Leaving Durham behind, Eliza and I were somehow miraculously still
speaking to each other, and were on our way to Edinburgh, Scotland. The Edinburgh
Fringe Festival is the world’s largest arts festival, held annually in venues
across the city, and this year our friend Matt (aka Barker) was in a show.
Arriving in Edinburgh, we once again met up with Aaron, and made
our way out into the city in the hope of somehow managing to run into Barker –
who has a reputation for being rather disorganised, and an apparent allergy to
any form of telecommunication device. Of course, my hopes of some sort of
miraculous northern hemisphere cure for this allergy were soon dashed, and
Eliza, Aaron and myself had a great afternoon guessing where Barker might be,
after calling ‘his’ phone number, only to discover the phone did not in fact
belong to Barker – but to someone he had met in Scotland, and who had
absolutely no idea where our dear Australian friend might be!
Eventually meeting up (he stumbled upon us while ‘flyer-ing’ his
show), we wasted no time getting in on the Edinburgh action. The festival is
staged across the city, with a number of existing venues, and some temporary
venues playing host to acts from across the world. While I am sure by the end
of this entry you will have picked up on my views toward the content of many
shows on offer, I will say now, I was blown away by the venues themselves! I
always thought Adelaide was pretty avant-garde with its unearthly garden,
however Edinburgh took things to a whole new level! Structures in varying
states of disrepair, from disused offices and shops to industrial warehouses,
had been converted into quirky spaces – the stand out favourite being a
graffiti’d old train bridge, with rabbit-warren passageways, maintenance staircases,
and exposed structural supports, which had been completely transformed into a
number of different theatres, bars and lounges. My description does it no
justice – do yourself a favour and Google it!
Our first show for the festival (selected minutes before it
started, from the ditch-and-dent discount stand) turned out to be the one-woman
comedy stand-up show of Bec Hill, who is coincidentally from Adelaide (and
still wears her Charles Campbell school uniform with pride). Now, I am no
expert on stand-up comedy (as the rather ‘questionable’ comedy of the festival
went on to reaffirm), and I will leave the reviews to those people who do know
what they are talking about… but I will say it was ‘okay’… I was just glad I
didn’t pay full price! And little did I know, later in the night… things were
going to get MUCH worse!!!
Next up, it was time to once again show our heaps good South Australian spirit, as we made our way to ‘Gravity
Boots’ – a group of actors from Adelaide, including our friend Barker. Having
seen Gravity Boots perform a couple of times before, and already beginning to
slightly question my understanding of ‘comedy’, I am glad to say I was very
pleasantly surprised with the show! The show comprises a number of short skits,
in which the actors take the audience all the way from the wiring of an
internet café, to the new exhibit at the zoo – with some fairly clever and
witty humour along the way. The Edinburgh show – unlike those I had seen in
Adelaide previously – tied the skits together with some weird and wonderful
reality-altering contraptions, much to the delight (confusion?) of the
audience. Of course, we may have been slightly biased, but Barker did a
wonderful job.
Wasting no time, we left Gravity Boots and met up yet again with
Clarissa and Chris (think back to London… too many reappearing characters going
on in this story!) for The Magical Adventures of Pete Heat. An English
magician, Pete Heat was absolutely sensational, and still to this day I have no
idea how ANY of his tricks were done! Rather than the typical ‘pull a rabbit
out of a hat’ style tricks, Pete’s show used the audience as his main prop,
developing the tricks using audience input, and then somehow, incredibly,
managed to pull off the unimaginable. Of course, there was a fair bit of comedy
thrown in along the way, and although the entire audience left with looks of
complete bewilderment, it was clear everyone thoroughly enjoyed the show!
With my opinion of the festival greatly improved after a couple of
good shows, the three of us made our way to our fourth show for the day – Sam
Simmons. Having never heard of Sam Simmons, and going only by the rave reviews
of festival staff, we went into the show with high expectations – only to be
drastically disappointed with what we got. Sam is an Australian (it seems
everyone was!), and I would like to officially nominate his show as the most
embarrassing export our country has ever made. The show relied entirely on
vulgar language, lewd acts and plain stupidity to keep the audience ‘entertained’,
and it was completely humiliating to think those sitting around us might know
we were Australian. If the gestures and acts on stage weren’t repulsive enough,
the story-line (if you could call it that) of the show was not much better –
celebrating Australian men as depraved sex predators – a story-line which was
regularly interrupted by the middle-aged, balding, sweaty and overweight Sam’s
‘pelvic thrusts’ and ‘gyrations’ toward the audience. Even more concerning
however was the fact that the three of us seemed to be the only people in the
audience not completely captivated and enjoying the show!!! As you may have
picked up from my comments, the show was a total disappointment.
With any understanding we thought we had of ‘comedy’ now
completely destroyed (and ready to apply for our British citizenship
immediately), we reluctantly made out way to the last show for the day, Doctor
Brown’s show Befrdfgth. Not to be confused with my friend Alison, Doctor Brown was the winner
of the 2012 Edinburgh Comedy Award, and we were fortunate to get ourselves some
tickets at the last minute. It was quite a relief when we discovered the show
is entirely mime (I don’t think I would have coped with any more bad language
for the night!), and we spent the next hour entertained by the strange,
shower-needing, bearded man in front of us. The show pushed the boundaries of
what you want a dirty, underwear clad man to do to you in public, however the
audience participation was clever (especially considering it was all explained
without words), and we quite enjoyed ourselves. Not so keen on the obviously
expected sweaty hug on the way out the door, and with no obvious reason to push
past, we rudely rushed past the Doctor on our way out – Eliza’s body shape
isn’t really conducive to the old ‘she’s gone into labour’ story!!!
