Journal Blog #1

I’m happy our group was able to experience Edinburgh before the festival began because we see how much the city is affected and changed by the impact of the Fringe. When I first arrived, I was surprised to see how quiet and calm the city was; I thought the festivities would have been underway. The only festival occurring at that time was the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, but the city wasn’t in too much of an uproar about it. Yet with the Fringe, the Royal Mile is turned into busking and advertisement central. Part of the road leading to the castle is closed off and tourist buses from all around are parked in various hotspots of the city. The only tourist bus I saw before the Fringe was the one for “sightseeing.”

Upon arriving to Edinburgh two weeks ago, I was disappointed that the Fringe hadn’t begun. I was ready to meet other theatre companies and see all the people flooding up the city. Instead, I arrived to what I believed to be a quaint and quiet little English town (like the ones you see on BBC or Discovery Channel documentaries). The cloud of disappointment sort of hovered over me until I got to know, and experience, the city and its people.

It didn’t feel like home at first, but once I decided to give it a chance, I began to think about it as Louisiana in the fall. I stopped trying to pick out the differences/things I considered to be negative (ex. there’s no Tony Chachere’s seasoning, it rains too much, etc.) and chose to see the positive and how some of the differences aren’t so bad. I actually enjoy being able to walk to locations around the city instead of using a car, and, because the temperature isn’t in the 80’s or 90’s, the weather is pleasant to walk in (you just have to be wearing the right pair of shoes in case it rains). The people here are polite and, in some ways, more trusting than those in Baton Rouge. All of these examples and more made me feel more like a local instead of a tourist. So when the Fringe did begin to get underway, I felt like one of the locals whose territory had been invaded upon. (I now understand why some New Orleans natives hate Mardi Gras.) And although it’s a nice feeling to view myself as a native, I had to remind myself that I’m here to do a show, just like many of those who have invaded upon this territory that I now think of as another home.