edinburgh 2018

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh / Scottish National Gallery

Went to Scotland for the first time and stayed with family in Edinburgh during Fringe Festival. I tried to go to a show or two every day either by myself, with family or with friends from home who happened to be in city around the same time. I saw Six and Hot Brown Honey (rec'd to me by KT through twitter, probably) and enjoyed those a lot. I also went to see slew of comedians and most of them were unfunny in ways I truly cannot articulate. Save for one: I might be biased, but the Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective were by far the funniest people I saw there! Turns out you truly take yourself, wherever you go, eh. The AUCC only drew crowds of about 15 people for each show, which is an unfortunate and incredibly low turn-out. I hope they'll have more of an audience if they decide to come back this year, though I don't see why they should.

I was on the ground for this photo and only realized later that I had likely stamped through someone's kitchen garden... apologies!

National museum of Scotland - standing on this balcony waiting (and not rushing) for the right moment to click the shutter made me finally "get" what people watching is all about & how comforting it is to just watch people be & go about their day

Read A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four (the little red-gold pocketbook) here in honor of ACD. I bought it at 221b Baker Street when I was 11 years old and visiting London for the first time. Fitting, I thought, since I would take a train from Edinburgh to London later that week.

There was a exhibition on Dutch artists on at the Scottish National gallery when I was there. You come all this way...

Alright, final thoughts: I was mesmerized by how brown this city is. Not even just how it appears in photos, you would also kinda notice it walking around and paying a minimum amount of attention to the shape of the streets. I even thought about it when I left by train, like, am I ever going to be in a city as brown as Edinburgh again? I don't think so! Another thing that struck me is that Edinburgh is built on hills, which is probably something I should've known about before I got there. I borrowed a bicycle from my family (and left their helmet in the hallway) with the intention of getting around like that all week, because I'm Dutch and that's what I'm used to. I lasted about a day. It's too steep. Not impossible, but it's just - I'm on a holiday! If I wanted to get lean and work out every day, I probably should've just stayed at home.