Edinburgh: Week 1

Apologies for the radio silence. Trust me, when you lose your passport and both credit cards, you tend to space on some things. I’ve been trying to not let that stop me from enjoying my first week in Edinburgh.

I had coordinated my time in Edinburgh to sync up with the final week of the Edinburgh Fringe, a huge festival that lasts for the entire month of August. It’s a hodgepodge of street performers, musicians, crafters, stage plays, comedians, puppetry, you name it. When I was here two years ago I had missed the festival by a single day, so all I saw were the ruminants left in the streets. It looked like a huge party I didn’t want to miss, so I made sure to catch it this time.

There’s a variety of things to do, both free and paid. I ended up only participating in free events as the previously mentioned losing of financials made things more challenging. Still, I’m glad I was here to experience it. I will say, however, the streets of Edinburgh are much quieter now and it feels like the whole city has just taken a deep breath. Everyone can finally breathe, the festival is over. While I enjoyed the festivities, I missed the quieter, slower pace of the city I remembered.

Week One has been…interesting. A few days ago, my passport and two cards disappeared. I know they weren’t stolen, I just simply lost them. I’ve been back and forth trying to figure out what to do with my passport, and I’ve resigned to the fact that I’ll have to go down to the embassy in London. They didn’t have any available appointments until September 6, so until then…I’m just going to have to put it out of my mind. I’ve contacted the necessary people, I’ve made the necessary requests. I just can’t do anything else at this point. I don’t want this to ruin my trip, and the only way I can do that is just not worry about it.

So from here, instead of a day by day playback, I’m going to focus on one “must do” activity for Edinburgh. I have a list of about 10 things that should be experienced when in Edinburgh, and each day I will write about one. At the end of each week, I’ll fill in the gaps with what happened in between these must-do activities, leading up to when I need to head down to London. Stay tuned!