The Fringe Approaches

Edinburgh really is a city of festivals, but August will really stand out as the festival time for the city.  It's during August that two of the biggest events take place: the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Fringe Festival which runs from Aug. 7-31.  And we somehow have gotten ourselves sucked into the excitement and anticipation flowing through the city streets.

Derek and I don't generally go to things, we just don't.  At most we'd go to one concert a year, or a show if we know someone who's in it.  A friend of ours is performing in Rent during the Fringe, so I'll be going to that (Derek too, if I can't find anyone to go with).  Basically I don't generally pay attention to performances or concerts coming up, so when an act pops up that I would have liked to see I usually can't get tickets.  That happened here too.  Ricky Gervais is coming to town for one night with his new show, Science, and of course it sold out in a snap.  I would love to see him live sometime!  Between The Office, Extras and his HBO special I have laughed harder at his jokes (delivery) than I have at probably any other comedian.

We are going to get our fill of comedy in the coming month, even without a hit of Gervais.  Following the recommendation of a friend of a friend, we're hoping to go to the News Review, a comedy review of the past year's news stories.  We're also going with a group to An Improvised History of the World, which should be fun.  And with 2 for 1 ticket specials, some of these smaller shows become very appealing.  £10 for a good night of comedy isn't bad at all.

To get a better idea of what's on offer I picked a hardcopy of the massive Fringe program.  At 288 pages and organized by genre and venue, I've never see anything like it.  Flipping through I spotted an ad for Jimmy Carr, who will be doing a solo stand-up comedy performance on many nights during the festival.  You may remember Carr from that hilarious and awful game show, Disctraction, that aired on Comedy in Canada a few years back.  Derek finds him rediculously funny (he's very witty and controversial, saying awful and awfully funny things), so we got tickets to see him for Derek's birthday.

This past weekend felt particularly Scottish.  The Gathering 2009 took place down in Holyrood Park, and about 50 000 people came out to taste Scottish food, watch Highland games, hear the music, compete in Highland dancing and meet and find out more about the clans.  140 clans had tents and information, including my family's, the Davidson clan, and it was just a great atmosphere and a beautiful sunny day.  On Saturday night a huge clan parade took place, as members of each of the participating clans marched to the bagpipes (including those of the Canadian Legion's pipe band) along the Royal Mile from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle.  And this convinced me that I wanted us to see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo this year rather than next.  And since we'll likely hear it every night, we might as well see what all the noise is!

I went onto the Tattoo's ticket website yesterday and sadly found that every night was sold out, amazing considering it doesn't even start until Aug. 7.  But there was a glimmer of hope: at 10am on July 27, a limited number of tickets to the Aug. 6 preview of the Tattoo would be released.  Even better was that these would be half-price.  So we were up at 6am this morning and in line by a quarter to seven.  It was worth the 3.5 hours in line -- we got great seats in a better section than we would have if the tickets had been full price.  And I am so excited!!!

An interesting side-note: we're in the background of some STV news at 6 footage today showing some of the many of us who stood in line for hours.  And the girls who were next to us in line had their photo taken for the Scotsman newspaper, so we'll probably check that out tomorrow.  While we were in line I got chatting with the girls, who were also international university students, and the one's friend brought me back a hot chocolate along with those for the other girls in the group.  It was very thoughtful, and the sugar buzz helped make the time go by.

Our Last Days in London

Day 3 (Tuesday)

Derek and I had two things we wanted to do on Tuesday: visit the British Museum, which I had fallen in love with back in November, and shop along Oxford Street, because I'm always hearing about the amazing shopping.  My hope had been to go to the museum first, and then walk back along Oxford St. afterwards (once we were a bit tired), heading back to the hotel.  But we watched the weather reports and with the threat of 34 C heat we decided it'd be best to spend the hotter hours inside.  An excellent theory...

Oxford Street was busy and bustling with tons of people, double-decker buses and massive clothing and department stores.  We stopped in at M&S, Adidas and Selfridges (where the first item of jewelry I spotted cost over £11000, and there was the cutest little pink Burberry jacket for a baby girl on sale for a little over £100), as well as a little mall where we spotted one of many pianos around the city centre which are there for the public to play on.  I loved seeing Stella MacCartney's Adidas designs, including a beautiful purple handbag/sportsbag which I fell in love with and which was way out of my price range :)

A couple blocks north of the far end of Oxford Street was the back entrance to the British Museum, where we spent the rest of the day.  I was wiped, and Derek was a great sport about sitting and resting at various points in time and throughout the building.  It hadn't occurred to us that this very old building wouldn't be air conditioned, and with all of the skylights it was pretty warm throughout the building.  Back in November it had been nice and cool, just like outside.  It was quite frustrating to look inside the display cases and see that they were temperature controlled, yet the building isn't!

