First of all, I'm going to take a couple of paragraphs to complain for a bit. This will get it out of my system and then, if everything goes according to plan, you won't have to hear about it ever again. If you don't want to hear about it the first time, feel free to skip down until the whinging stops.
I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat and a headache, and my excursion into Glasgow was cut short around dinnertime because I just couldn't muster up the energy to want to tour a museum, an art school, or a 20th century tenement house. (Although really, can you blame me much?) Also, my eyes and nose had begun to leak alarmingly. By the evening it was clear that I had caught the plague, which is bad for a number of reasons. The chief of these is that today, I'm flying to Belfast. This meant I was hoping for a good night's sleep, an uneventful trip to the airport, a quick-as-possible flight, and a whirlwind day of sightseeing in Belfast.
What happened was that between being too warm, coughing, having an excruciatingly squeaky bed, and my nose leaking like a faucet, I can't have gotten more than 20 minutes' real sleep, mixed in with spats of half-conscious, bizarrely lucid dreams. I was so worried about getting to the airport on time that I finally gave up trying to sleep at 6am and started the packing process.
Turns out I shouldn't have worried so much. I caught a train to the airport, got checked in, and waltzed through a nonexistant security line to find myself in a just-slightly-too-cold lounge with aching eyes, stuffed sinuses, a very tempting WH Smith, and two hours of waiting stretching out before me. I am both anxious to get on the plane and go so this whole obnoxious travel business can be over, and dreading it, because the moment we leave the runway, the pressure behind my ears will be unable to equalize and my head will explode. Also, it's a lot less fun to do a one-day whirlwind tour of the city when your nose starts dripping spontaneously and you can't hear anything not pronounced through a megaphone.
I am taking steps to combat this disease, like drinking enough water to drown a mackerel and taking some vitamin C/Zinc tablets from Boots, but although I've been carefully warned to only take one pill a day, they are so tiny and I'm accustomed to measuring my vitamin doses by the handful so I've broken that rule already. Not that it matters, since soon, between flogging microwaved sandwiches and lottery tickets, the Ryanair staff will have to scrape my brain matter off the cabin walls.
Alright, I said I'd complain for a couple of paragraphs and I've already taken four, so I'm going to stop. Hopefully this will have successfully and subliminally communicated my desperate plea for sympathy and we can all get on with our lives. Assuming my head doesn't explode.
Anyway, let me tell you about Glasgow.
The train ride from Edinburgh to Glasgow was only 50 minutes, but that made a huge difference. I felt like a weight had been lifted from me; here I had a new city, all shiny and ready for me to explore, with no preconcieved notions of grandeur burdening it. I felt vaguely apprehensive about Glasgow, actually, having some indistinct impression that it was the metropolitan, slightly skeezy cousin of cultural, funky Edinburgh. In fact, Glasgow feels, to me, a whole lot like Liverpool. That is, in both cities I had been expecting dark back alleys and seedy pubs, and found them, but also found clean, spacious pedestrian areas, nice shops, beautiful architecture, and not a whole lot to do outside of shopping and admiring the architecture.
My hostel was somewhat out of the city, so I had to take the bus from the train station. Two different people noticed my age and my enormous backpack and drew the not-unlikely conclusion that I was heading to the youth hostel, and volunteered helpful directions--which helped soothe my ruffled feathers after the surly glare the bus driver had treated me to. I located the hostel easily and found in my room a very friendly and completely jet-lagged new arrival from San Francisco to talk to. I finally made it out to find some food and wander around the city a bit but got completely sidetracked by the spectacular sunset unfolding directly before me. Unfortunately, there was no convenient open high point from which to view the light show, so I had to peer at the rays of magenta and gold between the branches of the nearby park's interfering trees.
I finally began my trek into the city, but actually didn't make it very far. It was quickly getting dark, and I had no real interest in venturing into a bar, so I bought a sandwich at Tesco and made my way back. Upon returning to the hostel, I stopped at the reception desk to ask a couple questions and ended up talking to the receptionist and manager for what must have been an hour at least. This astounded me; in trendy, cultural Edinburgh, I could hardly find someone to talk to me, and in Glasgow I couldn't get them to stop--not that I wanted them to, anyway.
The next morning, I was determined to do RFS's self-guided city walk, so I trekked out to the starting point and made it to the city viewpoints, pigeon-filled squares, and various museums with only a few detours. I took a break for tea in an apparently famous teahouse (the Willow Tea Rooms, for anyone who cares), and from there RFS was trying to direct me to tour an art school and a preserved 19th-century tenement house. As I said above, I was feeling ill already and couldn't be bothered, so I wandered around the pedestrian shopping areas, poking my head into bookstores, until I just gave up, bought some dinner, and headed back to the hostel.
The rest you know. You'll be glad to hear that my head didn't explode after all, much to my surprise, and this is because we had barely cleared the rooftops in Glasgow before we began our descent into Belfast. And to my utter shock, the Belfast City airport is actually within reasonable distance of Belfast itself. Ryanair being convenient...who would've thought?
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Fringe Diaries
Edinburgh. Scotland. Land of bagpipes, kilts, thistles, haggis, the Picts, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and all manner of absurd stereotypes. And also, incidentally, of an enormous festival (several, actually) that takes over the city every summer. The original International Festival has been overshadowed by the Fringe Festival, mostly composed of theater and comedy, that grew up on the fringe (hence the name) of the original.
I was expecting something like a perpetual Cologne during Karneval: ankle-deep drifts of broken beer bottles, drunk people dressed up in inexplicable clothing staggering down the streets at midday, loud singing, and total chaos.
Hmm, well, not exactly...
Day 1: True to one particular stereotype, it was drizzling as I arrived in Edinburgh. I dumped my stuff at the hostel, checked my email (free WiFi, w00t!) and headed out to explore. Shannon had told me to look for the Walter Scott monument, which I promptly found: it's an enormous black Gothic spire in the middle of Princes Street Park. The Scottish really love this guy.
I wandered past the half-price booth and watched a Polish fire juggler's show before continuing up the hill to the Royal Mile. The center of the city is this stretch of road, actually a bit longer than a mile, defined by the castle on its volcanic-rock cliff at the top and Holyroodhouse Palace at the bottom. In between are pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants, historic buildings, theaters, houses, museums, and far too many tourist shops. Despite the overdose of national stereotypes spewing out of stores all too eager to sell you a kilt in "your family's" colors or salt and pepper shakers shaped like bagpipers (I seriously saw people buy these), a walk down the Mile is truly delightful--especially during the Festival, when parts of it are pedestrianized to allow for craft sellers' booths, flyerers, and street performers.
Just trying to take in the scenery and the feel of this place, I was nevertheless stopped by a street performance. The guy's entire routine consisted of interacting with his audience: mocking them, imitating people going by, digging through women's bags, and pretending to be in love. After his show, I wandered a bit more, but felt somewhat aimless; I didn't have anywhere to be, and in a busy city and busy festival where everyone else was going somewhere, it was a bit depressing. I ended up in a cafe run by a local church, which was offering free tea. Mm, tea. Coffee makes me confident and ready to go; tea makes me comfortable and calm. After I had drunk my tea and chatted with the staff a bit, I went back to the hostel to use my computer. I ended up in a conversation with two drunk Brits and two Canadians who were trying to play chess in the hostel bar. They were all very nice, but when they left to play pool, I headed off to bed.
Day 2: I started the day off with a "free" walking tour around the city, which took a staggering 3 1/2 hours--usually such tours are about 2 hours long. It was worth it, though, and very thorough. If you would like to know what I know about Edinburgh now, I suggest you go there and take the tour, because I'm not going to take the time to repeat what little of the tour I've retained. We talked about the castle, Greyfriar's Bobby, Harry Potter, and the Queen. It was great.
Afterward, our guide offered to take us to a pub where we could try fairly good haggis. A group of us from the tour decided to give it a shot, and I ordered the first plate of it, which all of us tried. To my utter astonishment, it was delicious. We hung out in the pub chatting for a while, then dispersed to go our separate ways; I stuck with a German girl who'd offered to show me where the university's offices were, and after getting lost a couple times, we finally found them. I got far more information about the university than I'll ever need and found out that there's a campus tour--something to file away.
I split up with the nice German girl and went to check out St. Giles' Cathedral on the Mile. The cathedral (which isn't technically a cathedral, but whatever, right?) sports some lovely stained glass and a very macho organ, but the best bit is the Thistle Chapel, where the Knights of the Thistle are inducted (or whatever they do to knights). For example, Sean Connery was knighted here. The chapel's itty bitty but very beautifully decorated, and there is a cherub playing the bagpipes. I love Scotland.
I got some dinner and headed to my first "real" show: a drama called 2020 vision, which turned out to be in the basement of a church. The play revolved around the idea of a future where everyone is microchipped and dependent upon technology for everything when a huge natural disaster strikes. It was very interestingly done and I was still packing up and thinking when the actors came back out to clean up and ask me what I thought. This is the thing that I love most about the Fringe--the opportunity, not just to see interesting shows, but to talk to the people who made them.
Day 3: I'd intended to spend the morning at the castle, but it took me too long to get going in the morning, and then the lure of the festival was too strong. I saw a free stand-up show in a somewhat dodgy bar and then headed back to the hostel to reserve tickets for the castle the next day and a show the day after. I'd intended to go to another show at 4, but I didn't have enough time, so I went to an improv musical at 5:30 instead.
If you haven't seen an improv musical, you should. The audience supplies the title of the musical, and with no opportunity to discuss anything, the actors improvise an entire hour-long musical from that single suggestion. Ours was entitled, "There's an Owl in the Shower," and started out as a story about shampoo coming alive and ended up with a ghost siccing a homicidal owl on a witch. Epic, to say the least.
The wet and drizzly weather had turned into a right downpour by the time the show let out, but I wasn't ready to go home, so I got a pizza for dinner from a takeout place and trundled off to the back room of another bar for another free comedy show by three guys I had talked to in the street earlier. It was getting dark when they finished, so I went back to the hostel to make some calls on Skype and eventually sleep.
Day 4: I finally managed to get myself going at a reasonable time and took myself up to the castle. Edinburgh Castle dominates the town's skyline and layout, even though it is (to be quite honest) not as imposing or impressive as other castles I've seen. It seems to important because it's perched on an extinct volcano, high up on sheer black cliffs on three sides, the fourth leading down the Royal Mile. Anyway, in the castle I saw the Honors of Scotland, a big-ass cannon, an interesting museum about Scots in war, and a demonstration about Scottish swordfighting, among other things. I managed to get myself some cream tea at about 4pm, after which I decided that it was high time I walk the whole length of the Royal Mile, since up till then I'd only seen about half of it.
