Catching up with Renee – 11/8/2007 – 12/8/2007

I found out through North American Amy that our mutual friend from high school Renee was going to be in Edinburgh for the Fringe. A couple of emails, voice mails and missed calls later, we found each other at Renee’s kids’ Fringe show. Brian and I got last minute tickets for their closing night. Essentially, it cost us £12 to find Renee. The show itself was awful.

Renee’s kids did a great job with it, but the show itself was awful. Walt Disney’s High School Musical began its life as a cheesy made for TV movie for, surprise surprise, the Disney Channel. The TV movie begat the stage musical and her school was among the first to get the rights to it. Renee’s Busch Gardens skills qualified her to run the sound board and scored her the "free" UK trip. The price was watching fourteen performances and who knows how many rehearsals of HSM as well as occasional babysitting duties. "Eight year olds love it," she said ominously before running off to do her job. An hour and a half later, Brian looked shell shocked. Eight year olds love it, I wondered, but why? Every character cliché was covered more effectively in Grease. This version was even more sanitised.

Final night meant Renee was quite busy, but at least we were able to make plans for Sunday, her big free day. Later in the evening, Brian and I joined Fraser, Kirsty, George, Jo and a departing Kathryn for alcohol and silly games. Cranium is much more fun with alcohol. Fraser, Kirsty and Jo were victorious. Then came Jenga. Then came sleep.

Sunday morning got off to a leisurely start. We were slightly late meeting Renee for 1:15pm, underestimating the time needed to dodge people and walk the beginning of the Arthur’s Seat walk. We found her outside Pollock Halls. She wanted to see non-festival Edinburgh, so we started with the walk up Arthur’s Seat (2nd that day for her) and down the back to Duddingston Village for the Sheep Heid Inn, Edinburgh’s oldest pub (noticing a theme?). One pint and two juices later, we walked along the road to Newington for another round of drinks at Bierex. From Bierex, we headed to the Royal Mile and Bishop’s Close (?) for the Jolly Judge, another tucked away old pub. The hope was it wouldn’t be too swarmed with festival tourists. It wasn’t too bad, so we enjoyed round three there. The plan was Bann’s for dinner to give Renee one final coup for the trip. She was meant to have dinner with her group at the Hard Rock Café. I felt it important to protect her from that and let her enjoy a nice meal on her final night. Bann’s was fully booked, so we went to Black Bo’s, another vegetarian place around the corner that was empty. Renee had a good experience with veggie haggis and all was well.

After the meal, we walked over to Hard Rock to bid her farewell. It was great catching up. Our spotty knowledge of what others were up to caught each of us up by a few years and perhaps bored Brian a bit. It was great talking to her. It’s a shame her partner hadn’t come across as well. We might get to catch up again in a few months, if visiting with my evil twin ends up being a road trip. That would be very cool.