Edinburgh | This International Life

Edinburgh Festival Fringe reviews 2013, part 3

30 July 201422 August 2013

So much to see, so little time. The Fringe is exhausting us with its entertainment possibilities. What will life be like when there aren’t hundreds of live shows to choose from each day? Here’s what we’ve seen in the past week:

Tig Notaro ***** Tig was probably the performer we were looking forward to the most, and she did not disappoint. Tears of laughter.

Janeane Garofalo **** Somehow I managed to not even notice her on the Fringe schedule until last week, but luckily tickets were still available. Well worth it.

Rich Hall **** Until recently, the name Rich Hall reminded me only of Sniglets.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe reviews 2013, part 2

30 July 201418 August 2013

Have we mentioned how much we’re enjoying our first Fringe? I already predict some serious festival withdrawal at the beginning of September. Here’s what we’ve seen in the past week:

Zoe Lyons **** An entertaining, well-polished show about nothing in particular. She had the audience laughing in the first minute and kept the pace up for the entire show. (Scott gives her a full five stars.)

Bridget Christie – A Bic for Her **** Made me laugh and despair at the evils of the world all at the same time.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe reviews 2013, part 1

30 July 201414 August 2013

Since we’ve been happily soaking up other people’s reviews and recommendations for Fringe shows, we thought it’d be nice to offer up our opinions as well (plus blogging about things is a great way to not forget them right after they happen). Here’s what we’ve seen so far, ordered (roughly) from favorite to least favorite.

Pajama Men **** I loved this show. It starts out with a series of seemingly random sketches that gradually reveal themselves to be part of one big story arc. Don’t have too many whiskies before going into this one or you’ll find it hard to follow.

Scotsman Best of the Fringe **** Loved this afternoon opportunity to see a handful of funny comedians (not as redundant as it should be) all in one show. I think the line-up might be different each week, but we saw these guys:

Edinburgh in August: diving into the Fringe

30 July 201413 August 2013

What Oktoberfest is to Munich, the Festival Fringe is to Edinburgh: that time of year when all the tourists show up. Edinburgh more than doubles in population during August as visitors and performers from around the world flood in. The Old Town is packed with street acts and revelers. Hundreds of buildings around the city turn into venues for performances. Theater, dance, music, spoken word and comedy are the main types of entertainment you’ll find at the Fringe, with comedy dominating in recent years. But the Fringe hardly has a lock on your entertainment options in this city

Settling into Edinburgh

15 July 201422 April 2013

About time for a wee blog update, isn’t it? Let’s fast forward from my month in Tokyo (we’ll come back to it, I promise) and jump all the way up to present day, where Scott and I are just your typical, everyday serial expats settling in after yet another international move. We’ve been in Edinburgh for about five weeks now, long enough to have most of the new-country administrata out of the way. The first few weeks of a new expat gig feel the same pretty much anywhere, even if the details are different. Register this, paperwork that. Sign up for a cell phone, figure out where all the various kinds of recycling go before the growing tower of vodka bottles in the kitchen falls over, that kind of thing.

Edinburgh: the apartment hunt

15 July 201423 January 2013

We’re more than a week into the hunt for a flat in Edinburgh, and it’s been quite the rollercoaster. We’ve seen some horrible places, and some less-horrible ones, but nothing that we’ve fallen in love with yet.

The main problem is our stuff. It’s always the stuff. When we moved from the US to Italy nine years ago, the agent had a hard time finding apartments for us to view because we were adamant about not wanting to buy a kitchen. In Milan (and Munich), the vast majority of rental flats come completely empty – no light fixtures, no window coverings; the kitchen is usually just an empty room with a water pipe coming out of the floor where the sink should be.

Notes from the expat shuffle, Scotland edition

15 July 201415 January 2013

Happy new year! Now where was I? Oh yes, Assisi. After an inspiring artist’s residency in Italy, we headed back to Munich for a couple weeks of Christmas market season before hoping on a plane to the US to spend the holidays with family. Then back to Munich for a quick hello before finally making our first trip (first trip since deciding to move here, anyway) to Scotland.

Harry Potter slept here

15 July 201422 June 2011

Or, um, maybe he did something else?

I added yet more photos to my extensive collection of public toilet shots at The Elephant House, a casual, studenty cafe in Edinburgh’s old town. The back room, with its lovely view of the castle, is supposedly where J. K. Rowling sat to write much of the first couple Harry Potter books.

Edinburgh: where to eat

15 July 201430 May 2011

We spent most of January in Edinburgh (I know, I’m a little behind on my blogging), so we got a chance to try quite a few of the city’s restaurants. That is, when I wasn’t busy using our apartment’s induction hob or sampling oddly-named desserts from Marks & Spencer. Here are the notable eateries, favorites first.

David Bann quickly became my favorite restaurant in the city

Edinburgh: sightseeing for free

15 July 201414 February 2011

As I mentioned in the comments of my castle post, tourist attractions in Edinburgh tend to fall into one of two categories: free, and rather overpriced. Travelers on a budget can focus in on the free sights, as there are plenty. I chose to do a lot of both, because I was in Edinburgh for a long time, and because the average price per attraction is still pretty low if you average the free stuff with the expensive stuff. This post covers my favorites of the free sights.