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!

Floweres for my birthday

I actually laid in the dirt to take this picture.



So, we apologize for being delinquent bloggers. I also apologize for cheating, because this post is not necessarily about Scotland at all, but rather a trip we took with Cory last weekend to Holland. Background story: for about 7 years now I have been fascinated with Holland’s tulips. I saw a photograph of the tulip fields taken from the air with rows of colors blazing brightly and I have wanted to go ever since. As an early bday present this year, Andrew and Cory humored me as I spent two full days in the flowers.



The gardens



Our first day we went to Keurkendof, the most amazing spring time garden I have ever seen. There were flowers EVERYWHERE! There were also people everywhere, all wanting the same pictures. There are some people who decided to just push there way in. The best example was the teenager, who in a very thick accent looked at us (who by the way was trying to get a photo at the time) and in a very aggitated tone explained "excuse me". Apparently we were the two (out of about 100 other tourists) he really didn't want in his picture.



New meaning to the phrase "flower power".



We were there for the flowers parade, which this year had a musical theme.  The parade actually started about 1.5 hours late. It turns out that a float had gotten a flat tire earlier in the parade route. Once they got it fixed, it was only a matter of minutes before there were more problems. At least this time the float broak down in the general area where we were, so we got to watch as they attempted to fix the float. Masssive amounts of people broke through the barriers to get a closer look (or to leave in frustration). In resulted in about the most chaotic parade I have ever been to.  But the floats were certainly worth the chaos.



This is my happy place!


Then I took a day to bike through the farmers’ fields of flowers. This was no doubt my favorite part of the trip. I road a bike for 15 miles and saw nothing but fields of color the entire way. Just amazing. There were flowers everywhere you turned. The best birthday present ever. Thank you boys for tolerating the tulips!




#1 Hospitality

We have always thought of Texas as a hospitable place, and it is. But time after time we have been blown away by how friendly and welcoming everyone has been to us. We cannot leave church without someone introducing themselves and asking where we are from and how we are settling in (even when we are trying to make a dash for the door to move on to lunch). In the first month that we were here, the pastor, counseling pastor, social events coordinator, missions director, and small group overseer had all introduced themselves to us. This is in addition to the dozens of members of the church who welcomed us and made sure we were getting along well. This is incredibly impressive to me considering the 1000 people they have coming through their church each day.

We have found this friendliness everywhere, even while riding the bus. It is an unwritten rule that every passenger tells the bus driver thank you or cheers before stepping off. 

The welcoming is even true with random people we have run into noticing we were “tourists”. The gentleman we talked to while walking through an old cemetery in St. Andrews and a gentleman as we were taking pictures of a beautiful bridge in inverness just to name a few. They each told us where to go and what to see along with sharing about their lives in Scotland. 

We chose this as our number one because it alone has made this adventure worth it. 

#2 There's no such thing as bad weather, just people who are poorly dressed

We were told, and now understand, that Scotland only has one weather forecast: Sunny spells with scattered showers. If it's sunny in the morning and you dress accordingly, you will be miserable later in the day soaking wet and freezing. The changes aren't even the worse part, but the speed at which it changes. Just walking to your bus stop or playing in the park can see a gorgeous day become cold and wet. We've since learned that before leaving the flat each morning one should always have the following three items: umbrella, jacket, and sunglasses. You will need all three everyday. We've also learned that you can't let rain get in the way of a good time. If your philosophy is to wait for it to stop raining before you go do something, you'll never go do it. You might as well go jogging in the rain or it will be 3 weeks before you can. The greatest line we've heard about Scottish weather is from a tour guide we were with the other day. He asked how long we planned to be in Scotland and told him till August. His response was. "you'll love the summer here, the rain is warmer then."  

#3 Well behaved dogs

After living here for over two months, we've noticed that the dogs in Edinburgh are the best behaved dogs in the world. Apart from walking down a crowded sidewalk, almost all dogs here are not on leashes. Normally this would result in mass hysteria with dogs running all over the place and destroying everything.  Here, dogs always stay close to their owner and I have yet to see two dogs get in to a fight. The greatest example of dog behavior here has to be at the grocery store. It never fails that each time we go grocery shopping, there is always a dog sitting perfectly still right outside the store just waiting for their owner to return. They are never tied up outside the store, just sitting there even in freezing cold temperatures and rain. We've also seen a homeless man who has a dog and while the man sits on the sidewalk, his dog is sitting in front of him holding his hat in it's mouth to collect coins. We have all sorts of new tricks to teach bear when we get home.

#4 Locks here are tricky

When Andrew and I first read our lease, we were nervous. There was a clause that if you forgot to lock the doors and the place was robbed, you were liable for all missing property of the landlord. Now, as most of you probably know, I am notorious about forgetting to lock up. In fact, we didn’t even start locking our house in Georgetown until my sister had her car broken into.  This was a problem waiting to happen. So we were somewhat relieved to find out that you can’t forget to lock the doors. That actually, every time the door closes, it locks itself. Good news: we won’t responsible for any of the property in our flat. