Don’t you just hate when life gets in the way of blogging? Sheesh! Priorities, priorities! In all seriousness though, this has been the longest hiatus Cath and I have taken from AsianCajuns since we started this here bloggity-bloop 5 years ago. It was totally unplanned and unexpected (on our end too), so thank you for your patience, readers (aka mom and dad)!
Cath was here (yes, “was here” — sniffles abound) in Edinburgh for 10 glorious days. And I do mean glorious. Scotland pulled out all the stops: sun and warmth and sun (sun, sun, sun, sun, SUN! UVA makes us Scotland residents a bit loopy). Barely a raindrop to be seen.
Being the wonderful twin* that I am, I kept Cath properly fed and watered and entertained: delicious cafe lunches, late evenings at the pub, and toddling around the Edinburgh festival (aka The Largest Arts Festival in the World).
That’s Cath enjoying her Swedish sandwich at Peter’s Yard: imagine a bakery in Ikea, but better (and more expensive). Any bakery that does gluten-free options for us poor, wheat-intolerant souls is a winner in my book. This was delicious (and I didn’t whimper once at the lack of wheat):
Once fed, we hit the Fringe Festival. For those of you that don’t know, Edinburgh hosts the largest arts festivals (plural) during the month of August. There is a jazz festival, foodie festival, book festival, the International festival, and the Fringe festival and I’m sure I’m missing a few. The Fringe is the largest, craziest, and generally cheapest of all the festivals and it happens at hundreds of venues all around town. There’s comedy, dance, theater, fine art, music and. Jane Austen improv (yes, pretty much the best thing ever invented). It’s called Austentatious:
These actors (men and women alike) were swoon-worthy in their hilarity. For those of you in town for the Fringe, it’s still playing every day at 1:30 at the Counting House until the end of the month. Oh and did I mention, it’s free! Get thee to Austentatious if you can!
(thanks for the photo, Sara!)
Most of Edinburgh festivaling entails lots of crowded rooms and streets (the city swells to twice it’s size population-wise), and feeling hungry and then thirsty and overwhelmed at what to see. While walking around town, flyers are thrust into your hands with beseeching looks and you are constantly second-guessing yourself once you finally commit to a queue to see a show. There is also a giant, overturned purple cow (the Underbelly venue — yup, you can see shows inside the purple tent/belly!). Disorientating indeed.
Cath and I don’t do well in crowds (over-stimulation gahhh!), so we mainly ambled around less crowded streets and stopped to eat when it got to be too much (this happened frequently).
Overwhelmingness aside, you must visit the Edinburgh in August at least once in your lifetime. Preferably with your twin.
At this very moment Cath is flying over the Atlantic somewhere (in the wrong direction) toward Atlanta. So things are returning to normal (boo!), so there will be more time for blogging (yea!). I hope you guys have had wonderful summer vacations (or staycations) too!
*Full disclosure: when I say “wonderful twin” I should also mention I roped Cath into working (for free) for the first three days of her visit on a film shoot. Yup. I made her wake up at 6:30 am every morning during her worst jet-laggy days here and glue glitter on to things and stand by hot lights and cameras. I have photos for proof, but I’m waiting to get the the go-ahead to be able to tell you more.
—-
Dear Cath,
I hope your flight is going well. I know you must be exhausted to the core. I can’t believe we squeezed so much into your visit, and I can’t believe YOU’RE GONE again! Harumph! That was far, far, farrrr tooo short of a visit. And I will be cranky for at least the next week (sorry, Matteo).
I miss you so much. Edinburgh is definitely not the same without you. For one thing, it’s really cloudy again. Oh and there is a missing twinie.
Love,
Lar
