The day after Christmas we were sitting poolside in Queenstown, New Zealand on a beautiful sunny day. The inn owner’s family was hanging out as well and they had a definitive Scottish burr. We struck up a conversation and soon told that we should really consider heading to Edinburgh, Scotland for the Fringe Festival. “Absolutely beautiful in August and a great time at the Fringe!” Eight months later, we were landing in Edinburgh and, after a relaxing month in Prague, we were ready to get weird.

True to what we had heard, Edinburgh was beautiful. Edinburgh Castle dominates the city center on top of the aptly named Castle Hill. Old, grey stone buildings and cobblestone streets wind out from there and many gardens and parks dot the city. We even had a chance to experience four or five days of summer while we were there which, according to the locals, is pretty good. During last years festival it rained every day and they said they had no summer at all. It actually rained very little while we were there.

Edinburgh Castle was a nice sight from several places in Edinburgh.

Lots of green spaces and low buildings dominate the city.

Some UK pride and many, many chimneys in the old row homes.

The Royal Scots Greys Monument on Princes Street is quite imposing.

It was a jarring experience to once again be in an English speaking country. I was surprised to see English on the menus since we'd been outside of English speaking countries since February. Though, I had some trouble understanding our Scottish waitress at the pub down the road from our Airbnb. The first time it happened, I told Melissa it was because I was tired. The second time, I simply stated that I had no idea what she was saying. I'd ask her questions about the beers on tap and have no idea how to follow up on her response. Melissa had fun playing the Scottish English to English translator. And laughing in my face. She had fun with that too.

This part of our trip was different from our previous experiences for several reasons. We had actual, timed plans to do things and see stuff almost every day. Some of the shows we planned to see started at midnight. We were out late doing things! Usually we're pretty boring and turn in early. Not during the Fringe!

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is massive. There are over 3,200 shows in more than 290 venues scattered across the city. Approximately 2.4 million tickets were issued to 50,266 performances. That’s just the Fringe and doesn’t even count the 600+ free shows. To make things even more chaotic, the Fringe, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Edinburgh Digital Entertainment Festival, the Edinburgh Art Festival, and the (hoity-toity) Edinburgh International Festival were all happening concurrently. Why not throw the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo into the mix as well? Rumor has it that the city’s population doubles during this time of year. Walking the streets every day for two weeks, I was obliged to agree.

People packed the squares and everyone was excited about the sun.

Princes Street Garden, right below the castle, was a nice place to take a break from the festivals.

The Royal Mile was mostly closed off to cars and was packed with people every day. It was the main hub for the Fringe and the International Festival. Street performers, people hawking their party goods, and promoters pushing flyers into our hands lined the streets and squares of the city.

“Free comedy in 15 minutes at venue 314! Funniest in town!” “You look like a smart person, you’ll love our intelligent cabaret!” “Most creative improv of the Fringe starting RIGHT NOW!” or some variation thereof, are just a few things you would hear every few minutes. We saw one free improv show, Titanic 2, which was meh and one free comedy show, Comedy Boxing, which was pretty good. For the most part, we stuck with buying tickets, mostly purchased before we even arrived.

The BBC venue was free. You could attend a live radio recording or see a band perform here. We did the latter one night.

The Predator fought the Ultimate Warrior to a stalemate on the street.

The two comedians boxed at the end. Or, one got to try to punch the other because he was funnier that night.

We paid £40 (about $53) to become Friends of the Fringe. It meant my parents got a membership card and giant catalog of shows in the mail but, more importantly, we got 2-for-1 ticket deals for nearly all of our shows. There were two performances we attended outside that offer - The Fijian Dancers and the Midnight Cabaret show.

The Fijian Dance show entitled Are We Stronger Than Winston? was the first show we attended. The dancers flung themselves around the stage, blown about by imaginary wind. A performer spoke of one person’s attempt to save others and perished in the act. It was intense and hit us hard. The family we stayed with for a month in Fiji was devastated by Cyclone Winston and has yet to fully recover. As it turns out, the show won the Fringe’s 2016 Sustainable Practice Award, which is awarded “to a production that exhibits high quality artistic integrity and engages the company and audiences with the issues of sustainability in all of its forms.”

After that show, we dialed the seriousness back about twenty notches, sticking mostly to comedy and music. I won’t go into detail of all the shows here (you can see my hot take on a bunch of them through my Twitter feed @ttoolhead) but I’ll do a short highlights review.

The aforementioned Midnight Cabaret – Bad Luck Cabaret – was a lot of fun. It started with me spilling a glass of beer on myself and becoming the sole member of Team Unlucky but ended with me winning the Caution Tape Costume Award and a CD from the host. (Side note – we do not own a CD player of any kind.) The host for the evening, Laurie Black, was an excellent performer and a good accompaniment to the three other onstage personalities.

