Highland Games

We got to experience our first Highlander Games this past Sunday. The games consisted of competitions in Scottish dance, pipes and drums, and the fan favorite heavy events including the stone put, the weight throw, and the caber toss. Where else can you see an extremely muscular 300 pound man wearing a kilt tossing a 56 pound weight over a 13 foot high bar using one hand? By the way, we witnessed one contestant break a Scottish record in this event (16'5").

One of the more interesting aspects of the games was the pipes and drums competition. I never knew there were so many organized pipe bands out there. Upon arriving to the park you couldn't help but notice the sound of hundreds of bagpipes filling the air. Now yes the bagpipe is the ugly step-child of musical instruments but it does have its place and at a highland game is certainly one of them. I can honestly say I was never annoyed even after hearing each band play the exact same tune for the judges.

Would you tell this man he

looks silly in a kilt? That

pole weighs 175 pounds.

The highlight of the day for Erin was seeing all the young girls compete in the Scottish dance competition. Mainly because all the girls have matching outfits. My favorite part was definitely the caber toss. It was extremely riveting. In case you're not familiar with the caber toss, here's a brief introduction. Each contestant has three chances to pick-up a large wooden pole (typically 20 feet tall and weighing 175 pounds) and using their forward momentum, toss the pole so that it flips one time. In this weekends caber toss, each contestant failed on their first and second attempts, but on the final try, the man that was victorious in every other event, succeeded in overturning his caber. It was an extremely impressive feat.

Easter, Bank holidays, and Birthdays

Although a couple weeks late in posting I did want to report that April ended quite well here. In the UK there are these wonderful things called Bank Holidays; quite a few of them are late April/May. Mix that with the royal wedding and it meant that we had two four day weekends in a row to end our month. Always fun!

One of those was my birthday/Easter weekend. At the start of the week we had grand plans of exploring the highlands.  We encountered a few problems. Within 5 min of us reserving a car we got a phone call apologizing; every car for hire in Edinburgh was taken. Well… that won’t slow us down, we will simply take a bus and go camping. Oh wait, despite us thinking to bring our tent and sleeping bags, we don’t actually have a camping back pack (or a backpack pack, as my friend Sarah would say). Although we did our best to attach our tents and sleeping bags to my computer back pack and day bag, we realized without a car to hold our supplies it was going to be… less than ideal. Next thought, we can take multiple day trips to places we have wanted to see. Friday was my bday so we decided to spend that here. Saturday, however, we planned to explore somewhere fun. And we could have… had Scottish weather not kept us in. Since we had been traveling a bit in April, we really wanted to make it to church on Easter Sunday. So we planned one last attempt on exploring the highlands for Monday (which they call Easter Monday here, also a holiday). Buses were booked, trains were booked… Andrew was shaking?!?!  Yes, that’s right… Andrew came down with a 103 degree fever the night before we left. Although we were able to avoid the emergency room, he wasn’t quite ready to go on holiday the next morning.

So perhaps we don’t really know how to make the most of a 4-day holiday. But the weekend had its moments, even though we stayed here. My mom mailed me a box mix for my favorite cupcakes (with icing that we haven’t been able to find for the last six year). Cory was kind enough to cook up an amazing Jaime Oliver Italian dinner… thank you Cory! And, keeping with our tradition, we had a birthday week where I got to open a different present every day. Some from family, some from friends (thank you bday twin and Sonnet), some that we had bought earlier in our stay and regifted (what can I say, the pound /dollar conversion meant we had to be creative with our bday week this year), and some Andrew picked out just for me (see pic). Above all, I received so many message and cards from friends. It made my first birthday an ocean away feel… closer to home than I was expecting. Thank you to everyone!