Amsterdam, The Fringe comedy fest, the NCAA college football opener in Dublin, and reunions with old friends in London
After Milan, my friend Ed and I went up to Amsterdam for a few days before he flew home and I continued on to Edinburgh. Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities on the planet and I’ve been several times so we didn’t really do anything touristy. We did spend a lot of time wandering the streets and hanging out in the parks around the city. I also met up with my childhood friend Jeni who lives in Amsterdam part time, which was great. We got some incredible Indonesian food and caught up after not seeing each other for several years.
From Amsterdam, I flew to Scotland to meet up with my friend and former colleague, Anuj, along with several of his friends to check out The Fringe comedy festival. The Fringe is a festival that runs basically the entire month of August in Edinburgh and while it is primarily focused on stand up comedy, there is all types of live entertainment going on. From live music, to magic, circus acts and just some downright bizarre things that I guess you call “art?” Our friend was telling us about a show she went to where 3 people got naked on stage and had a tomato fight and the first 5 rows were marked as a “splash zone” . I shit you not. Unfortunately we missed that show 😂.
Anyway, basically every building in Edinburgh gets converted into a makeshift comedy venue for the festival and there are thousands of shows happening every day around the city. Every classroom in the university becomes a venue and all the bars and restaurants also host stand up performers, with a lot of the shows being free with donations at the end. There were a couple of times that we were just hanging out at a bar and someone walked by and invited us to a free show in the back. We ended up going to probably at least 15 stand up shows and almost all of them were very entertaining.
The first thing I noticed upon arriving in Edinburgh was the trash. The trash collectors were conveniently on strike so there was trash everywhere. Each outdoor trashcan had evolved into a trash mountain, as people continued to stack trash on top of full trashcans until they were completely consumed by it. Not gonna lie, it didn’t smell or look great. But you’ve got to give the trash collectors credit for their timing, as it got them their first raise in 8 years and highlighted how important their job is, especially during one of the busiest weeks of the year in Edinburgh.
When you’re in Edinburgh and your favorite college football team is playing in nearby Dublin the next day to open the college football season, you have to go right? Of course. I remember hearing last year that Nebraska was playing Northwestern in Dublin for their first game, but honestly I forgot about it. Until about a week before the game when I realized I was going to be right next door and had to go. So after one night out in Edinburgh, I caught a flight early the next morning for Dublin and headed straight to the stadium from the airport (I literally only brought a phone charger and a toothbrush with me as I was going to be there less than 24 hours). Upon arrival, my cab driver took me to a bar right outside the stadium that was inside a hotel that the tourists apparently didn’t know about, because I was able to get a seat at the bar and knock back a few glasses of Guiness prior to game time and meet some fellow Husker fans.
The energy in the stadium was great. I was actually surprised at the number of Northwestern that were there. Nebraska fans travel really well, so I expected it to be more like a Nebraska home game, but the crowd was pretty evenly matched and it was loud in there. It only got louder. At the end of the first quarter, I went to go get some more beers and couldn’t believe how long the line was. It appeared to be moving really fast however, and I needed a beer after watching Nebraska’s poor performance, so I got in line. When I got to the counter, I went to pay for the beer and the cashier says “no, it’s free, the credit card system is down.” I had to do a double take because I didn’t believe what I had just heard, but I double checked with him and he confirmed that beer was in fact, free. Apparently, the wifi system in the stadium went down which resulted in their credit card machines not working, so they just gave all food and beer away for free. This really highlighted the differences between America and Europe to me. If that happened in the States they would just switch to cash only, there is no way in hell they would give everything away for free. In Europe however, the consumer always wins. I certainly won and did my part in helping to consume some of the thousands Guinesses that were given away.
The game also featured the longest cup snake in the history of the world and it originated in the section next me and ended up going all the way up into the upper deck, before falling apart spectacularly and sending cups and extra beer all over the people in front of me. Luckily I was not in the splash zone.
There was also a football game that took place during this Irish frat party. A football game that was looking pretty good to start the 2nd half, when Nebraska scored 2 back to back touchdowns to go up 10 points and then their idiot coach decided to kick an onside kick, which failed miserably, kick-started the Northwestern offense and they lost the game. Luckily that coach is no longer employed by the university. Coincidentally, around the time things started looking really bad for the Cornhuskers (in the 4th quarter), the credit card machines started working again and you had to pay for beer like a real person again. Double kick in the nuts.
The next morning I caught a flight back to Edinburgh, where I reunited with my friends for 2 more days of the comedy festival and checking out Edinburgh’s Old Town, which is absolutely beautiful. After the festival wrapped up, I spent my last day in Edinburgh checking out all the touristy things around the city I hadn’t seen yet. I climbed to the top of Arthur’s seat, which is an ancient volcano overlooking the city that provides an amazing panoramic view of Edinburgh. It was a good hike up to the top, with some ancient ruins you could check out along the way. Also checked out Calton Hill and Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is one of the residences of the British Royal Family. I ended my day with an amazing haggis feast and some delicious scotch, as one does in Scotland.
The next day I caught the train down to London. People always talk about how dreary it is in Scotland, but I really experienced that when I got off the train in London to a gorgeous day with blue skies and could see the sun for the first time in a week. It felt really good. I had originally planned on spending some more time in Scotland and renting a car to check out some of the northern cities and scotch distilleries. However, I had gotten word that 2 of the executives in the Cardlytics London office that I worked very closely with during my time there were having their “going due” (aka going away party if you aren’t British) and so naturally, I crashed it. Only a couple people were aware that I was going to attend, so it was a big surprise to most of the London office when I came walking in. It was so great seeing so many familiar faces from our London office and catching up with people.
I really love London, it’s one of my favorite cities on the planet and really does feel like the center of the world. Some people will argue that New York takes that title, but they are wrong. The fact that London is a 2-3 hour flight from so many cool destinations across Europe takes the cake for me. Everything in London is also just so seamless, the public transportation is great, and there is so much cool history there. London is another city I’d love to live in someday.
I’ve spent some time in London over the past few years, so I didn’t really do any touristy stuff and just enjoyed spending 5 days exploring some new neighborhoods and catching up with some old friends. A couple of my friends I hung out with in Edinburgh were there and I also met up with an old college friend who has been living in London for the past 10 years, which was great. We also spent a night at the top golf version of a cricket batting cage, which was really cool. Basically, you can set your difficulty level and there was an animated cricket bowler who would throw you balls which you tried to hit back, with various sensors at the back of the cage awarding different points depending on how well you hit the ball. Naturally, after the year I spent in India, I dominated. Not really, I’m terrible at cricket but we had a lot of fun nonetheless.
On my last day in London, I did run into some challenges with my lack of planning anything. Apparently you can’t just show up at the London train station and get a ticket on the Eurostar, which is the train that takes you back to mainland Europe under the English channel. The clerk at the ticket desk actually laughed at me when I walked up to the desk and asked for a seat reservation on the train leaving in an hour. So I ended up staying one extra night in London before heading on to Belgium. All things considered, there are far worse places to get stranded for an additional day.
