Big Adventures, Little World

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival had started a couple of days before we arrived, so the city’s atmosphere was electric. There were people everywhere, and stages setup around the city and people performing everywhere. It was great. We booked tickets to go see Jimeoin that night, and Kate and I got dropped off to go pick up the tickets while Bel and Dung went to park the car. Kate and I made our way down the Royal Mile, which is the main street in Edinburgh, and there thousands of people. There were people handing out flyers, street performers, people gathered around watching all the different performers, and people just walking the streets to see what was going on. We picked up our tickets then made our way to the ‘The Udderbelly’ where Jimeoin was playing. It was a stage with a giant inflatable upside down cow with all its udders showing, hence Udderbelly. The show was pretty funny, and it was really good to be able to see Jimeoin live, after only ever seeing him on TV before. After the show we just wandered the streets and checked out some of the other venues, all of them packed with people and having this really cool atmosphere, similar to the Adelaide Fringe at home, but on a much larger scale.

We decided to go on a walking tour with New Europe Tours again as they have them in Edinburgh as well, so we made our way to the meeting point in the morning. It was so huge, there was over 100 people there and they had to separate everyone into about 5 groups. I guess because the Fringe was on there was a lot more tourists around that wanted to do the tour. I thought at the start that our tour guide wasn’t going to be that good but she really got into and was one of the best I have had on the tours. She took us to Edinburgh Castle, St Giles’ Cathedral, The Royal Mile, Mercat Cross, Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery) and Greyfriars Bobby, Site of Witch Burnings, The original ‘Hogwarts’ building, National Museum, Tron Kirk & The Scottish Enlightenment and finished off with a story of how the Scottish Stone of Destiny was stolen back from Westminster Abbey in England to be returned to Scotland by four Scottish students on Christmas Day in 1950. After the tour our tour guide took us to a pub for lunch where we all tried haggis. Surprisingly though it wasn’t too bad. It tasted kind of like a spicy sausage and was served with gravy like sauce and mashed potato. I’d definitely try it again.

That night we went out on the New Europe Pub Crawl and went to a few different bars and finished up at a club getting free drinks along the way. I think the best part of the night though was at the 2^nd bar we had Jaegerbombs and had a Jaeger Train of them all setup along the bar. (For those of you on Facebook you may have already seen it). There were about 40 of them lined up along the bar in a snaking train and it was awesome watching them all fall into the drinks. The rest of the night we just danced and partied, and even went to an Australian pub where we had Twisties and Burger Rings that one of the other Australians on the pub crawl had bought at the pub. It was great fun for our last night in Edinburgh before we headed back to the room and as we lay in our beds, talked and laughed about how shit the hostel was, and at the same time pissed everyone else off in the room. It wouldn’t have happened if they had just given us the 4 person room like they were supposed to.

We had one more thing to do in Edinburgh before leaving that night and that was go to Edinburgh Castle and go inside and see it all for ourselves, not just the outside of it like on the walking tour. So we made our way off in the morning to do that, after finally getting showers at the hostel as they had got the water back on. We made our way up to the castle, climbing all the stairs, and the sight from the top was just as spectacular from below. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo was also on because of the Fringe and had a big arena and stands setup outside the castle for when this was being performed. We went into the castle and wandered through checking everything out that we could, and even went to the building where they have the Crown Jewels kept. So we went through there, even though it took nearly half an hour just to wander through there because of all the people and tight corridors. They were pretty impressive though, with crown and sceptre as well as a huge sword. It also made it more fascinating knowing some of the stories that we had been told the day before on our walking tour, but there was so much information that went with them at the castle as well, like how they had been lost for over 100 years at one point before being rediscovered. We looked through most of the castle and before long it was time for us to drive back to Glasgow to catch our flight back home, and for our little holiday to come to an end. Edinburgh was an amazing city, and I can’t wait to get back there and see some more of it and do everything we missed out on doing, and especially would love to go back for the Fringe again but have more plans on going to see a range of shows as well.