Edinburgh Fringe Week 1
So I activated my Tinder profile again today…
I’ve already had two guys pull me up on if I’m just on Tinder to plug my show. It’s fringe babyyy!
I’ve never done the long-haul thing before. It feels like that most mundane of activites of any travellers, and boring to talk about, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t stop talking about it, because it occupied my mind, body and soul the first few days I arrived in Scotland.
Jet lag sits at the base of your neck and rains on your head and down your back. It gently rocks you back and forth, ebbing and flowing your own personal tide. It’s not the kind of tired after a hard day’s work and you feel it in your bones. I resented my body. I hated inhabiting my skin. I thought I did everything right. I did do everything right. I followed the trustworthy advice of my peers: stay up late the first night, sleep when it gets dark. You’ll be right in a day or two. So I did. I arrived in my accomodation in Edinburgh, roughly 40 hours after I had gotten out of bed in Melbourne to go to the airport. I had slept about 8 of those 40 hours, upright in a chair being slowly encroached on by a pre-pubescent boy who started a subtle, trans-continental turf-war over the armrest we shared. We started out civil, he was chatting animatedly to his mum next to him, talking about the movies he was going to watch, planning his time out. Over the course of the 16 odd hours in the air we shared, he became an insufferable dickhead, fidgeting in his seat, rolling around, and digging his pointy elbow into me. What saved me was taking pity on him, knowing soon that adolescence was soon going to rear it’s ugly head, and he was going to turn into a raging ball of hormones. Ha ha, sucks to be you, kid.
I had known the city previously, I had been there twice in 2010 when I last travelled. Unfortunately the mental map I had in my head was wrong. So wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong. It was the train station, cutting through in the middle of the two halves of Edinburgh, inventively and creatively titled New Town and Old Town. New town held the CBD, shops and other stuff, probably insurance companies or Pandora stores or banks or whatever it is CBDs have in them, and to the north, because it’s UP, the craggy Edinburgh Castle perched on top of the peak of the city and it’s fantastically ye olde Old Town below.
Nah.

Also because of said craggy-ness of mountinous surrounds, as well as old buildings made of stone, phone reception is a surprisingly unprecidented issue. Dropouts are common, especially when you’re trying to find a venue to see a show. Thoroughly convienent.
Fringe days are long. Myself, having an early show at the crack of 12.45pm, means I get up, get in, last-minute flyer and then those precious 15 minutes to prep the show, do some vocal warm ups that no one has laughed at yet which is very, very nice of them and do a bit of stretching before my tech Gabe says ‘Okay babes, let’s kick this in the dick, shall we?’ then the music starts, the house opens, I start to boogie to my open music and a small swarm of strangers meander in to hear all about my problems. The show ends, the applause ends, I run outside to greet and exit-flyer my own show, the debrief of what worked, what didn’t work, what to do better next time, and I emerge into the sunshine, the rest of the day ahead of me. A spot here and there, a flyering hour or two, a catch up with a mate, running into someone in the street, remembering to eat, remembering to drink water, the search for the Melbourne standard coffee continues, take in a show or two or three, and home. Rinse. Repeat. Every. Day. Every day. Everyday. The hours creep along, thanks to the relentless sunshine of being this far from the equator in summertime. When sunset eventually takes hold around 10.30pm, the hoodie that’s been sitting in your bag all day taking up space becomes your most treasured peice of clothing. Pulling 10, 12, 15 hour days is usual. I’m practically homeless. If you ever want to, you could make a mint in Edinburgh if you had a bunch of hammocks to rent out to fringe performers wanting a bit of respite. The beanbags at Fringe Central collect their fair share of dozing artist’s drool over the course of the festival, I’m sure.
In the very height of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year I walked 64,000 steps according to my phone. In Week 1 of Edinburgh Fringe, I did 85,000. And Melbourne is flat as a tack. My feet, calves, butt and back ache. But I do get to turn a corner and see things like this:

And it hits me I’m on the other side of the world, doing what I love, every day. EVERY. DAY.
…EVERY DAY, GUYS.