A bonnie time in the British Isles

Did we save the best for last? Quite possibly. The last leg of our trip took us to Scotland and London. For a little country, the UK has quite a lot to see and explore. Plus as someone who grew up in the commonwealth, I've been steeped in more British culture than the average American so there was a lot I was looking forward to.

Edinburgh Fringe

Natalie plays both the male and female parts in the one woman show WEER

We decided to time our visit to Edinburgh with Fringe - the world's largest comedy and performing arts festival. During the weeks of Fringe, the entirety of the city is taken over and every nook and cranny becomes a place for people to perform. From large venues of a few thousand, to a small bar stage that could fit maybe 3 people, Fringe performances are everywhere. Across 25 days, the 2024 festival featured over 50,000 performances of over 3,300 shows in 262 venues from 58 countries! Some famous shows we know today like Fleabag, Six the musical and Baby Reindeer all started at Fringe. The best part is most of the shows are either $10-$20 or free with a nominal donation. We saw some amazing comedy by just stumbling into random backrooms. We also saw some headline performers like Vir Das (basically front row in a small hall) and an absolutely incredible one woman rom com WEER which honestly needs to be seen to be believed. WEER is one of the performances I will never forget.

Street performers everywhere

The whole city just came alive during Fringe with activity everywhere. And its not just comedy - its music, dramatic arts and even weird interactive experiences. We went to an immersive story telling experience (Arcade by Darkfield) in a dark shipping container which was part video game part interactive play. The funniest part was at one point your character is "shot" and you feel a light spray near your head which is presumably your "blood". Its not quite smell-o-vision but I guess it’s the new 4D? With all of this going on, it was kind of hard to see many different parts of Edinburgh that visitors normally enjoy but we enjoyed our time at Fringe so much we hardly missed it. This does mean though a trip back to Edinburgh is likely on the cards sooner than many of the other places we visited on this trip.

Pub life in London

We booked a whole two weeks in London in the small neighborhood of Bermondsey to get a slice of local life in addition to taking in all the sights. Of everything we did, what really stands out to me is the central place of the quintessential British Pub in the life of the average Londoner.

The word pub in the most of the world is used quite interchangeably with bar. Pubs in the UK are a bit more than this. Pubs, short for Public Houses, originated in England in the middle ages. Originally, most of them offered accommodation in addition to food and drink making them more like a tavern or inn. Some of these old taverns and inns have been lightly remodeled and are still in London today. The George, for example, dates back to 1676 and you can tell how areas where horses used to be parked and fed have been remodeled into outdoor seating today.

The George today. The next picture shows it in the 1880s when people were still riding horses.

Pubs unlike the bars we think of are a wholesome part of British life for every age and stage. Yes late at night you can find young adults knocking back a few pints to blow off steam after work, but you can also find senior citizens mingling in the early evenings or families dining on a classic Sunday Roast at lunch. Speaking of Sunday Roasts, they are a very British tradition of a set menu of meat, potatoes, vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire pudding (a type of puffed bread). Pubs specialize in Sunday roasts and the best ones are often booked weeks in advance. Of course there are now even veggie friendly Sunday roasts - our local pub in Bermondsey makes quite a good one!

My London friend Jess introduced us to the pub scene by taking us to two lovely pubs - The Devonshire (the newest IT pub, with associated fancy restaurant) and The Red Lion & Sun (a beautiful venue outside the city bustle, family friendly). Both represented great but quite contrasting scenes of what a London pub can mean to its local community. We drank in pubs, ate in pubs, did trivia in pubs and just generally enjoyed the vibe in pubs. This one institution gave us a nice little peek into the British way of life.

Sidenote: on a trip to Ireland years ago, pubs were just as important to the locals. With the one amazing addition - the constant presence of Irish musicians. I heard so much great music in Irish pubs and its often what I think of most often when I remember my trip to Ireland!

The Crystal Maze

Growing up in India in the 90s, our choices for good TV were limited. Star TV made its debut in India in the mid 90s and brought with it Star World - our window to shows from the US and UK. Along with popular shows like Friends and Buffy (only the best for us), Star World also brought to the Indian shores a very popular and slightly kooky British game show - The Crystal Maze.

For the uninitiated, the crystal maze was a game show where groups of adults were put in a team together to solve various challenges of the 'escape room' variety. Each set of challenges were in different zones each with their own theme like "Aztec", "Medieval" or the ambiguous "Ocean". Teams competed in these challenges to collect crystals that gave them a shot of winning grand prizes at the end. Outside of the challenges themselves, the main USP was the host Richard O'Brien who is all personality  - alternatingly mocking or cheering on the teams as he runs around in animal print.

If you haven't seen the show, YouTube has a ton of episodes which I highly recommend watching. It's more fun than most of the game shows I see on American tv these days.

Growing up, I dreamed of competing in the Crystal Maze. So you can imagine how STOKED I was when I discovered there is a real life Crystal Maze Experience 😱😱😱

This immediately became my must do experience for London. I cajoled/forced Su, my friend Jess and my cousins who were visiting London to join me. In the days leading up to it, I binged episode after episode of the old show and would not shut up about how everyone NEEDED TO GET IN THE ZONE FOR THE GAME GUYS LIKE REALLY

The day of, I was practically buzzing. But I wanted to keep my expectations low. Most of these "experiences" are a bit of a letdown. In the worst examples they are just an excuse to do a small activity or two and take photos (I'm looking at you museum of ice cream). But I needn't have worried. Guys I am here to tell you that this experience was definitely a top 3 highlight for me on this trip. Every expectation I had, it blew past it. As soon as we met our game host The Professor who seemed to be high on the very specific nerdom + speed energy I was looking for, it was ON. As we clambered through the different zones and took on different challenges, it was almost exactly like being on the show. If they skimped on anything, I didn't notice it. The challenges and sets for each zone (Medieval, Future, Aztec and Industrial) were faithful recreations. Every time we transitioned between zones we would hear the theme music bumping as we ran down the halls. Everyone on the team got to take on two challenges each and no one got 'locked in' for failing to get out of the challenge room on time (this was something I was laser focused on). To top it off, we even had our own version of the crystal dome! The only thing missing was the prizes, but we all know the real prize is the friends we made along the way.

 The crystal maze experience was truly fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone even if you're not familiar with the original show. We liked it so much, we actually tried to go a second time a few days later but alas it was sold out.   

Our trip to London was super special. What made it even more special was being able to spend it with some of our family who were visiting from India and getting quality time with local friends. I'm so happy we got to spend so much time to spend with people who are so special to us and we can't wait for our next visit!

With the family at the theater!