Monday was our first official bank holiday in the UK, so we took full advantage of the long weekend by jetting off to Edinburgh, Scotland. All of the locals we chatted with said they've had a horrible summer -- it basically rained every day in August, that is, until we came (yay!) The weather couldn't have been any more perfect than it was while we were there, besides the one downpour we got caught in on Saturday night (but the fireworks, which happen every night, still went on).
As I mentioned last week, the world's largest arts festival called The Fringe was happening, so we took in a few free comedy shows on Saturday and Sunday night. The first night, we crowded into a room the size of a closet with about 100 other people (it had fire hazard written all over it!) and listened to an American girl share her experience living in London (more on that later this week -- it deserves its own post!) The next night we marched into a larger room, equally as crowded, and saw four comics do standup. Two were hilarious, one was so-so, and one was downright awful. But I guess that's the chance you take when going to a free* show. (*Free as in you donate money at the end…)
Speaking of "free*" we did a two and a half hour walking tour with Sandemans (which we've used in both Oxford and London) and learned the history of Edinburgh. From stories of the Stone of Destiny (click on the link to read about it--it's quite fascinating) to the public square where they nailed criminals' ears to the wall (I'm still sick over that one), there were lots of little tidbits we probably would have missed if we walked around ourselves.
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| Back in the day, criminals' ears used to be nailed to this! Ew! |
