August 9 - Edinburgh, UK

pedestrian area

19 degrees, partly sunny

The weather was great for touring around the town today – I’m pretty sure I haven’t broken a sweat once since we’ve been here. As the Edinburgh festival is on, we set out to find the theatre of a show we intend to see after lunch. Then we wandered around a pedestrian area where some of the shows put on sample shows enticing audiences  – the place was packed, but civilized.

Lunch was typical pub style…first pub pints, fish and chips. It’s nice to be

Chris at the bar

back in a land where we know how things work. I particularly like ordering and paying up front, so that when we are done we can just leave without having to flag someone down for the bill.

The show we settled on seeing out of what seems to be an endless number of shows is a free one – a musical version of The Time Machine. It was pretty good and really good for a free show. The theatre is in a small room with a tiny, temporary stage, bar in the back corner and about 50

Chris in line for The Time Machine

people on set up chairs – neat.

back side of the Scott Monument

Before we headed back to the hotel for a siesta, we stocked up on snacks. I was pretty sure I’d find haggis chips and sure enough…I did. Haven’t tried them yet. We did try the digestive balls...delicious...polished them off in one go - 2 of us that is.

In the evening we went to a show ‘The Rat Pack’…don’t

The Rat Pack

think that needs much explanation. Plenty of the shows are an hour or under – this one was 50 minutes. This is good…firstly, if it’s crap…not much time invested, also it let’s you see multiple shows without committing too much time to just one.

After the show we wandered around a bit – the is a ton of action all over the place, all of the monument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. Apparently, it is the biggest monument to a writer in the world – it is huge, and gorgeous.

front of the Scott Monument

time. There was an outdoor space with pubs, musicians and food that we checked out for a while in the Princes Street Gardens. While we were there we also checked out the Scott Monument, this is a

Then we went to Craig Ferguson – again. We liked it a lot last night, so we thought…why not? Last night wasn’t sold out, but tonight was. We didn’t have a ticket, but just as we arrived at the theatre, they released some hold tickets.

One thing I’ve noticed about Edinburgh is that it is very

civilized. There are line ups everywhere, because the place is so busy, but no one cuts in and in fact at the shows there are staff directing you about where to stand and if there are 2 parts to the line, because it is so long, there is a staff person at the end of the second line making sure the first part enters first…love this!

One thing I’ve noticed about Edinburgh is that it is very civilized. There are line ups everywhere,

because the place is so busy, but no one cuts in and in fact at the shows there are staff directing you about where to stand and if there are 2 parts to the line, because it is so long, there is a staff person at the end of the second line making sure the first part enters first…love this! I think it might be a lack of heat…no one is angry because they are so hot! Thera are also lots of kids around…many of the shows are for kids or are kid friendly. In order to get into our hotel we have to walk through the Three Sisters Pub. This Pub is GIANT. There is an indoor and out door part to it. The outdoor part is not a

garden like many pubs have, but like a tented outdoor space with food stalls, a dance floor, tiny areas for festival shows, walk-up bars – very interesting. When we got home the last 2 nights it has been very busy, in the middle of the day it is very busy – cool hopping place.