Lunch was a nice break that day.  After checking out the prices of sandwiches in the museum, we walked back to Oxford Street and picked up a couple BLTs and an apple at a chain sandwich shop, Pret et Manger, which we stopped at regularly on the trip.  We walked back to the museum's grounds and sat along the edge of the new Indian garden outside the main entrance.  It was beautiful, peaceful and very hot lunch.

After an afternoon admiring the Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts, and the various displays on money, Derek and I headed home for an evening in and a good night's sleep.  

Day Four (Wednesday -- Canada Day!)

We had reached the day that was the inspiration for the entire trip -- July 1st, Canada Day.  While Canada Day London activities were going to start at Trafalgar Square around noon, we decided we'd rather spend the day seeing other sites and museums, and then attend at the square before dinnertime as the ball hockey games wrapped up and the performances really started.  We had made plans to meet up with a friend of mine from Western (we did our MAs in History together before she went on to take Museum Studies here in England and now works for the Queen organizing and installing exhibits, based out of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle -- so cool!).

First up was the Science Museum.  On the way we spotted a massive structure at the south end of Kensington Gardens, which turned out to be Albert Memorial.  Beautiful.  And right across from the Royal Albert Hall (what a coincidence!).   The museum was awesome.  They had so much stuff!  It's currently celebrating 100 years of being open, and there are some amazing displays and objects, including an impressive collection of airplanes (some of which were donated right after making history, like the first airplane to make a transatlantic flight back in 1919 which was then donated to the museum in 1919).  

There was a very cool exhibit on 100 years of plastics which included commentary on the famous McDonald's wrapper debate which I have grown up listening to.  I laughed out loud -- I thought Dad was the only one who felt so strongly about McDonald's decision in the early 90s to move from styrofoam containers to non-recyclable waxed paper.  There were also some surprising items, like a small collection of Barbies (including several which I had), a Super Nintendo and an original Gameboy.  As we stood there looking at the Gameboy and reminiscing, two little girls came along and stood in front of us, looking at the electronics.  The one turned to the other and said something along the lines of 'Did you know Gameboys used to be Black and White!?'  She had us feeling about 50 years old.  As Derek said so beautifully, 'I think I died a little inside.'  

While the initial plan had been to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum for the afternoon which was conveniently located across the street, we were enjoying the Science Museum so much that after a lunch of BLTs in the beautiful grounds of the Natural History Museum we headed back for some more science!  Next time I'll be sure to hit the V&A.

On the way back to the hotel (we had to change into our Canada shirts, of course), we searched out the Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain which was lovely.  Lots of big trees for shade and a fountain not like any I'd ever seen kept in a fenced-of area.  It is a huge oval which stretches along the sloped ground and sunk into the ground, so that you can sit along the edge and dip your feet, or walk around the edge (or in it, as a number of parents did walking their toddlers).  The fountain's base is textures so that the water runs differently at different points, and the water was so cold!  We sat for a while with our feet in the water, cooling off and people-watching on the beautiful sunny afternoon.  It was just what we needed.

After stopping at our room to shower and change we headed to Trafalgar Square to join a sea of Canadians (and Canadian-wannabes) to celebrate.  Our friends showed up after work and we each grabbed a Sleemans beer (it was too hot for Tim Hortons coffee, but I sure would have gotten a doughnut if they'd had any!) and got caught up.  We left the square for dinner, but as the Maple Leaf (the Canadian pub nearby) was packed and had a massive queue, we went for burgers before heading back to the square for Canadian music and comedy and lots of chatter.  The show wrapped up with a great rendition of Taking Care of Business.  We were really glad we went, even if the whole production was significantly smaller in scale than previous years, likely due to funding.

