Fringe Festival in the short let! SCBWI and the Book Festival too!

So the hotel was a good temporary stop, but we needed a little longer than was reasonable while we look for a place to stay. Awesome Stan somehow snagged us a short-term let apartment right in the thick of the Fringe Festival! And I do mean right in the thick! Here's the view:
     The pictures don't do it justice. We are on THE Royal Mile at the top of Cockburn Street. The road to the left is closed off to traffic because street performers and revelers have filled the street from end to end. Every 100 yards feet (!) or so there is another musician, street performer, drama, group performance, magician, dance troupe, you name it. Oh, and a cafe. As I type, an amazing Spanish guitarist is ripping it up three stories down. I hope he stays there all night. Except for the clapping between songs, I might be able to sleep to him!
     Of course, we've still been running around checking out potential properties - hard to do in the thick Fringe crowds. So we stopped at a pizza place (gluten free pizza!) in the Grassmarket for lunch before meeting another realtor. More on the results of that soon...      Happily, we actually participated in one of the best features of the Fringe Fest today - the International Book Festival. (Fringe is actually a whole bunch of smaller festivals all going on at the same time.) We caught up with Jane Yolen and Elizabeth Kerner for tea before the evening's panel discussion. Jane lives in St. Andrews part of the year, but she's about to head back to the states, so I'm glad we were able to catch up before she goes.
     Then we headed over to the book festival for the Southeast Scotland SCBWI panel on surviving being published. It was my first official SCBWI event here and the people are fantastically nice - as I knew they would be! It was a very informative panel as well.      Afterwards though, I was so tired and chilly, we grabbed a cab to get back to our new flat (which we weren't sure we could find again anyhow). I LOVE cabs!
      Anyhow, for dinner this evening, we grabbed a bratwurst before heading up to our flat. The grill stand is right outside our building's front door, which is why the apartment is filled with the smell of sausages! Here's the view tonight:      Wish us luck on falling asleep! The fireworks haven't even begun yet! (Every night at the castle all through Fringe/August.)
MORE TOMORROW!