Because We Can

Backup to the castle area this morning and a little fun with mirrors. Double your pleasure double your fun in the castle area. Compared to other trips through the same spot over the last week and a half something is missing this time. It's the mass of people going up and down the hill. Early morning gives an entirely different flavor. So what's this all about you might ask? It's moving day. We are changing hotels and going to the other end of Princess Street where our hotel for the OAT tour is located. What you see there could be referred to as my stuff, since Linda's bag is already packed and ready to go. Our room for the OAT tour. A major contrast in size and appointments. We had checked into staying here and decided that the room is a room and at far more than double the price of the Travelodge where we were staying, it certainly wasn't worth it. Besides, the Travelodge ended up being in much closer walking distance to the m...

The hotel we're staying at his bare-bones, a tiny lobby and adequate sized rooms, but it fits our needs perfectly as it is very close to the bridges up to High St. they do have a breakfast but it's a hold boxed breakfast. Just around the corner is a Sainsburys, the one where we get our granola bars and cookies. Throw in some bananas and blueberries at its the perfect breakfast for two people on the go. The tablecloth is a bandanna that was a gift over 20 years ago to Linda from her mom, it makes any of our picnic meals family meals. If you know what you want to see, and the shows are half priced, this is the place to buy your tickets. We go over all the shows, pick the ones we like to see, then at 10 o'clock in the morning they post on the website the shows that will be half-price that day. It's a little over five minute walk from our hotel to here, and after a brief wait in the line we've got our tickets. These are the two we buy tickets...

Fringe is so massive that after a while it seems that it's the norm. Everywhere you look there are posters, placards and handouts touting one performance or another. We decided to make this a day at the fringe. This performance is being held in what they call a bunker, probably because that's exactly what it is a bunker. I know you can't tell from the photo, but the brick walls and arched ceiling screen bunker. Okay, so it's a image of Linda standing beside a display of posters advertising events. Can you figure out which event we're going to see? Need a hint, look at Linda's left hand and think about what her favorite bird is. Fringe is not just in one location, but is scattered out over a large area. With time to kill between performances, we just sat on the stone steps and people watched for a while. It didn't take long to figure out the real reason Linda wanted to stop here. Directly across from us was a ...

Early Sunday morning bagpiper. I really don't think there is a sale on bagpipers, but at the Fringe you never know. One thing for sure, the streets are not nearly as crowded as they were on Saturday. St. Giles Cathedral. On the first Sunday of the international Festival they celebrate a special service with many dignitaries in attendance. That was not really the reason we were here though we enjoyed it, the reason was for who once preached at this church. Linda and I are lifelong Presbyterians, and the Scotsman, John Knox, is the "founder"of Presbyterianism. I have several ancestors who came from Scotland to the US. One of them had two brothers who were Presbyterian ministers who also came to the US. It was a way of indirectly touching my past. Fun with mirrors. You're only as old as you think you are and sometimes it's fun to act your age A magician who set up in front of St. Giles church. He really knew how...

Our first stop this morning was at the Highland Tours office. Actually it was just a walk by and pose for photo stop, but come Monday morning we will be here to depart on a week tour of the Highlands. But this weekend and next we will be on our own in Edinburgh. When we made plans to come to Edinburgh we didn't realize that August was when the annual Fringe event was held. If you've ever heard of a Fringe event, this is where it all started in 1947. The Edinburgh Fringe has grown to be the largest cultural, arts and street festival in the world. Think of over 50,000 performances, 3500 shows at over 300 venues and that's just the shows. Add in buskers, street performers, living statues, plus arts and craft markets and it still doesn't begin to describe Fringe. We're not talking a few blocks of a street here, we're talking blocks and blocks and blocks, all of which are filled with people. The interesting thing is that just ...