Since we couldn’t be in Edinburgh this year, comedian and saucy songstress Jessica Delfino has sent dispatches through both the literal Scottish fog and the Festival Fringe alcoholic one.

Being a New Yorker in Scotland offers its own interesting set of issues. The very words New York City put glimmers in people’s eyes. They think the streets of NYC are paved with gold and that everyone there is obviously a movie star. Audience members who follow me outside after the show, hoping to catch a glimpse of me slipping into a stretch white limo and slinking off, are surely more than a little disappointed to instead see me get onto a rickety mountain bike and pedal away carrying my guitar and purse, like a pack mule. I feel as a New Yorker it’s my duty to live up to the polish and shimmer that I’m supposed to have, so I do dress up for shows, I do apply a shade of showbiz red lipstick every evening before my show, I do sign autographs after shows, and I do sip red wine all sophisticated like, while the brutish Scots glug down pint after pint and exclaim, “Oy!” and “Arr!,” both in awe—and in ugghhh—of my New York pizzazz.

Lots of my American friends are here: Kurt Branohler and Kristen Schaal, Ben Lerman, Jamie Kilstein, Mike Amato, Carolyn Castiglia, David Calvitto, Marshall Cordell. The list goes on and on.

Some of them are producers, most of them are performers. Some of them are already very established and regular attendees, perhaps even stars of the Fringe in a sense, others are here for the first time and are just getting things figured out. Some have their shows produced for them by people who have money to shell out, a bet on their success, others have worked jobs all year long, squirreling every dollar away to make this trip possible. Still others have friends here who have put them up or are paying for their own show or have some other story. It is my second time at Fringe, and I’m returning on the heels of a little bit of controversy. And when am I not? That nosy press gimmick seems to follow me around like a stalker. But I’ve got a new attitude this year and am dead set on having fun and kicking ass.

I am on tour and have been for six weeks. I started at Latitude Festival in England, went on to do a two-week stint in London at the Soho Theatre with New York’s Jena Friedman as my opening act (we were sandwiched between NYC comedians Jamie Kilstein before me in early July and Reggie Watts after me in July and August). I played at a few other London locations such as London’s notorious Comedy Store, and then ended up at Ed Fringe for the month, biding my time until I perform in Galway, Ireland, and at the world-famous Reading and Leeds Festival, my final stop before I return to my grungy, beloved NYC.

Though we all have somewhat different scenarios, most of us share the same basic daily and nightly routine:

Ben, Mike and I share a glorious flat about a ten-minute walk from the central hub of the festival. We settled in quickly. It’s a large place with skylights, and a huge walk-in shower room the likes of which I’ve never experienced. My bedroom is nearly the size of my New York City apartment, and the view from every window in the place is of a small famous “mound”/tourist attraction/public park known as Arthur’s Seat, which I call a mountain and people laugh at me like I’ve just told the world’s funniest joke.

Our days are a roller coaster of commiserating or celebrating each small achievement. “A local newspaper is writing a story about me!” Mike exclaims. We trade back-pats and high-fives. “I’m going to be on the radio!” I share. We drink wine and eat lovely meals with groceries carefully selected from Tesco, our local store. “I got a four-star review!” Ben pipes in. We do the merengue to whatever station we can tune in on the ancient transistor radio. The kitchen is where we spend our most intimate offstage moments, sexploits, show highlights and disappointments,  secretly envying each other’s press attention when it comes, but also proud to be associated with it all—yeah, that’s my friend! Ben and I have a joke that our bedroom walls are so thin, he can her me crying and I can hear him eating.

I happened to luck my way into a great venue called Jekyll & Hyde, which is a dark, moody, Victorian-looking pub with a fake wall of library books that leads to the toilet. Every night my audience is standing room only, save one or two, and there are always little surprises at the end of each show. Tips are collected at the completion of the night and I’m often shocked to find 20-pound notes, producers cards and buckets always teeming with loads of pence. It’s like church—I encourage viewers to give generously, as it’s for the needy. I can take my heavy collection to the bar after the show and turn them in for paper. Their money here is weird—all different shapes and sizes. A few Scottish banks print their own money and so,  although the pound is used all over the U.K., only certain printings are accepted in, for example, London and Edinburgh. When I mention the strange variety of sizes of their notes, they say, “No, American money is the strangest of all. The dollars are all the same size. How are the blind supposed to shop?” I explain that in America, the blind generally just don’t go wandering around alone into stores, they have dogs to help them figure things out.

Some of my friends are put up in very fancy venues, producers paying the 5,000-pound fees required to secure those venues, others are in cafés just off the Royal Mile, while still others are located in basements or small function rooms on the outskirts of town. It’s hard to know what your venue will be like when you’re making arrangements from America—even pictures will let you down, so in some instances, it’s like a blind date when you show up. You cross your fingers and just hope the place isn’t a dump.

