Let me begin by saying that the kids got their first taste of the stereotypical Scottish weather today - non-stop drizzle to rain to drizzle until about 9pm. Despite the rather wet conditions, we had a great time.
After breakfast this morning, we all took the city bus to the Royal Mile. After a brief stop to exchange money the kids all went with Mr. K to Edinburgh Castle while I went to the Fringe Box Office to buy our performance tickets for the rest of our trip. I was the second person in line - it took 1 hour and 50 minutes for the entire order to go through (17 people to 19 shows kinda slowed down the computer - I think I may have broken the record for longest transaction) I made it to St. Giles Cathedral just in time to reunite with the group as they finished the Castle. (Thank you to Russell for sharing his photos from the Castle with me)
After breakfast this morning, we all took the city bus to the Royal Mile. After a brief stop to exchange money the kids all went with Mr. K to Edinburgh Castle while I went to the Fringe Box Office to buy our performance tickets for the rest of our trip. I was the second person in line - it took 1 hour and 50 minutes for the entire order to go through (17 people to 19 shows kinda slowed down the computer - I think I may have broken the record for longest transaction) I made it to St. Giles Cathedral just in time to reunite with the group as they finished the Castle. (Thank you to Russell for sharing his photos from the Castle with me)
We grabbed a quick bite at Gregg's (a chain of sandwich shops we have frequented on every trip) as we walked to our first show - A Midsummer Night's Dream - The Rock Musical on the top floor of The C Venue. It turned out to be a production by a youth group and they were very gracious after the performance, coming over to thank us for bringing the group and they made plans with the kids to hopefully return the favor at our 3rd show.
We then hoofed it over to Pleasance Courtyard - and saw The Greatest Liar in All The World at The Beside Venue. It was a very interesting sequel to Pinocchio that used a fair amount of mine, clowning, puppetry & shadow puppetry, in a cabaret style to tell the story.
We then took the bus back, had time to get a little drier and then went off to dinner here at Pollock. After dinner, back on the city bus to see Circa: Beyond at Underbelly Bistro Square - a really interesting group of acrobats with a quirky sense of humor: cue the oversized mascot costume Easter bunny heads. They did very creative takes on some impressive physical feats - i.e. an intense bit of body stacking while one member had to solve a rubix cube (they did) - a complex balancing routine done with a piece of paper to "Total Eclipse of the Heart", intense trapeze work, and a finale set to the Sex Pistol's cover of "My Way" - all played to a packed house. Plus we had great seats to boot.
After that we walked about a whole 100 yards to the Gilded Balloon to see Axis of Awesome, a rock comedy group most know for their internet videos (over 60 million hits) but also cd's, dvd's and an up coming web series.
An incredibly busy day of true Fringe participation!