At the bottom of the Mile I found the new Scottish Parliament building, which, while very significant politically and culturally, is kind of ridiculous to look at, all modern-art-y and covered in wooden accents. From there, some jutting hills frown down at the town, so I decided to climb up. A short, steep hike later and I had 360 degree views from Arthur's Seat: the rolling mountains in the distance, the Mile, the Castle, and all of Edinburgh looking very tiny, and the enormous expanse of water all the way to the horizon. It was gorgeous but very cold and windy, so I headed back down and began the trudge back up the Mile. Now, it was Sunday, and while this isn't usually a problem in big cities, that day every pub and restaurant that I poked my head into was either 1) shut or 2) full. Desperate for food--I hadn't eaten since tea, and that had been my whole lunch--I finally relented and got a sandwich at Subway. I watched part of a street show and then staggered back to the hostel.
Day 5: I started off in the National Museum of Scotland, which had a surprisingly interesting collection of artifacts from Scottish history, from ancient magical talismans and jewelry to harps, traditional garb, and some big-ass swords. I sadly only got through the first two floors (of six!) before I had to leave to go to another show.
This time it was more improv with a group called the Oxford Imps; they did many of the games that I've seen the Dead Parrots do at WWU, so it was quite fun, although I think the Parrots are better. (Uni loyalty and all that...) The best bit that they did was an improvised Shakespearean play about a foot doctor. After the show, I was right near the university, so I went on a walking tour around the university grounds. Although largely unhelpful in itself, the tour did give me a chance to talk to a U of Edinburgh graduate about life at the university and get some ideas with how to proceed. Accordingly, after the tour, I hunted down a linguistics professor to ask some more questions about applying. I also found Professor Pullum's office to take a picture (since he wasn't there...sadface), which was my one concession to my linguistic geekiness.
After some dinner, I had another show to go to. This was the only big-name show I'd chosen to see, mostly because it'd been recommended to be by the receptionist at the hostel, who said this guy was brilliant. It was a one-man stand-up show by a guy named Danny Bhoy, and his show was wonderfully hilarious and far too short. He's cute, too. All told, very good.
Day 6: I decided that I needed something a little different, so instead of heading straight for the Mile like usual, I went the other way and wandered into Edinburgh's Georgian New Town. The New Town is street after street of dignified, bay-windowed, grey-brown Georgian buildings, pretty but monotonous, but soon I came across a beautiful church to look around, so then I was happy. From there I headed back to the Mile and ended up seeing a half-price show called "Of People and Not Things", which, while touching, was essentially two half-hour monologues about losing the one you love being the end of the world. From there, I went on to a free show that had been recommended to me, but it ended up being so raunchy that I left early and went instead to another show that I'd been wanting to see: a showcase of comedians who were required to give a completely clean show. After what I'd just seen, that sounded very good to me.
The clean show was a big improvement, and I left feeling much better. Outside the door, I got into a conversation with a girl doing flyering for a show by Kev Orkian. We chatted for a while and she invited me to go to the show with her and a friend, so I agreed--why not? On our way to get tickets, I took some of the flyers and tried my hand at flyering, something I'd wanted to try ever since I'd started talking to flyerers on the street.
Kev's show was one of the best I'd seen. He impersonated Elton John and made jokes about being an immigrant from Armenia, complete with linguistic jokes (hooray!). I even got a hug from him after the show. I walked around for a bit with my new acquaintance, Naomi, and her friend, then I split off to get a late dinner at a pub before bed.
Day 7: Whew, last day. Through chatting with a flyerer, I ended up at an American's stand-up show that was just short of painfully bad, so after I escaped I decided to take a break and enjoy the sunshine a bit. I therefore headed to Calton Park to have a picnic lunch and enjoy the view of the city center and Arthur's Seat. Wandering back into the city, I stopped to watch a street magician and got selected as the "volunteer" assistant to help the magician in his death-defying stunts. That's never happened to me before, so I'm still smiling about it.
I'd been wanting to go to a show called "I bought Richard Hammond's underpants on eBay", which is how I found myself sitting in the dark in a musty cellar with about ten other people, singing along and playing a paper drum with a plastic spoon. The show was very cute, and I got some pin badges with the show's name on them that I shall wear proudly. I'd heard about another free show that happened to be just up the street, so I popped in just in time. The pirate-themed show, entitled "Jollyboat", was definitely the best free show I'd seen and included a Darren-Brown-type act by a kid bearing a remarkable resemblance to Ron Weasley. I thought that I should just go home after than and end on a high note, but it felt too early to go home, so I got a ginger beer at a bar and saw a final free show that was mediocre at best. I trundled back to the hostel and watched White Collar until a ridiculous time in the morning.
Day 8: I left my stuff at the hostel and headed back to the National Museum to see some of the stuff I'd missed, but I couldn't really make myself concentrate. After lingering on the Mile for a while, I finally picked up my bags on hopped on the train to Glasgow.
Now I know that was detail-less and boring, so if you're still reading, congrats and here's why. Edinburgh was something of a turbulent and weird week for me. Everyone I'd talked to about Edinburgh was rapturous about how wonderful it is, so my expectations were already sky-high. Besides that, every day I was there I was in a constant state of agonizing indecision: should I stay the full week? Could my time be better spent somewhere else? How many shows did I want to see? Whenever I was in a show, I felt guilty for spending the money to see another show, and whenever I didn't go to a show, I felt guilty for wasting time that I could've spent doing something more fun. No matter what I did, I simply couldn't get myself to relax. Add to this that two months of travel are starting to wear on me and the whole thing felt like going to a beautiful venue for a concert of Beethoven's 9th by a master musician playing the kazoo. Almost all the ingredients were right, but there was always something buzzing in the back of my head.
