Edinburgh Festival

Arrival

In Scotland again - YAY! I think I might have to make one more stop here before I go back home to SA. Thalia was also in Scotland so we got together with her for drinks . We had our first round at the Grassmarket Pub, Byron, Allan, Thalia and I. Lee then joined us and we went to the Underbelly. From there we went to the Spiegel tent, another one of the festival venues. On our way there we passed the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, and a group of guys told us that little Greyfriars Bobby fell in a cement mixer and it is not just a normal statue. Apparently if you look long enough you will see his eyes move. If you hadn't figured it out they were a little drunk.

Day 1

This morning Byron and I headed out to see what the Edinburgh festival had to offer. We found out very quickly that the festival definitely has ALOT of pamphlets to offer. Half way up the Royal Mile we also discovered that there are free mini street acts all day basically to advertise the official acts for the evening and give you a reason to take a pamphlet.

In awe of all the things happening around us we still managed to get distracted by some guy stripping down to his jocks in the middle of the street. We were reeled in and made ourselves comfortable to watch his advertising. He was pretty funny and had his act sorted. He managed to get some little girl to stand with her arms up as his hat stand and then he proceeded to walk a tight rope that was just being held up a a bunch of men from the audience. It all worked though cos we stayed after to get his pamphlet to find out when his show was.

We continued our way up the Royal Mile and stopped outside Camera Obscura. Had a good laugh at our reflections in the funky mirrors.

We then made our way down the mile and met up with Allan who led us to a refreshing walk up Arthur's Seat. This is a number one recommendation of things to do while in Edinburgh. Not only do you get a gorgeous all round view of Edinburgh but it is also free. WOO HOO!

The good scenery did not stop there. We then made our way to The Scotts Monument (dedicated to Sir Walter Scott) and we decided to climb all the stairs to make our way to the top. WOW! And I am not referring to the view, although it was beautiful, I am referring to the very narrow, tight spiraled staircase to get to the top. The thing that made it worse was that there was only one stair case for going up and down but the staircase is too narrow to have two people pass each other. Got stuck at the top for a while waiting for a chance to go down in the hopes no one was on there way up.

From the top of the Scotts Monument there is a beautiful view of Edinburgh Castle and because of the festival there were all sorts of dancing going on in the gardens at the bottom of the monument. These guys were wearing these funny hats with long ribbons attatched to the top. As they turned their heads in circles, the ribbons would make big circles too. They would then start spinning in circles at the same time their heads were going round. I am really not sure how they managed to do all this without falling over, it was pretty impressive.

After climbing the stairs and waiting our turn to get back down we made our way to The Royal Botanical Gardens. As we went we passed a key garden, this is basically a park/garden that is only accessible to the people who live in the area. You get a key to the garden when you buy a house in the area hence Key garden. As we passed we saw a guy sitting casually reading his book - he is obviously one of the privileged few.

That night we decided to embrace the festival and booked tickets for a comedy show, with Stuart Goldsmith and Jimmy McGhie. Stuart was the guy that Byron and I saw earlier doing his street act advertising. So basically his advertising did the trick. It was a good show, Byron and Allan were too scared to sit in the front so we landed up in the second row. It was quite funny too cos at the beginning of the show they did the normal thing of finding out where the people in the audience come from. When he thought he had covered most places and asked if there were any other places I shouted out South Africa and I could feel both Byron and Allan cringe on either side of me. I still survived to tell the tale.

Day 2



Byron and I booked ourselves onto a Loch Ness Hunter day trip with Haggis Adventures today. I saw some of the same sights that I saw on my Skye High Tour and some new ones. We stopped at Glencoe and once again I was told of the story where the Campbells committed the crime of betrayal on the Mac Donald clan. This time there was no snow on the peaks and instead there was a tinge of purple from the flowering heather, there was also guy playing the bagpipes. Took a pic of me with the heather, just seemed fitting.



Our main stop for the day was the Loch Ness, hence the name of the tour. We went on a boat ride out onto the Loch to hunt down little Nessie but unfortunately he must have been sleeping. Not in the mood for any socialising. We did manage to get a beautiful pic of the Loch though, we even got a volunteer to take a pic of the both of us together. We did alot of little stops aswell but can't really remember what they were , but it was a great trip and our guides, Fraser and Martin were very entertaining. Fraser is on the left, Martin on the right.