Robert the Bruce, Melrose & Rosslyn Abbys, and Lowlands

We skipped the ghost tour last night, opting instead for dinner at the Witchery, a dark gothic restaurant near Edinburgh Castle that's supposedly haunted after witch burnings at the site in 1722. Our seating was for 11pm, so service by then was slow, but KayDee went for the haggis and loved it, even corrupting me into trying a bite....ok, it was good, even though it looked like an animal organ made from rotted blue cheese.

Today was crazy--we boarded a small tour van with about 10 other tourists, some of whom didn't get the memo: 1. please wash the vile, sour-smelling mildew out of your clothes before getting into a van with unsuspecting victims. 2. please hang up your cell phone, especially when the tour guide is trying to talk--nobody gives a shit that you're loud and from Italy. 3. when exiting the van, let people seated in front of you exit first, rather than ramming them with your ass as you push past. 4. if you smoke, don't exhale your last drag after you've re-boarded the van, jackass. 5. when the driver says to reassemble at a specific time, don't show up 5 minutes late in the parking lot talking to yourself, only to stop 10 feet from the van like you've completely forgotten that you're supposed to be getting on it--and if you DO do this, don't do it TWICE...what the hell are you doing? just get on the damn van so the poor driver doesn't have to get off and grab you. hey, maybe save the extra meds for when paying tourists aren't waiting on you.

other than the above, the tour was fantastic, thanks in full to the tourguide, who was a sharp-tongued, fast-witted, well-read scot who suffered no fools (in government, history, or the van) lightly. he had a lead foot too, racing us through green valleys and heathy glens past sheep, dogs, cattle, geese, crows, goats, castles, and terrified oncoming drivers.

the tour departed just steps from edinburgh castle. notable stops included the stunning arches of melrose abby, where the heart of robert the bruce (liberator of scotland, and kaydee's ancestor) is supposedly buried; the rosslyn abby, which figured prominently in the da vinci code (we found some templar knights, but no holy grails, mails, or rails); the scott lookout, where sir walter scott would pause when driving his horse-drawn carriage to overlook the lowland valleys where 13th-14th century scots regularly defeated english armies several times their size (some of which were immortalized in the historically inaccurate film that was braveheart); a massive statue of knight sir william wallace; a mystery pair of women's shoes in a bush; and, finally, a tour & tasting at the glenkinchie scotch distillery, where i discovered that i'm not a lowland scotch man--must have more peat. oh, and kaydee found a black baby bunny in the woods beside a cemetary--she'll tell you all about it.

gotta go crash now--j'ai une 6:15 am trip to an avion bound for pairee.  um...maybe i should practice my french before we arrive?

--s

WE ATE HAGGIS...

and it was good!

more tomorrow... (updates, not haggis)

xo
kd

PICTURES!

In no particular order: KayDee with Mr. Bagpipes...a boar in a stroller...KayDee in the Whiski Pub on High Street...the Scotch Experience whisky tour, showcasing the largest collection of scotches in the world (CRAZY)...me hovering in the show's final cardboard illusion called "the closet"..."vegetarian breakfast" at Snax in Edinburgh with eggs & beans (just ok)...smoked sausage on potato fritters with cheese (heart attack)...the Scott Monument (dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, and the largest monument in the world dedicated to a writer)...KayDee on the street near Edinburgh Castle...and a condom dispenser in a pub restroom offering scotch-flavored rubbers...if I had a reason to put a condom in my mouth, I would've bought one for sure. ;) 

--s

Finally... ACTUALLY on vacation!!

Holy Crap was it nice to spend an entire day worrying about the show -- did we remember everything, will people laugh, can we get out of the building afterward?

Originally the plan was to spend the day driving around and exploring the countryside but since the show has consumed nearly every minute we have we opted, instead, to stay in the city and explore some of old town.

It was surprisingly cold and rainy today. I wasn't that surprised but the shop keepers seemed to be, as they kept commenting on it. It was the perfect excuse, though, to buy a cashmere scarf. Also, it was a great reason to go take a whisky tour. This one was as if Walt MacDisney had created it. You ride along a track in a giant cask learning about how whisky is made. Then you go into a room that has hundreds of bottles of whisky... a shrine if you will, all locked down behind glass. I spent most of the time in there wiping off the marks Scotch left trying to lick through the glass to the sweet nectar. We did get to taste several whiskys and while my brain has a greater appreciation for the stuff my palette does not, they all made me gag. Writing about it making me gag, is making me gag.  Whisky, we are not friends.

We officially had Scottish food today. Scotch had a semi-traditional breakfast (no meat) which meant he was served a plate of eggs and beans with several other items all of which seemed to be a form of starch in various shapes and no discernable flavor.  Then for lunch, between the 2 of us we ate like one real Scot. He had beer (and salmon) a I had the steak and ale pie (with red wine). Neither were terribly impressive though I think it's because we were eating in the middle of the Royal Mile.

