to enjoy the performance. I knew a lot of the pictures wouldn’t capture what it really looked and felt like and the lighting was difficult for my camera, so I just listened and watched and I’m very happy I did. (After picking the pictures, it seems like I did take a lot of pictures)

Tuesday was sadly Nikki’s last day before she goes back to the US. We spent our last day together by going to a few Fringe shows…and by a few I mean 5 in a row. We left at 2:30 and our last show didn’t end until 11:30. This is another way to experience the Fringe. I mean, there are thousands of shows going on from about 10 in the morning until the wee hours of the morning, so if you want to take advantage of that, especially if you’re only here for a while, you have to see shows back to back to back.

I think Nikki and I both thought “Magdalen” was the best show we saw. It was a one-woman show about early 20th-century Ireland set in a “home,” and told the stories about people nuns took in and made work in quite horrible conditions. It was a very sad story, but the actress did an absolutely amazing job portraying all kinds of characters from young boys to strict old nuns to a mentally handicapped young girl. I was especially impressed when the actress thanked us all at the end for coming and it turns out she was American!

The other four shows were all written and directed by a guy named Jethro Compton. Nikki saw some of his shows last year, so that’s why we went to four of his shows. The first one, “Blood Red Moon” was pretty disappointing. The acting and production were good, but the plot was so predictable that it seemed to drag on forever. This was part of a trilogy of somewhat related plays, so we were really concerned that the other two were also going to be disappointing.

Our next show was the Jethro Compton show that was not part of the trilogy. It’s called “Sirenia” and it was written because Jethro Compton discovered this space and decided to write a play for the space because it felt like a lighthouse to him. So it was set in the lighthouse keeper’s room and the room was so small that only about 15 people could cram into one side of the room and then were was just enough room left for the two actors. Nikki and I thought the set was amazing and we loved the male actor. At one point in the show, he was telling a story about something that had happened in his past, and the only light in the room was a flashlight that allowed us to just make out a silhouette and a few facial features, but I got such a strong mental image of the story he was telling. He was pretty amazing.

set of Sirenia (note: the chair is about 5 feet away, so it was definitely an immersive show)

This was our view as we ate dinner on the side of the sidewalk between shows

The last two shows were “The Clock Strikes Noon” and “The Rattlesnake’s Kiss.” We didn’t really know what to expect, because it was all the same actors, the same set, the same time period, and the same setting. We were pleasantly surprised that they were both so much better than the first one. There was actually character development and the plot wasn’t predictable within the first 10 minutes, so we were pretty happy. We did have a bit of trouble when there was a 15-minute scene in complete darkness probably around 11pm and we had a bit of trouble focusing.

the set of the Jethro Compton trilogy

Overall, we just felt that the first one was the weaker of the trilogy and that we liked the shows.

I’m hoping to go to many more Fringe shows and do a lot more to take advantage of the Fringe in the next week or two.

The next morning, I helped Nikki take her bags to the bus to the airport. She’s back home now and I’m sad that I don’t know when I’ll get to see her next and I know she’s sad that she doesn’t know when she’ll get to come back to Scotland, but I am so glad we got to spend the last month and a half together exploring and hanging out again like old times. And hopefully there will be another guest post up soon about her experience in Scotland!