On the way home we had one more site to see.  We headed to Picadilly Circus, which I was pretty amazed at.  On the way we came across the Spar with a Tims inside, so that was exciting to see.  The ads at Picadilly Circus are much more high-tech than 10 years ago, with new massive screens all over.  Derek led us over to a crowd gathered in front of the HMV across the street, where we came across a number of Michael Jackson-style dancers in costume and a huge memorial on the walls and ground.  I'd never seen anything like it in real life.  It was a very interesting time to be there.

The next morning we caught a 9 am train out of Kings Cross home to Edinburgh, and therein ends my tale of our trip.  I can't believe how long it's taken me to write about it all.  No wonder I was exhausted practically every afternoon we were there!  I hope you enjoyed the story.  We sure enjoyed the trip, and I've enjoyed sharing it with you all :)

More from London

Day Two (Monday)

Monday started off with a ride down to the Westminster tube station.  We emerged at the base of Big Ben which was amazing.  As I walked away towards the Thames to get a better shot of Big Ben and the parliament buildings I saw the London Eye for the first time (it wasn't up the last time I was in London!) and I got very excited.  It's huge!  We walked around Westminster to find out if there were tours of the building like in Ottawa (there aren't :( ) and wondered what time parliament would be in session, because we thought it'd be fun to sit in and listen.  

Across the street from parliament is Westminster Abbey, so we headed over there.  After a walk through St. Margaret's which is in the same grounds and open to the public, I really wanted us to by tickets to tour the Abbey, so we stood in line and then also reserved tickets for a verger-guided tour later that afternoon.  We would have gone on one that morning, but the changing of the guards was starting at 11:30 and we had a date with the palace!

After a brisk walk to the palace (it was farther and a bit more difficult to find than I'd thought), we found ourselves on the left side of the palace gates, looking across the street at the Victoria Memorial where I'd wanted us to stand, so we meandered through the crowds and only made a couple bobbies mad as we quickly walked across the middle of the road over to the monument.  We climbed the same steps I'd stood on with dad 13 years and waited for something to happen.  We also just about fried in the sun, as the heat wave had struck and it was a clear sunny day.  The umbrella came out for shade, but I put it away and got out my camera once the bands started playing.  The changing of the guards was much more elaborate than I remembered, including several groups of guards walking by and playing musical performances for the crowd.  When the guards in red coats and the big black furry hats broke into a Michael Jackson medley the crowd applauded and sang along, so that was pretty neat.  

We left before it was all over because we were hot and hungry.  On our way out walking along the Mall we passed the Canadian gates and spent some time deciphering the provincial coats of arms (I think we got 8 out of 10 correct).  Our search for a bank machine led us over to Pall Mall before depositing us in Trafalgar Square, another place we'd wanted to hit.  We grabbed some sandwiches at a nearby shop and sat in the shade of the trees across from Canada House in the Square for lunch.  It was very nice.  

After lunch came the requisite photos by the lions, which was a bit more difficult than I'd remembered.  I guess I used to find it easier to climb when I was younger, because this time I needed Derek's help to get myself up onto the base of Nelson's column.  By this time it was getting close to 1:30pm, which meant we needed to get back to Westminster Abbey for the tour.  The tour itself was excellent.  It's amazing enough to be in such an incredible religious building (in which you can't take photos -- sorry!), but to be let into areas normally roped off from the public was very cool.  We were able to walk around up close to the tombs of some of the earliest kings and queens to be buried in the abbey, which made quite an impact on Derek.

After the 90 minute tour we stopped at the Abbey's small museum and the gift show before heading back to Trafalgar Square.  Derek had spotted a poster on Canada House about an exhibition of arctic photographs that was open to the public, so we stepped inside, made our way through security and some beautiful hallways and saw the photographs.  We walked further along on to the reading room, where there were photocopied Globe and Mails from 3 days earlier, a French newspaper, old pamphlets about visiting Canada, and several computers with internet access.  It was in a beautiful hallway with a spiraling staircase, a chandelier and a grand piano.  Very Fancy. 

We may have been tired, but we still wanted to go inside Parliament, so we walked back down to Westminster.  We told the guards at the gate that we'd like to see the Commons, were handed a green card and sent down a ramp to the far entrance.  Inside we walked through metal detectors while our bags were x-rayed before stepping into position and having photo id cards printed instantly and hung around our necks.  We were moved from bench to bench along a huge hall where we filled in information cards with our names and addresses, and then sent upstairs where we checked our bags and entered the gallery of the Commons.  It was different than I expected, and quite different from Ottawa.  We could only see half of the chamber due to the size and angle of the galleries, and we were behind glass.  We'd picked up a couple information pamphlets so we could figure out who each side was, but as it was dinnertime we didn't see any of the big name MPs.

