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camrogersSo I went and saw Gutted at the Pleasance Ballroom on George Street. Not bad. The Penny Dreadfuls were the best thing in it by far, and Jim Bob had the least amount of time onstage despite getting top billing. It's a musical about a woman who marries her family's murderer in order to kill his family and ruin his life. Not bad. Got out at 12:40am.
So I left the theatre, zipped up my jacket against the rain and walked back toward that huge cathedral on Bank Street. Up Playfair Steps, then turned left down Bank. Wet cobbles, sparse streetlight. Got onto the Royal Mile. Passed Deacon Brodie's tavern in time to hear the publican ring the bell and call time. Walked up the Royal Mile toward the castle gate, took the left-hand road past a black cathedral half illuminated by sodium-yellow streetlight, throwing each cobble on the road into shining relief. Kept walking right up to the base of the dead volcano the castle is built on - all crags and bird droppings from enormous seagulls. OB vans from BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland lined up at the base.
I stop to note all this in the Moleskine and hear an impenetrable accent from behind. A big twentysomething with a shaved head in a grey hoodie asks me something Glaswegian. I take a punt and ask if he wants the time. He says yes and I tell him it's 1am.
"Ye're not from here, are ye?"
I smile and say "No man, I'm from Australia."
He smiles and we shake hands. "I'm a drunken Scotsman. Have a good time."
We wave off and I tell him to have a good one.
I keep walking until I get to Granny Green's Steps. They wind down the slope and finish right at my end of Grassmarket. At the top the view of the whole place: all streets and old pale stone houses and shingled roofs and chimneys lit up by streetlight but set against black night and falling rain... beautiful. A real view. Off to the left a bunch of spotlights rake the sky. That'd be over near the university, where an enormous upsidedown purple cow is one of the main venues.
It's beautiful and cool and quiet up there. A rabbit runs behind me along the flagstones, stops, looks back at me, and hops through the railing into a bunch of heather and down the green slope. A man has reached the top of the steps, saw the whole thing, and smiles at me.
I walk down the steps, turn right, through the gate and into the square. I get under cover, get to our door, roll the codelock to open the keylocker and let myself in.
I am really... really going to miss this town.
So I left the theatre, zipped up my jacket against the rain and walked back toward that huge cathedral on Bank Street. Up Playfair Steps, then turned left down Bank. Wet cobbles, sparse streetlight. Got onto the Royal Mile. Passed Deacon Brodie's tavern in time to hear the publican ring the bell and call time. Walked up the Royal Mile toward the castle gate, took the left-hand road past a black cathedral half illuminated by sodium-yellow streetlight, throwing each cobble on the road into shining relief. Kept walking right up to the base of the dead volcano the castle is built on - all crags and bird droppings from enormous seagulls. OB vans from BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland lined up at the base.
I stop to note all this in the Moleskine and hear an impenetrable accent from behind. A big twentysomething with a shaved head in a grey hoodie asks me something Glaswegian. I take a punt and ask if he wants the time. He says yes and I tell him it's 1am.
"Ye're not from here, are ye?"
I smile and say "No man, I'm from Australia."
He smiles and we shake hands. "I'm a drunken Scotsman. Have a good time."
We wave off and I tell him to have a good one.
I keep walking until I get to Granny Green's Steps. They wind down the slope and finish right at my end of Grassmarket. At the top the view of the whole place: all streets and old pale stone houses and shingled roofs and chimneys lit up by streetlight but set against black night and falling rain... beautiful. A real view. Off to the left a bunch of spotlights rake the sky. That'd be over near the university, where an enormous upsidedown purple cow is one of the main venues.
It's beautiful and cool and quiet up there. A rabbit runs behind me along the flagstones, stops, looks back at me, and hops through the railing into a bunch of heather and down the green slope. A man has reached the top of the steps, saw the whole thing, and smiles at me.
I walk down the steps, turn right, through the gate and into the square. I get under cover, get to our door, roll the codelock to open the keylocker and let myself in.
I am really... really going to miss this town.
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Date: 2010-08-20 01:30 am (UTC)2. wish I was there
3. you'll be back
4. gotta get Mike there and show him how fucking wonderful it is
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Date: 2010-08-20 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 01:51 am (UTC)YOU LIE!!!
I've never been, but everyone i have ever spoken to that has been has told me that Edinburgh is awesome.
When you and I were sharing stories and sinking pints outside the Ten Bells, you told me that you felt that after Iceland, Edinburgh would probably be an anticlimax, and probably what you needed to decompress after all of the sensory input of the past month-+.
I told you, "Not so fast, amigo. Edinburgh is supposed to be awesome. You may be surprised."
You expressed some surprise at my statement, as I recall.
Dude, you were warned.
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Date: 2010-08-20 01:53 am (UTC)I'm so coming back here.
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Date: 2010-08-20 02:07 am (UTC)God I hope I get the London gig.
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Date: 2010-08-20 01:52 am (UTC)I was in Edinburgh... 15 years ago? Jesus. A long, long time ago. It's a beautiful city. Not sure I could stand it when it turns cold, though.
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Date: 2010-08-20 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 02:17 am (UTC)By sheer chance we found ourselves, fortified by a belt of whisky for breakfast, walking up the steep cobblestones just inside the castle, in a rain so thin like a mist.
Some diggers from the town were having a service in the church and there were bagpipes in the mist.
It was sublime. We could not have organised anything that good if we planned it.
It's cold, and it's a wet cold, but I think it's fine because, hell, you're in goddamn Scotland. And I have pretty much wanted to live there my whole life.
(I said too, ages back, when Cam first planned this trip that Edin was awesome.)