Did I mention that I have decided to date the posts about Fringe to the day that the thing happened rather than the day I write it? Yeah. I’m doing that. Ain’t technology great? This way I’ll keep some chronology in case I write about stuff out of order. Leaves me free to pursue wherever my thoughts and enthusiasm happen to wander when I sit down at the keyboard. Time is just wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff anyway.
Also I’m a high functioning high masking autistic in the process of learning about myself and how to manage my brain better. You may notice that in what I write about or the way I write a unpolished pieces of consiousness flow.
I like to travel. Waiting or being in motion in between places is liminal space which I love. I also like being in the new place, doing the new things. Don’t get me wrong, it is super stressful, takes a lot out of me, particularly the noisy environments, but it’s worth it. Overall I’m a pro at travel – started travelling as an unaccompanied minor when I was really young and never stopped.
Last year we did a non-stop Delta flight from Boston to Edinburgh. We’ll be doing that again next year. This year I used some and earned some miles by flying JetBlue which had added a flight to Scotland since last we traveled. Trouble is, flights to Edinburgh go out of JFK in New York, not from Boston. No big deal right? Little hop from Boston to New York… except the way the best schedule worked out it was a 5 hour layover at JFK. Then there was tropical depression Debby to add some uncertainty to the day.
We did some research, I made a call to JetBlue to discuss options (they were offering waivers and refunds due to weather) – we decide to surf it and hope our trip didn’t get turned upside down with a cancelled flight.
Airport was pretty quiet, quick through bag check and security. Weather was fine in Boston. Boarded plane, settled in and within a few minutes were instructed to deplane because JFK had a flight hold for 3 hours due to weather. Back to the gate we went. No problem. We have a five hour layover, might as well spend some of it at our familiar smaller and quieter home airport in Boston rather than at JFK. If our 9 pm flight is going to get cancelled (please don’t cancel, please don’t cancel) at least we can just go home.
Three hours turned out to be just two hours and we were back on the plane and underway.
Nine p.m. flight from JFK is still on time! Couple more hours of waiting. Watched beautiful fat raindrops beat the window at our gate for 20 minutes, but it blows over and out. We board, everything is go. Then no-go. Catering issues. Then no-go again, no ground crew – we lost them while they fixed the catering. Then more wait for tower to give us a runway. We sat at gate and then on runway a l.o.n.g. time. Finally we are headed out over the pond. Just sandwiches for dinner because that was all catering could provide given the issues whatever they were.
Honestly, it is pretty much a miracle that any flight ever leaves on time and that planes work and that we can cross half the globe almost as easy as driving across the city. The TSA is definitely an unwelcome impediment that I could do without. Yeah, TSA, fleas and mosquitoes can all just disappear from reality and that would be fine with me.
My ham sandwich was ok. Only ate half the bread so my blood sugar didn’t spike out. Plane magically makes up a bunch of time and we arrive only 20 min later than originally scheduled. Boo Ya!
My Beloved Partner sleeps on the plane. I cannot sleep. Eye mask, blanket, drugs. I rest. Maybe I drift of for 10 or 15 minutes a couple of times, but that is not sleep. I exit the Edinburgh airport around 10 am having been awake for more than 24 hours. I’ve been wearing my noise cancelling head phones to try and minimize the stress on my system from all the environmental noise and my ears are sore. Feels so good to have them off.
By the way, arriving in Scotland from overseas is great. Easy peasy passport check and customs exit. It does pay to get off the plane and down there as quick a possible to avoid a long line which we did. We are out and into the sunshine bags in hand in record time.
I have five shows on my schedule for arrival date the 10th, so we hit the ground running. At baggage claim I shifted some stuff between my newly retrieved checked bag and my carry on backpack – now magically transformed into my festival day pack! I bought this backpack here in Edinburgh last year when the one I brought with me started to tear apart with the stress. Re-pack was not perfect ’cause it was quick, but workable. I failed to switch over from purse to thigh strapped bag which was a mistake; I’ll fix that on day two.
Airbnb is not available till 3 pm, so we drop suitcases at the same place in town we used last year. The young male desk clerk REMEMBERS US from last year and we remember him – I think it is a family owned business. Also, to be fair, we are pretty memorable characters. He even loans me his stapler so I can fix some hard copy packets I made for each of my travelling companions with their individual show schedules and bar codes. Why those pages printed in reverse order I Do Not Know. All better now.
I am so glad to be back! I love Edinburgh and Fringe is amazing!! It feels so good here. Travelling back to a place I have been before is awesome because I already know at least something about it. I figured it out the last time I was here, at least some things are familiar, so I can really relax and enjoy it.
What I really want to do is spend the whole month of August at Fringe and a couple of weeks on each side of that just hanging around in the city. I could be more a part of Fringe. I want to see how the city transforms to be ready for the festival and how it cleans up and breathes afterward. I could go to a few shows every day and leave more time to feel, reflect and write about them. I’d need a cheaper place to stay though. Maybe next year.
The shows will get their own posts and reviews so skipping some time here.
There was a break between shows long enough that I decided to go rest at the Airbnb. I am really tired, an hour or two nap would be good. Despite provided instructions there was a frustrating adventure in identifying which lockbox key went to the exterior door and which one to the apartment – or maybe there were two copies of the same key that worked in both locks, and no numbers on the apartment doors on the first or second floor. Front door key definitely fit but did not open an apartment on the 2nd floor, and I am so tired and wow did I need to pee which made it much more challenging to puzzle all this out. It is really hard to think when I need to pee.
I’m looking for apartment 2F1. After several trips up and down the stairs trying keys I figured out that I really needed to leave the exterior door key in the lockbox so others could get into the building, and more importantly that despite the apartment number, ‘two floors up’ from the instructions is the third floor, not the second floor. Clearly labeled door, key works. I finally got in. Whew.
A few minutes later Beloved Partner and dear friend arrive in an Uber with our luggage which they haul up three floors of steep windy stairs. So grateful for able bodied younger people who look after me. I could never have managed that.
We had to pretty much dash back out the door to see a show. No nap. I am really tired.
When I got back after midnight I unpacked. My diabetic safe foodstuffs are stashed in the kitchen which includes Soylent powder and snack bars so I have something safe, fast and easy to eat no matter what happens food wise. My power converter works. Set up a chair as a bedside table and found a second pillow in the wardrobe. What more could I ask for?
Sleep. I could ask for time to sleep.
This is home for the next eight days! We are at the bottom of the hill on Melville just across the street from The Meadows which is a gorgeous park, and really close to Summerhall which is one of my favorite festival venues. We stayed just a couple blocks further down the street last year, I love that this is now ‘my neighborhood’. I know the deli on the corner, that the House of Oz is just a few blocks away where I can go sit in their courtyard and have tea with Aussies. I know how to get home through The Meadows.
So good.
By the time I unpacked I had been awake for more than 40 hours. Fell over and slept till 11 a.m. day two. Purposely scheduled a light 2nd day for myself with only four shows, all in the afternoon and that was smart.
Thank you past Leo for taking care of present Leo.