That said, I really did like Edinburgh. Well...at least, I've thoroughly convinced myself that I did, and there's no reason not to. First of all, the idea of city with a castle right smack in the middle always makes me smile, and Edinburgh is kind of shockingly beautiful, with the imposing buildings of the Mile, the New Town, and all the monuments and parks and such. I met many nice people there, and I do quite love Scotland. But because of everything I said in the last paragraph, I don't love it as much as I might've under other circumstances. There's something standoffish about it, something a little bit off. I can't describe it, but having visited a few different cities this summer, I have a pretty good sense of which cities I like--Dublin, London, Venice, and Salzburg, for instance--and which I don't. And Edinburgh is somewhere in the no man's land in the middle.
So, if you ask me whether I had a good time in Edinburgh, whether I liked it there, I honestly don't know. It's weird, I know. Sorry.
Anyway, by far the most interesting thing I did during my week in Edinburgh was talk to the flyerers. The top half of the Mile during the day is a guantlet of people--either the performers themselves or people paid a pittance to stand in the street for five hours--handing out flyers for shows of all kinds. I took every flyer offered to me and requested quite a few as well--for some reason, I often wasn't offered one--and ended up throwing away a stack of paper several inches tall when I left. The great thing is, though, that the flyerers are there to talk to passersby and convince them to come to the show. They have to be friendly or they risk you walking away. This means you can have some really interesting conversations with flyerers, especially paid ones, since they don't have the vested interested in getting as many people as possible to come. The performers doing their own flyering were also very interesting, too--you really just get to chat with them about their show, why they've come to the festival, where they're from, etc. I had some really nice conversation with some very interesting flyerers and ended up going to a lot of the shows when the flyerer took the time to talk to me. Since I was so interested in this, it was really cool that I got to try flyering myself with Naomi.
So, come time to apply for grad schools, I will definitely be applying in Edinburgh. It seems like a great place to live and a very good university. There're tons of the things to do and the people tend to be fantastic, as well as having a perfectly delightful dialect. In my head, Edinburgh was everything it should've been, for some unfathomable reason, it didn't capture my heart.
I was expecting something like a perpetual Cologne during Karneval: ankle-deep drifts of broken beer bottles, drunk people dressed up in inexplicable clothing staggering down the streets at midday, loud singing, and total chaos.
Hmm, well, not exactly...
Day 1: True to one particular stereotype, it was drizzling as I arrived in Edinburgh. I dumped my stuff at the hostel, checked my email (free WiFi, w00t!) and headed out to explore. Shannon had told me to look for the Walter Scott monument, which I promptly found: it's an enormous black Gothic spire in the middle of Princes Street Park. The Scottish really love this guy.
I wandered past the half-price booth and watched a Polish fire juggler's show before continuing up the hill to the Royal Mile. The center of the city is this stretch of road, actually a bit longer than a mile, defined by the castle on its volcanic-rock cliff at the top and Holyroodhouse Palace at the bottom. In between are pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants, historic buildings, theaters, houses, museums, and far too many tourist shops. Despite the overdose of national stereotypes spewing out of stores all too eager to sell you a kilt in "your family's" colors or salt and pepper shakers shaped like bagpipers (I seriously saw people buy these), a walk down the Mile is truly delightful--especially during the Festival, when parts of it are pedestrianized to allow for craft sellers' booths, flyerers, and street performers.
Just trying to take in the scenery and the feel of this place, I was nevertheless stopped by a street performance. The guy's entire routine consisted of interacting with his audience: mocking them, imitating people going by, digging through women's bags, and pretending to be in love. After his show, I wandered a bit more, but felt somewhat aimless; I didn't have anywhere to be, and in a busy city and busy festival where everyone else was going somewhere, it was a bit depressing. I ended up in a cafe run by a local church, which was offering free tea. Mm, tea. Coffee makes me confident and ready to go; tea makes me comfortable and calm. After I had drunk my tea and chatted with the staff a bit, I went back to the hostel to use my computer. I ended up in a conversation with two drunk Brits and two Canadians who were trying to play chess in the hostel bar. They were all very nice, but when they left to play pool, I headed off to bed.
Day 2: I started the day off with a "free" walking tour around the city, which took a staggering 3 1/2 hours--usually such tours are about 2 hours long. It was worth it, though, and very thorough. If you would like to know what I know about Edinburgh now, I suggest you go there and take the tour, because I'm not going to take the time to repeat what little of the tour I've retained. We talked about the castle, Greyfriar's Bobby, Harry Potter, and the Queen. It was great.
Afterward, our guide offered to take us to a pub where we could try fairly good haggis. A group of us from the tour decided to give it a shot, and I ordered the first plate of it, which all of us tried. To my utter astonishment, it was delicious. We hung out in the pub chatting for a while, then dispersed to go our separate ways; I stuck with a German girl who'd offered to show me where the university's offices were, and after getting lost a couple times, we finally found them. I got far more information about the university than I'll ever need and found out that there's a campus tour--something to file away.
I split up with the nice German girl and went to check out St. Giles' Cathedral on the Mile. The cathedral (which isn't technically a cathedral, but whatever, right?) sports some lovely stained glass and a very macho organ, but the best bit is the Thistle Chapel, where the Knights of the Thistle are inducted (or whatever they do to knights). For example, Sean Connery was knighted here. The chapel's itty bitty but very beautifully decorated, and there is a cherub playing the bagpipes. I love Scotland.
I got some dinner and headed to my first "real" show: a drama called 2020 vision, which turned out to be in the basement of a church. The play revolved around the idea of a future where everyone is microchipped and dependent upon technology for everything when a huge natural disaster strikes. It was very interestingly done and I was still packing up and thinking when the actors came back out to clean up and ask me what I thought. This is the thing that I love most about the Fringe--the opportunity, not just to see interesting shows, but to talk to the people who made them.