Up early the next morning, it was time to put the events of the
night before behind us, as we set off with Barker to explore the outskirts of
the city. An attempted climb of Arthur’s Seat was abandoned when the rain
turned it into Arthur’s Slip’n’Slide, however we explored the Golden Mile,
Edinburgh’s Holyroodhouse Palace, and the pretzel-stick looking parliament
house, before meeting up with Dillon who had flown in from the south of
England. With the rain continuing to dampen the day, we joined a walking tour
of the city, learning about and exploring the Edinburgh Castle, the Grassmarket,
Greyfriars Cemetery – and with the first book written in a café in Edinburgh,
all the Harry Potter references along the way!
Edinburgh is a spectacular city – which I was lucky enough to
explore in 2009 when I spent Christmas and New Years in Scotland – built around
the impressive Edinburgh Castle. The capital of Scotland, the city is home to
less than half a million people, however the spectacular buildings, cobblestone
streets, laneways and staircases attract hoards of visitors, and the city
centre seems a constant hive of activity. Of course, the seemingly endless
supply of Guinness, great food, and hundreds of actors on the streets busking
for an extra few dollars did help with the atmosphere!
After an afternoon wandering the city streets, it was time to
initiate Dillon into the world of ‘comedy’, and with the festival officially
ending the night before, there was only one option available to us – the
Cornish Rappers. Two guys from Cornwall, rap music, too much alcohol and one
very small pair of white underwear – let’s just say we didn’t end the festival
on a high!
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| St Andrews, Scotland |
Up early the next morning we picked up a hire car, and with an
expert driver at the wheel (Eliza and Dillon were too young to drive, and Aaron
can’t drive manual, so I’ll let you work out who drove…) we headed north out of
Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth, and to the stunning coastal town of St
Andrews. Home to one of the most famous golf courses in the world, and the
beach in which Mr Bean recently beat all odds to claim victory in the Olympic
Opening Ceremony, St Andrews is the UK sunniest town – and was well worth the
visit! The main street (which you shouldn’t walk with an open sandwich)
stretches from the famous St Andrews Club House, to the spectacular ruins of
the St Andrews Cathedral and nearby castle.
After a walk around the club houses and a jog along the beach, we
practiced our ‘eye-spy’ and ‘who-am-I?’ skills, as our expert driver took us
inland to the town of Dunkeld for a picnic lunch. Lunch was followed by a
photo-shoot with a parked car we all decided looked a bit nicer than our own
for the day, before we were heading yet further inland through the Cairngorms
National Park, before reaching Fort Augustus (one of the highlights of my UK
road-trip in 2009), at the southernmost end of the famous Loch Ness.
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| MONSTER! |
Loch Ness, best known for its ‘Monster’, is a 37km long lake
stretching between Inverness and Fort Augustus in the Scottish Highlands, and
is today part of Scotland’s hydroelectric power production scheme. While I
definitely had a good vibe about a monster-sighting, we had only limited time
and a limited petrol budget, and decided to keep our stomachs happy, and headed
back south in search of a decent Scottish pub. With serves larger than the interior
of our Vauxhall hire car, the pub was quite possibly the best decision of my
travels to date, and feeling much more content than when we arrives, we made our
way back south to Stirling. Checking out the Stirling Castle and William
Wallace Monument at night, Eliza and I re-lived the infamous 2009 Howland vs.
Bird Battle, before we all washed our Vauxhall-sized dinner down with a much
needed dirty McFlurry, and called it a day.
Greeted the next morning with yet more rain, we tried our luck at
the Scottish public transport system, and made our way to ‘tongue and pickle’ afternoon
tea with friends in Gifford. Gifford is a small town around 40km’s out of
Edinburgh, and was my home for Christmas and New Years in 2009, along with my
adopted Scottish family, Phillip and Jean. Phillip and Jean live on a farming
property just out of town, where I was not only lucky enough to be introduced
to the strange Scottish Christmas delicacy of ‘Bread Sauce’, but I was also
miraculously welcomed back three years later (despite a rather unfortunate New
Years Eve event in which the local authorities were involved… but that’s for
another time and place!).
I know Phillip and Jean through their daughter Sue, who lives in South
Australia (and who I will most definitely NOT allow anyone who reads this to
meet, because she is sure to elaborate on the unfortunate incident and destroy
my reputation as a law-abiding citizen), and we had a great afternoon catching
up on everything I have missed while travelling, hearing stories about travel
before long-haul flights and the internet (gasp!), and admiring the beautiful
countryside minus the metre of snow I remembered. Jean spoilt us with
ridiculous amounts of food, coffee and cake, while Phillip and Aaron had a good
laugh over some photos of Ben before and after dreadlocks – no wonder he didn’t
get invited back this year!
Heading back into Edinburgh for one last night, we were up early
the next morning as two other characters re-appeared in my story, and we met up
with Nick and Ali again to travel together back south to Sheffield.
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| Is it the Loch Ness Monster??? |
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