Staff Party and First day in Edinburgh

Well, GBBF 2009 is in the record books. Attendance was just over 70,000 for the 5 days. And 260+ kils (kl) of beer consumed. That's 520,000 pints of beer. Reports have it that 91% of it was consumed by the punters, with the remaining 9% by the staff. So in rough numbers, the 1000 staff drank 50,000 pints or 10 pints per day. Yep, I did my part!

The culimnation of the festival for the volunteers is the staff party. This one was as good as ever. For those who have attended with me, I've captured a couple of videos - the bar manager's hammer dance and of course, the table dance. If you haven't been to GBBF it's too much to explain. Must be there to understand. I've got to convert my video before uploading so it won't be on this post until I return. Check back later. Also included a photo of our prize stall mascot having a pint. Isn't he cute?


Arrived in Edinburgh yesterday afternoon. Pleasant 4 hour train ride. Was here for about 4 hours and it started raining - imagine that. It rained all night and was pissing a little this morning so had to break out the rain jacket and long pants. I think the last time I used this raincoat was in 2003 when Susan and I did our Scotland bus tour.

Besides the Military Tattoo, the Fridge Festival just started this weekend. What a freak show! Hundreds of acts from all over the world converge on Edinburgh for a month of shows. Lots of comedy, variety acts and theatres. Several shows are free or as low as £5 (or a 'fiver' as they say here). They close down a good section of the Royal Mile around the Fringe box office and set up stages and improptu street performances to create buzz and audiences for their evening shows. Also, every other person is going around (most of them the actual performers) handing out flyers or postcards for their acts.

I'm attending 5 shows today (most are about an hour long). In between, I'm hitting some of the pubs on my list. Speaking of beer, my first pint in Edinburgh was last night - Fraoch Heather Ale on cask. One word - WOW! I think Casey has had a cask at Max's before but this was perfect temp (about 57F) and was exploding with heather aroma and flavor. You just haven't had Fraoch until you've had it here.