The Best and Wildest Things: Scotland

Running on no sleep (which is what I did the night before we left America, hence the terrible tiredness in my eyes you can see in the first picture), was not a smart decision. I slept for most of the flight over to Edinburgh, after making friends with Caroline, who was travelling with her husband David to visit family in Scotland. When they found out we had no place to stay that night, they helped us look around Edinburgh, but to no avail. We decided to look around Inverkeithing later that day where the Highland games would be.

The girls wanted to take a bus tour of the city, but considering that I would probably fall asleep and miss everything, I chose to stay at a park and lounge. Which was really fun, and I had the opportunity to get my butt kicked in some soccer scrimmage for a bit. When I thought the girls’ bus had come back, I went and yelled up at Emily, who didn’t even look down! I tried yelling a little louder, and louder…when I realized that the person was, in fact, not Emily. Oops.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/Edinburgh?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/Edinburgh02?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/Edinburgh03?feat=directlink

We then rode to Inverkeithing, and tried to find a place to sleep (story of our lives). After a while we finally found a nice little hotel that actually had enough room for all four of us! Everywhere else was full because of the games. After we dumped our stuff we headed over to real, Scottish HIGHLAND GAMES!! Wahoo! We came just in time to see some of the cabur tossing and heavy weight throwing, festive dancing and bagpipe bands. What a treat!

We even took a picture with a legitimate Scotsman, and tried curry fries, which are delicious.

We left as everything started winding down, but they announced that the pipe bands’ competition would be a half hour later so I went back to see it, and I’m sure glad I did! Some of the bands are actually high school bands-can you imagine a school here dressing up in kilts and playing bagpipes for halftime?! They each took a turn playing on the field “Scotland the Brave,” which you can listen to here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF5pEsJQlxI

After the bands each marched off the field they proceeded to play and march all through the streets of Inverkeithing, stopping at some carnival grounds for their last songs. Before that day I had never really thought of bagpipes as the most appealing sound, but since then I have fallen in love with them. I posted a video of another song down there that’s also verrry good! That band is called the “Beauly Firth and Glens Pipeband,” which was founded by the drummer in the middle. I asked his daughter, Kirstie Nicholson, to autograph my journal. She is the girl on the left.

From Inverkeithing

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/Inverkeithing02?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/Inverkeithing?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/hoopes.72/HighlandGames?feat=directlink

The next morning we left for Edinburgh to attend church.On the train ride there, we made two new friends, James and his older brother Alexander.

Hearing prayers and talks given in Scottish accents was AWESOME! Thanks to some mistaken directions from a well-intentioned sister in the church, we ended up taking an extremely long detour back to the train station. So with backpacks and skirts we walked about 6 miles that morning. We were alright with it though, because we got to see the city a little more than we would have otherwise.