I'm Stopping This Silly Titular Pattern

This is turning out to be far more frequently updated than I thought it would. My apologies to all of you who thought this would be a suspenseful manner of following my escapades.

My callouses are beginning to flake into small pieces. This is always a sad time for a tall ship sailor away from home a) because it promises untold pain for about 48 hours when one returns to the sea and must regrow them and b) because it's also like severing a connection with home. I was struck with awful home sickness last night -- not for on-land home, but for brig home. I thought of family camp and sailing into the sunset and sleeping on deck in the sun during transit and I grew sad. Apparently there are some tall ships in Southern England, so I'm hoping to get my fix once I'm over there, though it's not the same as enjoying the company of the lovely folks aboard the Lady. So if any of you happen to end up here, know that I miss you and wish you were in Edinburgh with me.

Yesterday got started on a stressful note as I slept through my checkout time at the hostel and, after hastily stuffing all my earthly possessions haphazardly into my bag, was unable to find Violet Dalton's offices.

Violet, to clarify, is the first of many folks from The Couchsurfing Project who I'll be staying with. For all you travelers out there I highly recommend this site. It offers you the chance to really connect with local people and learn about the city you're in through their eyes. It's a cultural exchange as well as a free place to stay. Log on to http://couchsurfing.com/ to find out more.

Luckily I searched Charlotte Square as well as Charlotte Street and found her at the National Trust Offices. She was very kind and allowed me to put my bag into her car for the day. We made an arrangement to meet up at 7:30 and then parted ways.

Since I'd had such a haphazard start to my day I made it as far as the Half-Price Hut and Ticket Tent, via Boots for a cheap meal, before collapsing on the grass and trying to organize my day. After about an hour I felt ready to face the afternoon. I bought a ticket to see Two Left Hands, a sketch comedy show done by a friend of a friend and her friend, then headed over a few blocks to check out some of the stand-up being delivered through the Free Fringe.

The Free Fringe is a movement to bring comedy to the Fringe Fest without high ticket prices, or any ticket prices at all for that matter. I highly commend all the comedians I saw at the Mercat Bar. They were courageous and amusing and obviously just doing it for the love of the thing. I stayed for a show and a half, convinced all the comedians that I was a reviewer simply because my journal and pen were on the table, then had to run like mad for the Rocket to see Two Left Hands.

My journey was not a successful one. I made it to the Rocket already late before realizing that the show was actually at the Pleasance Courtyard, which turned out to be a few blocks away. Then from the Courtyard I found out that the real venue was another block away at the Pleasance Baby Grand. So off I went, now 15 minutes late. The show was being held in a storage container, of all places, and the ticket-taker said they weren't too fond of late-comers, but that he could sneak me in during a break in the sketches. Luckily right as we reached the door a sketch ended, and I was hurled into a small, dark space full of people. Claustrophobia aside, the show was marvellous. I introduced myself to Leila afterwards and, although we both had to dash away to other obligations, agreed to meet for a drink or something in the future.

I then toddled back to the Rocket for AINE...(tigone), a production of Antigone set during the troubles in Ireland. The Cafe downstairs, Angel's, was packed with American teenagers. Apparently all from Southern California and all talking senselessly with sentences full of "like's" and "whatever's," they were like a flock of very loud, obnoxious birds. I tried to exude English vibes as I tucked myself into a corner and devoured a blueberry muffin.

The show, I'm sorry to say, was awful. The reason for the American teenagers downstairs became apparent when I found out that the show was, in fact, being done by an American Teenager Theater Group. Would you imagine that? And what's more, they were from Los Angeles. And they were all doing terrible Irish accents.

Jessie Cornwell remarked that the Stanford Shakespeare Society was going to get slaughtered doing their show on the Fringe because they're in the UK. This is a similar phenomenon. Don't do your amateur Greek play at the Festival of Epidaros. Don't take your badly-trained student actors to muddle incomprehensibly through what is probably a very good and interesting adaptation in awful accents to people who actually know how they're supposed to sound. Needless to say, the UK portion of the audience reacted quite differently from the American section. After the show a gaggle of Scots girls exploded onto the sidewalk beside me and burst into fits of laughter, unable to believe the quality of the acting and dialects.

And that's the thing. It's not just about doing the right accent -- though, in my book, if you can't do the accent right you shouldn't be doing it at all and chances are even if you're doing a good job acting nobody will notice because of how you sound -- it's about doing the right acting. These kids had a long way to go on that front, though good on them for coming all the way out here to do it. Albeit badly. Anyway, I was disappointed, but not all shows can be fantastic. That's just the way things go.

Violet and I returned to her flat via Arthur's Seat, which is moments away from Princes Street, but looks as if it's in the middle of wild countryside. The peak is 823 feet tall and sits within Holyrood Park. It was formed by a now-extinct volcano and then eroded by a passing glacier. I'm planning to hike up it before I leave the city. You can also drive up the side of it, which we did. As we rounded the cliffs the sun was lancing through the clouds on its way towards the horizon, striking all the rocks with a beautiful orange glow. It was stunning.

Violet's flat overlooks the river as it runs into the North Sea, currently at low tide exposing rocky shores and several tide pools. It's full of beautiful colors and nooky rooms and a cat, which is a nice change. She's been hosting counchsurfers non-stop for ages, and I commend her for it. We had a lovely dinner and sat about until about 12, then went to bed. I opted to sleep in and take this bus this morning, which was a good idea. I didn't properly wake until about 11. Fantastic.

My plans for the day include meeting Josh Cornwell, who's also staying in Edinburgh for the Festival, and Ben, one of the swing dancers I met at the Jive Aces concert. He's given me a few swing events to check out this Sunday, so it should be a grand day full of dancing for me.

And now, I'm feeling peckish. So it's into the shower and off to the cafe for a morning meal and then onto the bus and into the city for fun and games.

Hope everything is well with all you lovely people out there.

Lucy