Day 3: I'd intended to spend the morning at the castle, but it took me too long to get going in the morning, and then the lure of the festival was too strong. I saw a free stand-up show in a somewhat dodgy bar and then headed back to the hostel to reserve tickets for the castle the next day and a show the day after. I'd intended to go to another show at 4, but I didn't have enough time, so I went to an improv musical at 5:30 instead.
If you haven't seen an improv musical, you should. The audience supplies the title of the musical, and with no opportunity to discuss anything, the actors improvise an entire hour-long musical from that single suggestion. Ours was entitled, "There's an Owl in the Shower," and started out as a story about shampoo coming alive and ended up with a ghost siccing a homicidal owl on a witch. Epic, to say the least.
The wet and drizzly weather had turned into a right downpour by the time the show let out, but I wasn't ready to go home, so I got a pizza for dinner from a takeout place and trundled off to the back room of another bar for another free comedy show by three guys I had talked to in the street earlier. It was getting dark when they finished, so I went back to the hostel to make some calls on Skype and eventually sleep.
Day 4: I finally managed to get myself going at a reasonable time and took myself up to the castle. Edinburgh Castle dominates the town's skyline and layout, even though it is (to be quite honest) not as imposing or impressive as other castles I've seen. It seems to important because it's perched on an extinct volcano, high up on sheer black cliffs on three sides, the fourth leading down the Royal Mile. Anyway, in the castle I saw the Honors of Scotland, a big-ass cannon, an interesting museum about Scots in war, and a demonstration about Scottish swordfighting, among other things. I managed to get myself some cream tea at about 4pm, after which I decided that it was high time I walk the whole length of the Royal Mile, since up till then I'd only seen about half of it.
At the bottom of the Mile I found the new Scottish Parliament building, which, while very significant politically and culturally, is kind of ridiculous to look at, all modern-art-y and covered in wooden accents. From there, some jutting hills frown down at the town, so I decided to climb up. A short, steep hike later and I had 360 degree views from Arthur's Seat: the rolling mountains in the distance, the Mile, the Castle, and all of Edinburgh looking very tiny, and the enormous expanse of water all the way to the horizon. It was gorgeous but very cold and windy, so I headed back down and began the trudge back up the Mile. Now, it was Sunday, and while this isn't usually a problem in big cities, that day every pub and restaurant that I poked my head into was either 1) shut or 2) full. Desperate for food--I hadn't eaten since tea, and that had been my whole lunch--I finally relented and got a sandwich at Subway. I watched part of a street show and then staggered back to the hostel.
Day 5: I started off in the National Museum of Scotland, which had a surprisingly interesting collection of artifacts from Scottish history, from ancient magical talismans and jewelry to harps, traditional garb, and some big-ass swords. I sadly only got through the first two floors (of six!) before I had to leave to go to another show.
This time it was more improv with a group called the Oxford Imps; they did many of the games that I've seen the Dead Parrots do at WWU, so it was quite fun, although I think the Parrots are better. (Uni loyalty and all that...) The best bit that they did was an improvised Shakespearean play about a foot doctor. After the show, I was right near the university, so I went on a walking tour around the university grounds. Although largely unhelpful in itself, the tour did give me a chance to talk to a U of Edinburgh graduate about life at the university and get some ideas with how to proceed. Accordingly, after the tour, I hunted down a linguistics professor to ask some more questions about applying. I also found Professor Pullum's office to take a picture (since he wasn't there...sadface), which was my one concession to my linguistic geekiness.
After some dinner, I had another show to go to. This was the only big-name show I'd chosen to see, mostly because it'd been recommended to be by the receptionist at the hostel, who said this guy was brilliant. It was a one-man stand-up show by a guy named Danny Bhoy, and his show was wonderfully hilarious and far too short. He's cute, too. All told, very good.
Day 6: I decided that I needed something a little different, so instead of heading straight for the Mile like usual, I went the other way and wandered into Edinburgh's Georgian New Town. The New Town is street after street of dignified, bay-windowed, grey-brown Georgian buildings, pretty but monotonous, but soon I came across a beautiful church to look around, so then I was happy. From there I headed back to the Mile and ended up seeing a half-price show called "Of People and Not Things", which, while touching, was essentially two half-hour monologues about losing the one you love being the end of the world. From there, I went on to a free show that had been recommended to me, but it ended up being so raunchy that I left early and went instead to another show that I'd been wanting to see: a showcase of comedians who were required to give a completely clean show. After what I'd just seen, that sounded very good to me.
The clean show was a big improvement, and I left feeling much better. Outside the door, I got into a conversation with a girl doing flyering for a show by Kev Orkian. We chatted for a while and she invited me to go to the show with her and a friend, so I agreed--why not? On our way to get tickets, I took some of the flyers and tried my hand at flyering, something I'd wanted to try ever since I'd started talking to flyerers on the street.
Kev's show was one of the best I'd seen. He impersonated Elton John and made jokes about being an immigrant from Armenia, complete with linguistic jokes (hooray!). I even got a hug from him after the show. I walked around for a bit with my new acquaintance, Naomi, and her friend, then I split off to get a late dinner at a pub before bed.
Day 7: Whew, last day. Through chatting with a flyerer, I ended up at an American's stand-up show that was just short of painfully bad, so after I escaped I decided to take a break and enjoy the sunshine a bit. I therefore headed to Calton Park to have a picnic lunch and enjoy the view of the city center and Arthur's Seat. Wandering back into the city, I stopped to watch a street magician and got selected as the "volunteer" assistant to help the magician in his death-defying stunts. That's never happened to me before, so I'm still smiling about it.
