Festival

It's that time of year again when the crazies on the streets of Edinburgh turn their eccentricities into acts of entertainment and see an increase in their earnings. Only kidding, but you do have to wonder about some of the festival street acts...

Had a fun filled day on Saturday wandering around Edinburgh, getting a bit lost and marvelling at the explosion of wild enthusiasm and creativity that descends upon the city at this time of year. (The passengers on buses still looked a bit miserable and staid but their faces were lost in amongst the music and colour).

One act stood out for the sheer uninhibited manner in which they threw their bodies around the pavement, with the most ridiculously serious expressions on their faces. The dance moves I can only compare to that episode of Friends where Ross and Monica do their cringey new year dance; the facial expressions like Jack Black's in the opening dance sequence in Shallow Hal. I looked them up on youtube and it turns out not only do they dance, but sing (of sorts!). Check out The Young Dads if you fancy some light entertainment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNak51jY60&feature=related. I have Micha's number; he gave me and my friend this in case we could make it along to their show and wanted free tickets. I'm kind of disappointed we won't make it. He did an impressive ad lib rap about a monkey for us.

There are some cool little independent shops in Edinburgh, a much wider range than you would find in Glasgow. Two little great shops we chanced upon were Cookie and Pie in the Sky, which sell great retro clothes. I was muttering about how some of the little Indian type shops reminded me of Vancouver and then I came across a scarf I got from Vancouver. Weird!

A great cafe I would highly recommend is The Elephant House where J.K Rowling wrote most of Harry Potter. The toilet doors are full of odes to Potter such as RIP Dumbledore and Ron + Hermione forever. They do amazing cakes and teas. Don't let the queue at the door put you off (I think there's always probably a queue at the door) as it goes down surprisingly quickly and we managed to get a table.

I love browsing round market stalls and came across the most amazing bags at one stall. (I have a thing for bags and have lately thought it would be great to be able to make bags but I can't sew and don't know if I would enjoy learning. I have bad flashbacks to home economics in school where I managed to break one of the sturdy industrial sewing machines and my teacher despairing of me).
This is the website for The Beautiful Bag Lady:
http://www.thebeautifulbaglady.co.uk/index.html.
I love, love, love her bags! I bought one for a friend's birthday and am so glad I have found her site as I am sure I will be ordering a bag for myself soon...
The woman doing her selling on the stall asked if she could buy my necklace from me. I said no as I love it too much. (I bought the necklace last year in Edinburgh during festival time at another market stall). It was only a fiver but it is unique and I would never find anything like it again.

It was good having a change of scenery. Day trips outwith the local area are something I'm going to make an effort to do more of.