Desiree Burch was lucky enough to score the City Cafe, a place that fits about 100 or so people and fills up on a nightly basis. As it is located just mere footsteps from High Street, a literal river of foot traffic makes its way by on a minute-to-minute basis. Ben Lerman has a place way off the beaten path in the basement of a colonic and massage parlor that fits about 40, yet he manages to pack them in (no pun intended) magically every night. It’s also surprising that the place holds a charm you might not expect, with its quaint selection of beer, nice food, a trendy performance space, and a friendly and handsome staff. Mike Amato is stuck in a venue called the Edinburgh Football Club, which sounds like it might be a raucous good time, but it’s actually an old and somewhat dilapidated hole in the wall, a hike off the beaten path, and Mike finds it difficult to get people in. Carolyn Castiglia is involved in the “other” free fringe fest, the one run by the crazy guy. She does two shows a night—one is her own, one is a variety show. She seems to be getting good audiences and having fun according to her blog, but I rarely see her, as she is staying on the other side of town, and that’s how the festival goes sometimes—everyone is off doing their own thing, meeting new people, and though you make plans to hang out, there are just too many distractions.

After shows, we all call each other on our U.K. cell phones and meet up for drinks—my favorites are Loft Bar at Gilded Balloon and Assembly Room on George Street—both exclusive bars that you have to have special dumb cards to get into. I was lucky enough to get a card, so admission isn’t generally an issue, except that I always show up with a posse and the door people are like, “Really, Delfino? Eight people?” And I’m like, “Come on, dude, it’s my birthday/Friday/I’m American/we’re pretty/don’t be a dick.” One of these usually works and we are in, drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking. The Loft Bar is open till 5am, and I’ve seen the sun rise on my walk home on more than one occasion.

This year is interesting in that there are so many New York performers present. Stacy Meyer’s Funeralogues is at the Fringe; Michael Iannantuono, of the Pizzas fame, plays guitar in her show. Tanya O’Debra and Vicki Ferentinos are here for the first time. Spanish NYC comedian Margo Gomez is here. Todd Womack, whom I had the pleasure of performing with on Good Morning America a few years back, now lives in the U.K. and is performing two shows this year, one a travel show and the other a comedy show. Lewis Schaffer, whom I used to run into when he was hosting at the Comic Strip on the Upper East Side, is another transplant living in London now and performing his show, Bigger and Blacker, here. Andrew J. Lederer is another transplant, having moved to London from NYC a few years ago, and is doing at least two shows here. Eric Kirchberger is here, not doing his own show but popping in to do sets on other people’s variety shows for a week. Young Dawkins, a poet just south of the perimeter of the beatniks generation, has moved from New Hampshire to Edinburgh from New Hampshire recently, and finds the city to be a super happenin’ and fun place. NYC producer Paul Lucas is floating around, spending time with Die Roten Punkt, an Australian outfit that pretends to be a German brother-and-sister band. The aforementioned Kurt & Kristen and Jamie Kilstein are doing shows at the prestigious Assembly Rooms. Janeane Garofalo was also at Latitude Festival, where I started my journey, and she now has lines wrapped around the block every night for her show at Gilded Balloon. I saw her on the street and chatted with her for five minutes, and even in the U.K., people know her well; interrupting our conversation every 20 seconds to ask me to take a photo of them together or get her autograph. She graciously tends to each fan, though she looks and admits that she is how I also feel—completely exhausted, or should I say “knackered and cream crackered” as the Brits do? Of all the exciting American and NYC acts, however, it is another “New” state whose performers are tearing up the comedy gossip waves—New Mexico’s Pajama Men, who are making such a big splash in Edinburgh, it’s rumored that they will win the big Edinburgh Comedy Award before the short list has even been released.

Aside from Scotland, I can’t help but run into Americans wherever I go. At Latitude Festival in Norwich, England, comedians Stuckey & Murray, Janeane Garofalo and Jamie Kilstein are kickin’ it. In London I run into Jamie Kilstein, Reggie Watts and others. Jamie and I will run into each other in nearly every city we visit this summer. In Galway, Ireland, I perform with NYC comedian Diane O’Debra, and hang with NYC musician Ann Enzminger, as well as a handful of strangers from Montana and New York whom I recognize by their sweet, sweet (not confusing) American “accent.”

It’s interesting to me that all these people who have gone to New York because they heard that’s where there dreams are waiting for them, have gotten on a plane and flown thousands of miles away from their cozy nests because they heard the new rumor—that their dreams are now spending every summer in Scotland.

Read more about Delfino’s exploits at jessydelfino.blogspot.com.