I'd been wanting to go to a show called "I bought Richard Hammond's underpants on eBay", which is how I found myself sitting in the dark in a musty cellar with about ten other people, singing along and playing a paper drum with a plastic spoon. The show was very cute, and I got some pin badges with the show's name on them that I shall wear proudly. I'd heard about another free show that happened to be just up the street, so I popped in just in time. The pirate-themed show, entitled "Jollyboat", was definitely the best free show I'd seen and included a Darren-Brown-type act by a kid bearing a remarkable resemblance to Ron Weasley. I thought that I should just go home after than and end on a high note, but it felt too early to go home, so I got a ginger beer at a bar and saw a final free show that was mediocre at best. I trundled back to the hostel and watched White Collar until a ridiculous time in the morning.
Day 8: I left my stuff at the hostel and headed back to the National Museum to see some of the stuff I'd missed, but I couldn't really make myself concentrate. After lingering on the Mile for a while, I finally picked up my bags on hopped on the train to Glasgow.
Now I know that was detail-less and boring, so if you're still reading, congrats and here's why. Edinburgh was something of a turbulent and weird week for me. Everyone I'd talked to about Edinburgh was rapturous about how wonderful it is, so my expectations were already sky-high. Besides that, every day I was there I was in a constant state of agonizing indecision: should I stay the full week? Could my time be better spent somewhere else? How many shows did I want to see? Whenever I was in a show, I felt guilty for spending the money to see another show, and whenever I didn't go to a show, I felt guilty for wasting time that I could've spent doing something more fun. No matter what I did, I simply couldn't get myself to relax. Add to this that two months of travel are starting to wear on me and the whole thing felt like going to a beautiful venue for a concert of Beethoven's 9th by a master musician playing the kazoo. Almost all the ingredients were right, but there was always something buzzing in the back of my head.
That said, I really did like Edinburgh. Well...at least, I've thoroughly convinced myself that I did, and there's no reason not to. First of all, the idea of city with a castle right smack in the middle always makes me smile, and Edinburgh is kind of shockingly beautiful, with the imposing buildings of the Mile, the New Town, and all the monuments and parks and such. I met many nice people there, and I do quite love Scotland. But because of everything I said in the last paragraph, I don't love it as much as I might've under other circumstances. There's something standoffish about it, something a little bit off. I can't describe it, but having visited a few different cities this summer, I have a pretty good sense of which cities I like--Dublin, London, Venice, and Salzburg, for instance--and which I don't. And Edinburgh is somewhere in the no man's land in the middle.
So, if you ask me whether I had a good time in Edinburgh, whether I liked it there, I honestly don't know. It's weird, I know. Sorry.
Anyway, by far the most interesting thing I did during my week in Edinburgh was talk to the flyerers. The top half of the Mile during the day is a guantlet of people--either the performers themselves or people paid a pittance to stand in the street for five hours--handing out flyers for shows of all kinds. I took every flyer offered to me and requested quite a few as well--for some reason, I often wasn't offered one--and ended up throwing away a stack of paper several inches tall when I left. The great thing is, though, that the flyerers are there to talk to passersby and convince them to come to the show. They have to be friendly or they risk you walking away. This means you can have some really interesting conversations with flyerers, especially paid ones, since they don't have the vested interested in getting as many people as possible to come. The performers doing their own flyering were also very interesting, too--you really just get to chat with them about their show, why they've come to the festival, where they're from, etc. I had some really nice conversation with some very interesting flyerers and ended up going to a lot of the shows when the flyerer took the time to talk to me. Since I was so interested in this, it was really cool that I got to try flyering myself with Naomi.
So, come time to apply for grad schools, I will definitely be applying in Edinburgh. It seems like a great place to live and a very good university. There're tons of the things to do and the people tend to be fantastic, as well as having a perfectly delightful dialect. In my head, Edinburgh was everything it should've been, for some unfathomable reason, it didn't capture my heart.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Keswick.
Originally written August 19th
One thing I discovered on my way to Keswick is that I'm a horrible liar. I don't have a story prepared, so if anyone asks me where I'm from, where I'm going, or what I'm doing, I automatically tell them the truth. In an age where my full name (or maybe even just first), the name of the scholarship, and the name of the country it's in is probably enough to find me in a Google search, I need to be more careful what information I give out.
This was driven home to me when I was killing a half hour waiting for a bus by exploring the ruins of a castle in Penrith. While I was sitting on a ruined wall, marvelling at the effects of the passage of time, two guys approached me, clearly foreigners. One asked to take a picture with me, and when, bemused, I assented, he sat right next to me, put his arm around me, and grinned at his friend with the camera. After the third or fourth picture, I was starting to get freaked out, and that was before he asked if I was married or had a boyfriend, and if not, if he could be my boyfriend.
I gave him my best, "Nice try but leave me alone" look, smiled tolerantly, and in my head started thinking unpleasant things like Soft spots: eyes, nose, throat, groin and How quickly can I get my walking stick unbuckled from my backpack? This was all totally unnecessary, as soon enough he got the message and backed off, although he and his friend stuck around to chat with me, inquiring repeatedly where I was going and where I was staying. I was as vague as I could be, but I simply can't come up with convincing lies under pressure.
(I should note that it was still late afternoon and we were within easy view and earshot of a major, busy road and bus stop, so at no point was I really in danger, just a bit weirded out.)
So. I've decided that I'm a university student from Canada (around the Vancouver area) named Jennifer Cumberbatch (after this guy). I'm heading from Edinburgh south towards London, and I'm going to be studying for a year in Austria. The details are sufficiently similar to the truth for me to recover easily if I slip up, and could be faked easily.