Adam & Eve & Steve was an excellent musical comedy. Talented singers performed well-written songs spinning the tale of God and the Devil fighting over the creation of man. The few numbers from Beelzebub were especially funny and his duet with God was pretty hilarious. All in all, it was a very good time for everyone.

Ada Ava was one of the best, most innovative, and evocative works we saw. The performers of Chicago’s Manual Cinema crafted an amazing shadow puppet show using four overhead projectors, a couple of actors, and live music accompaniment. My attention was often split between watching the final shadow output and the artists at work. Both were equally compelling. It was great storytelling and craft and worth checking out on their website.

Just wrap yourself up and rave dance like a maniac and you'll win a prize!

The Devil, Adam, Eve, Steve, and, of course, God!

This was awesome and you should see it. That is all.

Obviously we did some whisky tasting as well. We WERE in Scotland.

Seeing shows wasn’t the only thing we did while in the city though. We visited several art galleries throughout the week to catch some of the Art Festival. Most of it was just OK but Alice Neel’s portrait work and Jess Johnson’s illustrations and VR project, both at the Talbot Rice Gallery, were very good. We also took a bus out to see the dazzle ship docked at the Ocean Terminal. A dazzle ship is a warship painted in abstract designs during WWII to confuse enemies. It is unclear if it ever worked.

Local artists were employed to create designs that totally confused the enemy. Or maybe not.

The Digital Festival held some cool interactive attractions. We played with some mediocre Samsung Galaxy VR video and messed with a couple games. The real highlight for me was the HTC Vibe and Google’s Tilt Brush program which enables you to paint in a 3-D world with a multitude of brushes, both “real world” and VR only. Like painting with a neon tube or shooting sparks or clouds. For someone who has been both a gamer and artist for a long time, the interface was quick and easy (though a little buggy at times) and working in the 3-D world, though unlike anything I’ve ever done, quickly became just another medium to mold a creative vision. I highly recommend trying it if you ever see a demo somewhere.

And you look like a totally normal person while you are using it.

My glowing energy, in-progress creation. It is super fun!

One morning, we caught a film about Impressionism or, more accurately, about the art dealer who helped the Impressionists before they were popular. It was a well-made documentary though at £15 a ticket, it was one of the most expensive movies I’ve ever seen. That’s more than most IMAX 3-D flicks nowadays! And those are just as educational.

Since we did get a few days of excellent weather, we took some time to climb Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Craig, both part of an extinct volcano that is right in the city. We took some time on Calton Hill to enjoy the skyline and the Romanesque National Monument of Scotland. Another day, to get away from the crowds a bit, we jumped a 45 minute bus to Cramond Beach and explored the old fortifications on Cramond Island, which is only accessible when the tide is out. Honestly, we didn’t plan it at all so we got a little lucky that the tide schedule worked for us.

That is Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park. It really is a giant hill right in the middle of the city.

Cramond Island in the Firth of Fourth is accessible only at low tide. That is a concrete ship blockage on the right.

An afternoon at the Royal Botanical Gardens rounded out our non-festival activities though, serendipitously; there was a choral performance inside the main hall of the glasshouse. This was the only performance we saw from the International Festival. The Botanical Garden itself was quite lovely and nearly empty I guess because there were some other activities happening or something.

Carp watching again! One of our favorite activities.

We have taken way too many pictures of flowers during our trip.

This post would not be complete without mentioning out wonderful Airbnb host – Yi. He welcomed us into his home and never complained about our late night returns. He made us a few tasty smoothies and some fruit salad to boot! Because of him, we were able to enjoy the vast BBC coverage of the Summer Olympics, something neither Melissa nor I have watched in a very long time. Watching on the BBC is amazing because there are absolutely no commercials. It is just fantastic to not have to see ads for Ford trucks or Cialis or NCIS or whatever it is they are pushing in America on NBC. Thanks for the great time, Yi!

There was a nice field and this church across the street from Yi's place.

The canal walk from our place into town was nice as well.

Edinburgh, the city and the collection of festivals, was a great time. It was totally different than the rest of our trip in the best of ways. Over our two weeks there, we got to see some great performances and meet some nice Scottish people and taste some good whisky. Having some time to do our normal “wander the city” thing and check out the surrounding areas is always a plus. I would recommend to anyone that enjoys seeing different types of shows - be it bands, comedy, improve, or dance – to visit Edinburgh for the Fringe.

The time has come to wind down our overseas travel and head off to the last few stops on our round-the-world adventure. Next up, a few nights in the largest city in Scotland – Glasgow.

One more thing, there was a store dedicated entirely to Pro Wrestling and we grabbed a couple travel companions from there and had some fun.

"Why you photo bombing my dog poo sign pic! Aaaaaarghhh!!!"

"You know something, Warrior, Edinburgh Castle is America-great, brother!"

"By the power of the Ultimate Warrior that the gods bestowed upon me, the Warrior shall prevail!"