Edinburgh festival
Trip Start
Jul 11, 2005
1
9
10
Trip End
Aug 12, 2005
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
I hoped when I left Stirling I'd leave my sneezes behind. I was wrong. Almost as if on cue with the end of the conference and time for holidays, I got sick. This sneezing was no hayfever! It was the start of some crazy tropical flu. Normally when I get a cold or flu I know about it. I get a familiar pang in the back of my throat, which without rest will spread and take over my respiratory tract like something out of Alien.
Evidently this is some version of the flu that inhabits somewhere I've never been like Africa or South America, because it caught me completely off guard. I blame the lack of nutritional food during the conference for damaging my immune system.
But this time it was too late, I was sick, and I was on holidays. Not the kind of holidays where you can laze around watching bad TV and feeling sorry for yourself though - the kind that involve lots of traipsing around, and worst of all, flying. So I arrived in Glasgow, where I was once again staying with Lorna (thank you Lorna!), feeling crap.
I tried to ignore it, all dosed up on ibuprofen, and we went out for lunch where I had a nice big salad and a Bloody Mary. But it was useless. Within a few hours I was struggling to stay awake, and was a terrible rude guest, going to bed at about 7pm. I've said before how great a host Lorna is and how lovely her house is. If I have to be sick anywhere whilst travelling, Lorna's house it a pretty good place to be. She has a cozy guest room next to a cheery well-lit bathroom with carpet, which is really all one needs when battling the flu. So all in all it turned out not too badly, except for the fact I was such a crap boring guest for Lorna. I'll make it up to her next year when she comes to Australia!
Despite my crapness the Edinburgh Festival was on, and although Lorna was blasé about it I was desperate to see the holy grail of Australian comedians. So the next morning I staggered out of bed and we went to Edinburgh. There we met up with Sari, my new Hungarian friend from the conference, who was raving about how she wanted to see Puppetry of the Penis again. That wasn't on yet, so we headed to a comedy show Lorna and I had tracked down the night before on the internet (in the brief period I wasn't sleeping). We arrived 15 minutes early full of expectations at a very dark and dingy venue. It was dead, so much so that the barmaid couldn't even sell us tickets because the guy wasn't there yet. We took that as a bad sign, and decided to wander along a way to the Smirnoff Underbelly venue we'd seen. Actually, I lie. We got to the Smirnoff Baby Belly, at which a performance about the anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan was happening. It was called Enola, and we later discovered it had gotten good reviews, but the girl on the door was about as enthusiastic as a grave digger, so we decided to press on to the Underbelly which she promised had more options. Indeed it did, and so fed up with indecision and walking around we decided to see something that was so crap I don't even remember what it's called. We were lured in with claims of circus tricks that never happened. It was by three Italians and was about an apocalyptic world, asbestos and water. That's what I interpreted anyway.
Luckily it only went for half and hour (I can't believe we payed seven pounds!) so then we headed up to High Street and got some lunch amidst the street performers and throng of passers-by. It was nice, and made the trip to the festival worthwhile. The atmosphere was great. Sari tried to put a positive spin on the crap show by saying it made her appreciate the puppet show she'd seen the night before. (Which, she said, wasn't as good as the Puppetry of the Penis but still good). All too soon Lorna and I had to head back to Glasgow so I could get on a plane back to London.
