Did I mention the play we saw yesterday had full frontal nudity? Yep. And they didn't even mention it on their flyers! A couple of un-circumcised willy's were on full view and it did make it hard to look anywhere else when they whipped them out.
The play was This Much by Moving Dust, and it was surprising that there were empty seats in the theatre. It starred the same fellows who hosted the Bridal Disco we attended, and there was a definite wedding theme to the play, which was written by John Fitzpatrick. I loved a monologue the main character delivers at his fathers funeral. He's fully clothed at that point, but in a wedding dress. The monologue is so poignant and worth the admission price alone.
Afterwards we headed to C Venue to attend a stage version of The Blues Brothers movie.
There was a full band, which had the whole audience dancing in the aisles by the end of the show. The drummer was cute, and the band was wonderful. Lots of fun, and not the kind of thing we normally go to. It's nice to break out of your routine once in awhile, and this city, during the Fringe, is the place to explore and let your adventurous side run amok.
Today is our day off and we've made good use of it. We completed successful quest to find a particular cemetery. We purchased an all you can ride bus pass for 4 pounds each, and were able to find the cemetery easily. We sat upstairs on a double decker bus, and since we'd told our bus driver what we were looking for, he announced the stop we needed when we'd arrived there.
The cemetery was fascinating and I could have wandered around for hours. I took lots of photos of some of my favorite headstones. I like headstones that have a bit of personality to them. Not just the facts, but messages or cryptic epitaphs. Names on headstones are fascinating too, Euphemia, Horace, Flora. There was small monument for a little girl called Wee Tootsie who had died in 1898. The visit definitely put some perspective into our day. Among gravestones I often recall the Percy Shelley poem Ozymandias. Especially when gazing on some monolith that was erected to a well known person, and their stone is now neglected or toppled. In the far corners of the cemetery were bits and pieces of tombstones among the jumble and garbage that tend to gather in unused corners. One unblemished headstone for a Guisippe Diponio, who died in 1985, had fallen and was laying on refuse. It made me wonder if he had moved, or been asked to leave.
A visit to the clothes shop Walker Slater, on West Bow Road led to a tense few moments with my husband. Glenn informed me cemeteries and shopping were in the same category as far as he was concerned, and he had reached his limit for browsing. We were upstairs at Walker Slater, and I had tried on last seasons lined wool trousers that had been marked down to 35 pounds. Hemming was free even on sale merchandise, so I splurged on some very nice trousers. They will be done on Wednesday.
Because our all you can ride pass included the new tram, we decided to take a spin on that as well. We visited with a very nice and very elegantly dressed Scottish woman, who told us where to board the tram and which stop would take us up to St. Andrews Square where there were food stalls to eat at. The woman had Fargo, North Dakota connections! Her husband had gone to school in Moorhead, and she knew the area well. What a small world it is.
When we got to St. Andrews there was a huge crowd, so we waited in a long queue for a veggie burger and Waldorf salad from the Henderson's food booth. We got our food and shared a table with two nice young women that we eavesdropped on. Hey, we were hungry and busy eating (and not talking), so it was kind of inadvertent. One of them had a friend who was a real gold digger and would say the most appalling things when she was drunk. This friend was at a party, talking to a man who told her his name was Billy, and she thought he'd said Bill Lee and so in her drunken state she kept saying "you're not Bill Lee, he's Chinese!"
When we stood up to leave, there were two people waiting to sit in the chairs we vacated and the woman said to me "We'll just jump in your graves." Meaning, (I think) that they would sit in the chairs we vacated. But it made me wonder.
We chose to go to a play tonight called Heart of Darkness, at the Space Triplex Studio. It was a wonderful one man production, staged very simply with Guy Clark playing Marlow, and it was based on the Joseph Conrad story which had been adapted by George Johnston. Maddie Skipsey directed it, and it was brilliant. My favorite play so far. An intriguing story, brought to life through the magic of a talented actor, and director and a wonderful script.
If only we didn't have to do laundry. Or eat, or bathe. There are just so many diversions here. We are off to post this blog, and we are going to post it on a double decker bus. They have wi-fi on the busses here, and we have an all day pass!
Addendum. My cunning plan did not work out as I had hoped. We boarded a double decker bus, the number 5. We rode upstairs on the 5 until we were in a very dark residential area of Edinburgh. We decided to get off the bus going away from Edinburgh, and get on a bus going back to Edinburgh, but apparently we were too late. The buses in that part of town stop running at 10:30 P.M. We had gotten off the bus at 10:30 P.M. By the way, there are plenty of people wearing down coats tonight, and I wished I had thought to pack mine. Earmuffs would be welcome as well. It's cold. Temperatures are in the 40's.
Our long walk back to our flat went past a man retching by a fence, several sketchy neighborhoods with broken glass and trash by the front doors and FYI, the road along Arthur's Seat is not well lighted. There are no street lights along that road. It is very dark, and slightly spooky. (Especially if you've spent part of a day in a cemetery). I'm sure I heard malevolent spirits in the woods, waiting to drink the blood of tourists. When we had the choice of turning to walk along the Royal Mile to get home, or stay on the dark road by nature. We chose people, and lights and alarms. I love nature, but it's spooky at night.