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Published: August 31st 2006
Hell Train
Me and dad fake smiling for the weird guy next to me. That's mean... he was very nice.Mmmmm...Scotland. We took a train to Edinburgh, Scotland. Actually two trains, the first of which was delightful, the second which was hell on a not swift enough track. We stood in the aisle of a REALLY crowded train for the almost three hour ride to Edinburgh. I stood next to a guy who was studying for his master's or PhD in... rust?...electrics?...not sure. He looked like the lovechild of my friend Doug and his friend Aubrey with some serious dental issues. And didn't stop talking once I opened that floodgate. Even after I started "listening" (putting earphones in and not playing anything) to my iPod. So I had to keep pulling out one earbud so as not to break the illusion. We finally got to Edinburgh and it was very much worth the trip.
We stayed in a bizarre little apartment hotel thing that was at the bottom of a hill that you had to walk up to get to the bottom of another hill - the Royal Mile - that you had to walk up to get to the Edinburgh Castle. Again, sort of a rough journey, but worth the effort.
I love Scottish people! Oh! Except the
Fringe
The Royal Mile with the Fringe banner flying. Scottish women on the aforementioned hell train who were having a “hen party” and were wasted and old and dressed in a lot of animal print and eyeliner and kept playing music on their - I kid you not - boombox and went to the bathroom (past us, of course) seventeen times each. Quit drinking! But other than those girls, I love Scottish people!
We were there during the last few days of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest performing arts festival in the world. We saw four performances. A really short play I can’t remember except that it was pretty funny, a play called Hillary Agonistes - which was about Hillary Clinton and the Apocalypse and was AWESOME, Bat Boy, and Don Quixote. Bat Boy was sort of community theatre-ish and it was very bizarre listening to mediocre British actors doing West Virginian accents. I’m for some reason glad I saw a sort of bad production of that show in the U.K. It’s a lot funnier than seeing it in Missouri. Hillary Agonistes, like I said, was amazing. I’m considering stalking the playwright. To give you a clue: Chelsea was Islamic and played the Antichrist. Don Quixote was
Tartan Mill
Where they make plaid and kilts. Isn't that weird? the worst ballet I have ever seen. I slept through the 2nd act and half woke up to use the bathroom. While I was standing in line the woman in front of me went on and on about how great the American ballets they bring in every year are and all I could do was squint at her through my sleepy eyes and say, “Oh, I know…it’s just beautiful.”
In addition to the theatre stuff we walked up and down the Royal Mile a lot buying things, visited the castle, took a few underground tours (of Mary King’s Close and some haunted crypts), and did general tourist stuff.
Did I mention that Scotland is awesome? I can’t really express what I thought was so great. It was not the temperature, though. It was way cold. Everything else was perfect, though.
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