Of course, this is only the story for people that make me uncomfortable, like my two over-inquisitive new friends from Bangladesh. Oh, I forgot to mention that they invited me to go to Bangladesh, and as I made good my escape back to the bus stop, they asked for my e-mail or Facebook. I almost laughed out loud but got away without giving them, hopefully, enough information to find me.
Anyway. Penrith's only significance to me is that it's the nearest train station to Keswick, my next destination. The bus ride to Keswick was simply astounding: this is the first time I've seen anything in Britain that could be even remotely considered a mountain. Of course, in contrast to the Swiss Alps, they're basically greenish-brown, slightly pathetic foothills. But we're not in the Alps anymore, and everything has to be taken in conext; here, they're peaks, looming with a majestic, ancient, dignified air over the rolling, sheep-dotted countryside and placid lakes below. The Alps are the sort of mountains that you'd go bungee jumping with. The peaks here you'd be much more likely to invite round for tea and cakes.
In a variation on the FDR (First Day Rule, remember), I arrived around sunset and set off on a quest to find the lake. I was, after all, in the Lake District, and Derwentwater, by which Keswick nestles, is supposed to be one of the most beautiful. But I could not, for the life of me, locate it, and had to ask several people before I was pointed in the right direction. As it turns out, Keswick (pronounced KEZ-ick, by the way) sits back from the lake's edge, separated from the water by a sheep-covered hill known as Hope Park. I arrived on the hill, picking my way through a minefield of droppings and cooing soothingly at the wild-eyed sheep, just as the sun set. The lake spread out before me, flanked by those graceful green peaks, as pale gold and salmon pink light melted all over the purple-grey clouds.
I wended my way down to the shore, where the wavelets lapped and splashed calmly on the gravel, and struck up a conversation with a mother sitting on the beach as her two teenagers and their father threw rocks into the water. What began as a laugh about accidentally getting hit by a badly aimed pebble somehow turned into a wonderful conversation that only ended when darkness was falling and I realized that I hadn't eaten dinner yet. I walked back into town with this lovely family, said farewell, and ate fish and chips in the town square before trundling back to the hostel to bed.
This hostel, by the way, is the jankiest I've stayed in yet. (I'm not actually sure that "janky" is a word in common use yet. Sketchy? Spartan? Something like that.) I was given no key, and led through a warren of a long hallway to a small room filled with bunks in the back. The whole place was eerily silent, and remained so through my entire stay. Despite the slight creepiness, the place was actually very comfortable. They even had free tea and coffee out all the time, which I made good use off. I'm quickly becoming a tea addict--given the choice between tea and coffee in a coffee shop, I'll take coffee, because they know how to make it properly. But when it's tea or the powdered sand they call "instant coffee", it's tea all the way. Tea is nice.
I woke up the next morning to rain on the corrugated plastic skylights. (And you think I'm kidding...) I got a trail recommendation from the info center, a picnic from the supermarket, and then I set off into the hills. And let me tell you: anyone who claims that England is danky, dreary, and dull has clearly never been in Keswick on a sunny day. The path climbed up past babbling brooks and baleful-eyed sheep to a lookout atop a crag. From there, the azure Derwentwater, sporting tree-covered islands like emerald jewelry, spread out at my feet; to the right, crowned by a rainbow, the grey and white houses of Keswick sat swathed in rich green. Ahead, a valley led to another lake in the distance, while on all other sides rose green-brown slopes, like sentinels bathed in sunlight. I was reluctant to leave, but the wind was quite strong, and eventually my cold fingers convinced me to move again.
I continued along the top of the hills through vast patches of pale purple heather to Ashness Bridge, a cute little stone bridge over another sparkling stream, and from there down to the lakeside. I took my time on the walk back to Keswick, stopping to enjoy the view and admire the sunlight sparkling off the waves. By the time I returned to town, it was after 6pm. Now I'd promised myself afternoon tea when I got back, but at this hour, all the tea houses and cafes were closed. Hungry, tired, and with a headache coming on, I did the only sensible thing: went back to the supermarket and bought everything I needed to make afternoon tea in my hostel. And that's what I had for dinner. I made myself go to bed early, because I knew the next day--today--would be a big one.
And it is. Why? Because I'm going to Edinburgh. I've been thinking and talking about Edinburgh for, oh, almost the entire trip, and just about everyone I've mentioned it to has nothing but good things to say. I have a week booked there, but I'm not sure I'll stay the whole time; it depends on whether I'm enjoying the Fringe Festival, how much of the city I want to see, and how much time I want to spend in Ireland. Because as much as I try to ignore it, each day brings me closer to the moment that I'll have to leave the Sceptered Isle and return to Germany.
But enough of that. For the moment, I'm on my way to Edinburgh, the sun is (intermittently) shining, and all is well.
One thing I discovered on my way to Keswick is that I'm a horrible liar. I don't have a story prepared, so if anyone asks me where I'm from, where I'm going, or what I'm doing, I automatically tell them the truth. In an age where my full name (or maybe even just first), the name of the scholarship, and the name of the country it's in is probably enough to find me in a Google search, I need to be more careful what information I give out.
This was driven home to me when I was killing a half hour waiting for a bus by exploring the ruins of a castle in Penrith. While I was sitting on a ruined wall, marvelling at the effects of the passage of time, two guys approached me, clearly foreigners. One asked to take a picture with me, and when, bemused, I assented, he sat right next to me, put his arm around me, and grinned at his friend with the camera. After the third or fourth picture, I was starting to get freaked out, and that was before he asked if I was married or had a boyfriend, and if not, if he could be my boyfriend.
