Edinburgh Fail

We wake up and get on the road with thoughts to get to Edinburgh early, find a place to stay, and explore the town.

Instead, we arrive to the town being mobbed. It’s the first day of their Fringe Festival, and every bed in town seems to be booked. We knew that the festival was going on, but we didn’t think it was going to completely take over the entire county. We figured for sure that other things must be able to coexist at the same time as the fringe festival. We thought wrong.

So we slop about Edinburgh and its outlying areas and for a couple hours and still can’t find a place to stay. Wandering around wand being constantly thwarted is really exhausting and frustrating. Plus the place is overrun with tourists and thespians, making the place unnavigatable. The town is on lock down for the fest, every public service agent’s patience with the bumbling tourists is non-existent, and the local marble mouthed drawl doesn’t help you get around even when they do grace you with some directions. It’s a pretty city, but we don’t get to enjoy it at all. It reminds me a bit of how annoying Austin is during SXSW.

So, whatever enthusiasm we had earlier in the day has been replaced with the dreary, foreboding dread that we’ll be uncomfortably sardined inside our car at some reststop oscillating between states of agitated unconsciousness and unrest. Or we're going to have to bunk with this boar.

The club doesn’t offer us any respite from our predicament either. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t seem like it cares about fostering music, it only cares that live music sells more drinks. The band members are awarded for their services with one free beer each. James addresses this restriction by going around and asking each bartendress separately for the band’s five beers. Ah, my little grifter.

This what the show looked like through the CCTV:

I won’t bore you with the details, but over the course of about 4 hours, we get the number of the son of a family friend of James’ dad that just happens to be in Edinburgh. At 3:40 in the morning, James and I get a hold of him and wander over to meet him at some dance club, where he gives us the address of his apartment. We are saved from spending our first Scottish evening at some grim roadside water closet.

On the way to meet our savior, we watch a wasted kid topple over in the street, like literally tip over, right in front of two cops. The cops proceeded to make an “oh snap” kind of face, make fun of the kid, and then move right along. Where are we?