Tonight we've got reservations at The Witchery (a famous restaurant) and tomorrow we're off on some kind of official tour to look at castles and abbeys which involves piling into a bus and letting someone else drive. Which is ideal because I spent about 15 minutes today touring the same 2 roundabouts trying to figure out which direction I needed to hurtle out of it while trying not to hit the oblivious pedestrians and avoiding the oncoming double decker. Scotch crawled into the backseat and curled up into the fetal position until he knew we were home.

xo
kd

The second show...

was a great closer for our run.  The audience was quiet for the first third, but began to warm by the end of the first comedy section, so by the midpoint, we had them laughing.  No magic flubs this time.  KayDee blew the crowd's mind with her mind-reading trick (a spectator writes down a name on a piece of paper, holds it tightly folded, and KayDee still manages to know what it says from 20 feet away), then I had my turn when I knelt and the crotch fabric of my pants ripped open in plain view, leaving a gaping hole (among other things), which became a running gag for the rest of the show (the HOLE, people, not the other things...).  Afterward we hung out with a high school friend of KayDee's, got drinks with the crew at a pub where it was singles night (we were each given a name tag and encouraged to speed date, which was awkward because KayDee wouldn't let go of my hand...hahaha) then ambled with our post-show highs to a late nite fish-and-chips joint called Barracuda.  By then it was 2am, which seemed like the perfect time to shave off my beard, so I did.  More on all of that later, plus Beowulf, and more, with photos...we just got up and are running to find breakfast, and maybe a ghost tour because we love Scots, alive or dead. --s

CROWD WAS AMAZING!

every seat was full last night, thanks i'm sure in part to ewan, the sweet marketing chap we hired to pass out flyers...the show was technically imperfect, which made it perfect, at least for last night...there were a couple of missed musical cues...an early reveal of the final illusion's secret...dropped coins and cards...me flopping like a fish during an impromptu interpretive dance...kaydee rolling around backstage trying to escape from her corset for a costume change until she finally had to saunter out and let me untie it for her on stage...a pair of women in the front row laughing so hard they couldn't speak...a guy spit out some beer during a joke...the stars aligned, somehow.  it probably helped that we were crazy with nerves and flubbing parts of the acts, which only added to the hilarity of the chaos...fast and loose with riffing is the way to play the show for sure, at least with these supportive & smart scots who appear game for anything.  more details & pictures to come...running out to catch some of the city and a show this afternoon: a musical adaptation of beowulf, one of my favorite stories. i hope it's in olde english. god dæg! --s

This is What 1am in Edinburgh Looks Like

we got up, found a supermarket, fixed eggs, then drove down to the Out of the Blue Drill Hall theater in the nearby town of leith.  if you're looking for a great crew and multi-stage black box experience for a show, this is it.  it's the Blue's first year at the finge festival, and from the look of it, it won't be its last.

the drive *should have been* only 10 minutes, but the GPS that we got from the car rental company (enterprise can SUCK IT) enjoys sending us down 1-way streets and dead-ends.  we would've tried google maps via phone, but data rates with t-mobile are something like $1500 per second, so we settled for just getting lost repeatedly...if you try every address, you're eventually bound to get there by brute force.

we started our tech run and prop prep at 3pm, and didn't finish until 11pm. setup was murder. the props involve a complicated set of precisely cut wardrobe-sized cardboard boxes that are used in the show's final illusion, and cutting/taping them together takes foreverrrrr.  when we finally finished and went to leave, we discovered that everyone else in the theater was gone, and we were locked in...how tres bad sitcom.  luckily we had the stage manager's cell and he lived nearby, otherwise we might've had to camp out....and i might've been forced to drink all the beer in the kitchen as revenge....

we saw our first green hills today...crazy green...i can't wait for sunday when we'll take a drive through the country to the castle ruins where robert the bruce, scotland's first king and kaydee's forebear, was born.

it's 1am and i feel perfectly awake.  jetlag rocks! 

--s

We're in Scotland? I didn't notice...

Aside from today being the first that I drove on he wrong side of the road... we did nothing at but work on the show. It was productive but if someone asked me to describe Edinburgh  I would tell them it looks like the inside of a theater.

As we worked we overheard a few of the other shows. 3 second review: o-ver-wrought.

If you're keeping track so far for dinner we've had Tapas, and Italian. Just like all good Scots.

Tomorrow is opening night for us.  People are constantly incredulous that we'd "travel all this way and only do 2 shows!"  I find it odder that people perform for 28 days in a row... not as odd, however, as the fact that someone can be speaking english to my face and I can't understand what in holy hell they're saying.

xo
kd

Travel... you can go to hell.

whoever said it was the journey and not the destination has clearly nevere traveled in a post-9-11 world.

the good:
arrived in Scotland and saw a field xoof bunnies by the airport
saw a rainbow OVER A FREAKING FIELD OF BUNNIES -- COME ON!

the bad:
had to navigate from the "passenger" side of the car while in rush hour on no sleep through the middle of the Fringe


the ugly:
london heathrow CAN KISS MY ASS!! we almost missed our connecting flight b/c some "undervalued" nitwit felt that the only way to feel important was to make us sit around for no reason... except to make us almost miss our connecting flight. The walks were endless, the customs dude was full of jackassery, and the people were SO BLOODY SLOW. did I already mention that  heathrow can shove it?

xo
kd

made it!

plane ride was cramped but pretty easy except food not fit for human consumption.  waiting on 1 bag that hasn't made it yet. apartment is close to central edinburgh. architecture is ancient and lands are green. can't understand fast talkers, especially when they mumble, which is often. not jetlagged--amazing after no sleep for 24 hours. off to find brkfst and start building our set for tomorrow's show.  driving is crazy---drive on left, with wheel on right makes for some hairy turns---almost took out a bus. no haggis yet, lots of performers ambling the streets in makeup.  more soon.--S

Leave Tuesday, Arrive Wednesday

so... we're leaving in about 29 hours and I'm making a blog. Because I don't know how to prioritize.

Hopefully you'll see some updates while we're gone.

Also, I love how enormous that picture is. That thing is worth at least 2 dozen words.
xo-K