I gave him my best, "Nice try but leave me alone" look, smiled tolerantly, and in my head started thinking unpleasant things like Soft spots: eyes, nose, throat, groin and How quickly can I get my walking stick unbuckled from my backpack? This was all totally unnecessary, as soon enough he got the message and backed off, although he and his friend stuck around to chat with me, inquiring repeatedly where I was going and where I was staying. I was as vague as I could be, but I simply can't come up with convincing lies under pressure.
(I should note that it was still late afternoon and we were within easy view and earshot of a major, busy road and bus stop, so at no point was I really in danger, just a bit weirded out.)
So. I've decided that I'm a university student from Canada (around the Vancouver area) named Jennifer Cumberbatch (after this guy). I'm heading from Edinburgh south towards London, and I'm going to be studying for a year in Austria. The details are sufficiently similar to the truth for me to recover easily if I slip up, and could be faked easily.
Of course, this is only the story for people that make me uncomfortable, like my two over-inquisitive new friends from Bangladesh. Oh, I forgot to mention that they invited me to go to Bangladesh, and as I made good my escape back to the bus stop, they asked for my e-mail or Facebook. I almost laughed out loud but got away without giving them, hopefully, enough information to find me.
Anyway. Penrith's only significance to me is that it's the nearest train station to Keswick, my next destination. The bus ride to Keswick was simply astounding: this is the first time I've seen anything in Britain that could be even remotely considered a mountain. Of course, in contrast to the Swiss Alps, they're basically greenish-brown, slightly pathetic foothills. But we're not in the Alps anymore, and everything has to be taken in conext; here, they're peaks, looming with a majestic, ancient, dignified air over the rolling, sheep-dotted countryside and placid lakes below. The Alps are the sort of mountains that you'd go bungee jumping with. The peaks here you'd be much more likely to invite round for tea and cakes.
In a variation on the FDR (First Day Rule, remember), I arrived around sunset and set off on a quest to find the lake. I was, after all, in the Lake District, and Derwentwater, by which Keswick nestles, is supposed to be one of the most beautiful. But I could not, for the life of me, locate it, and had to ask several people before I was pointed in the right direction. As it turns out, Keswick (pronounced KEZ-ick, by the way) sits back from the lake's edge, separated from the water by a sheep-covered hill known as Hope Park. I arrived on the hill, picking my way through a minefield of droppings and cooing soothingly at the wild-eyed sheep, just as the sun set. The lake spread out before me, flanked by those graceful green peaks, as pale gold and salmon pink light melted all over the purple-grey clouds.
I wended my way down to the shore, where the wavelets lapped and splashed calmly on the gravel, and struck up a conversation with a mother sitting on the beach as her two teenagers and their father threw rocks into the water. What began as a laugh about accidentally getting hit by a badly aimed pebble somehow turned into a wonderful conversation that only ended when darkness was falling and I realized that I hadn't eaten dinner yet. I walked back into town with this lovely family, said farewell, and ate fish and chips in the town square before trundling back to the hostel to bed.
This hostel, by the way, is the jankiest I've stayed in yet. (I'm not actually sure that "janky" is a word in common use yet. Sketchy? Spartan? Something like that.) I was given no key, and led through a warren of a long hallway to a small room filled with bunks in the back. The whole place was eerily silent, and remained so through my entire stay. Despite the slight creepiness, the place was actually very comfortable. They even had free tea and coffee out all the time, which I made good use off. I'm quickly becoming a tea addict--given the choice between tea and coffee in a coffee shop, I'll take coffee, because they know how to make it properly. But when it's tea or the powdered sand they call "instant coffee", it's tea all the way. Tea is nice.
I woke up the next morning to rain on the corrugated plastic skylights. (And you think I'm kidding...) I got a trail recommendation from the info center, a picnic from the supermarket, and then I set off into the hills. And let me tell you: anyone who claims that England is danky, dreary, and dull has clearly never been in Keswick on a sunny day. The path climbed up past babbling brooks and baleful-eyed sheep to a lookout atop a crag. From there, the azure Derwentwater, sporting tree-covered islands like emerald jewelry, spread out at my feet; to the right, crowned by a rainbow, the grey and white houses of Keswick sat swathed in rich green. Ahead, a valley led to another lake in the distance, while on all other sides rose green-brown slopes, like sentinels bathed in sunlight. I was reluctant to leave, but the wind was quite strong, and eventually my cold fingers convinced me to move again.
I continued along the top of the hills through vast patches of pale purple heather to Ashness Bridge, a cute little stone bridge over another sparkling stream, and from there down to the lakeside. I took my time on the walk back to Keswick, stopping to enjoy the view and admire the sunlight sparkling off the waves. By the time I returned to town, it was after 6pm. Now I'd promised myself afternoon tea when I got back, but at this hour, all the tea houses and cafes were closed. Hungry, tired, and with a headache coming on, I did the only sensible thing: went back to the supermarket and bought everything I needed to make afternoon tea in my hostel. And that's what I had for dinner. I made myself go to bed early, because I knew the next day--today--would be a big one.
And it is. Why? Because I'm going to Edinburgh. I've been thinking and talking about Edinburgh for, oh, almost the entire trip, and just about everyone I've mentioned it to has nothing but good things to say. I have a week booked there, but I'm not sure I'll stay the whole time; it depends on whether I'm enjoying the Fringe Festival, how much of the city I want to see, and how much time I want to spend in Ireland. Because as much as I try to ignore it, each day brings me closer to the moment that I'll have to leave the Sceptered Isle and return to Germany.
But enough of that. For the moment, I'm on my way to Edinburgh, the sun is (intermittently) shining, and all is well.
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