Ladies and gentlemen, as of 2:30 yesterday afternoon, my dissertation was printed bound, and finally turned in once and for all. Now that I am done, and reveling in my freedom, I thought I would finally sit down and make an entry to the blog!!
Things are going pretty well here in Edinburgh. Ryan and I managed to secure an awesome flat in London just north of Camden and so that is a relief. A couple weeks ago we went on a final cycling trip in Scotland, starting just north of Glasgow and making our way north towards Inverness. As you can see, if was a beautiful way to end our days in Scotland.
For those of you who don't know, Edinburgh erupts every August into one heck of a good time, with the Festival season... While we all call it 'The Festival' it is actually a whole bunch of festivals and events that all take place simultaneously, turning our city into a massive international party. Just a few of these are, the International Festival (which includes dance, opera, classical musical performances and some theatre), the Fringe Festival (theatre, art shows, comedy acts, music), the Film Festival (you get the idea), the book festival, the Jazz and Blues Festival, as well as loads of fairs and arts exhibitions.
As you can imagine, just about every conceivable venue in the city has been commandeered. In addition, the parks are all full of big tents, outdoor beer gardens, clubs, and buskers! At night, there are fireworks, massive outdoor parties and crowds of people all over the place. The change was stunning, last week business was as usual, and then all of a sudden the city was full of tourists and performers! The whole city feels transformed, and well, festive!
Today there is going to be a massive parade through town. (I'll post pictures as soon as I get them). We have also bought tickets to a bunch of shows, the first of which we will see tonight. So far the line up includes: Emergence-C! (a one man show about race relations in America), The Complete Dickens Unplugged (YES, this production is written and directed by THE Adam Long!), Wit, Into the Hood (think Into the Woods, in the Ghetto, with Hip Hop, and Breakdancing). We are also trying to get tickets to a showing of a new John Waters comedy that includes a Q&A session with him afterwards. This Thursday we have been invited to see the Tatoo (a massive bagpipe performance up at the castle). Tickets were completely sold out and impossible to get unless you were incredibly rich, and so we had given up on the idea of seeing it and were really depressed, but then last week we got an email from a member of the Marshall Commission who was in town and they invited us to come along with them for free! So that was incredibly lucky! We are also hoping to catch a number of art exhibitions, and the Box Wars if they do it again (imagine modern day gladiators, in giant cardboard costumes).
Aside from all the festival stuff, life is moving forward for us. We have found a place to live in Camden, in a big old house with 5-6 other people, and will be moving down to London on the 7th of September. Ryan continues to apply for jobs not in the betting industry, and I am continuing to slave away on my thesis, though the end IS near. I promise, once its done I'll post a copy online for you all. On Tuesday, our very good friend Ashley will be back in Edinburgh for the end of our European tour, and then at the end of the month my mom will be visiting for two weeks (yay mom!). All in all, the month of August looks like it is going to be the highlight of our year here. Might as well go out with a bang!