On our way out we asked a security guy which hall to take to leave (it was a bit confusing and we didn't want to get in trouble), and he asked us if we'd been to the Commons, and if we'd also like to see the Lords.  After completing the same security procedures we found ourselves in an elaborate chamber of reds and golds, sitting on old red leather benches watching some very old men and much younger women debate an amendment on a bill.  One side yelled 'Content,' the other 'Not Content,' and suddenly bells were ringing.  Lords steamed in from the doorways and went into one of two rooms to cast their votes by walking past a table in the correct room.  They also had a lot of laughs and a good chat before the results were revealed.  Over 200 Lords had apparently cast their votes by the time it was all done.  Very neat.

I think sitting in on the debates was one of my favourite moments of the trip.  I spend my days reading transcripts of debates from 200 years ago, so it was amazing to sit in on contemporary debates that use the same procedures and language ('My honourable friend...') as they did in the early nineteeth century.  By the end of the day we were exhausted, so it was an early-ish night for us both.

Heading to London

Derek and I have made it home from a whirlwind trip through London.  People ask us what we saw, and we just look at each other and smile.  We walked everywhere (with the occasional tube ride thrown in whenever the walk was going to be an hour or more to the destination), and saw so much.  So here is my attempt at compiling the places we saw and experiences we had.  I should also mention that it was Derek's first trip to London, and my first trip as a tourist since a school trip in '99, so we had lots to see, all of which was knew to Derek, and quite a bit which was new to me.

The Trip Down

Initially we debated whether to go by train or plane, which would be the most cost-effective, and that debate was still going on when I received a promotional email from National Express telling me about their 4 day sale on east coast tickets: £9 each way regardless of the distance.  Well that settled that!  Then we weren't sure where to stay, but friends gave us some suggestions and we picked a St. David's Hotel by Paddington Station.  I couldn't remember how tickets for the underground work there (and assumed things had probably changed over the past decade), and another friend stepped in with info on the Oyster Card, a card which we pre-load with money and then swipe and the beginning and end of each trip, and which always charges a lower fare than single tickets.

On our first night after finding our hotel and settling into our tiny room, we had supper (Derek had packed one for us back in Edinburgh, as well as lunch for the next day) and then went out for a walk.  We headed a couple blocks south to Hyde Park, where we heard music in the distance.  It turns out that the musical festival Hyde Park Calling 2009 was on, and Neil Young was going to be playing that evening.  We sat down outside the gates at the side of the fenced in area with a bunch of others and listened for about an hour, but not recognizing any of the songs, we headed home for good night's sleep.  We later found out that Paul McCartney made a surprise appearance to join in Young's encore (sigh).

Day One (Sunday)

First up was the Tower of London.  A quick tube ride and we were on the banks of the Thames, with the Tower stretching in front of us.  We'd bought our tickets ahead of time online to save a bit of money, but ended up stuck in line (queuing) for awhile.  We went on the guided tour with at least 50 others, and then spent a couple hours wandering around the various buildings.  We saw the crown jewels, some of the dungeons, the torture exhibit, and (what I was really looking forward to) the special exhibition of Henry VIII's armour through the years.  In honour of the 500th anniversary since he came to the throne they've put together the many pieces of his armour (and his horses' armour) from several museums and are displaying them beautifully, as well as calculating his size through the years.  It was great.

After taking refuge under an archway in the Tower during a downpour and learning about some of the medieval artillery in the moat, we headed out to walk across Tower Bridge.  We then walked east along the Thames before crossing back across London Bridge.  We navigated our was through the streets to see St. Paul's Cathedral, and after admiring its size and beauty it was getting close to dinner time, so we found a nearby tube station and headed home.  M&S sandwiches made for a good and quick dinner before heading back to Hyde Park to listen to Bruce Springsteen headlining the evening's show.  In the hour that we listened we only recognized one song (it turns out that he's just released an album), so we headed back to the room for a bit of Big Brother before resting up for the big day ahead.

There's so much to write about that I'm going to take a couple days to describe the journey.  I hope I don't forget much!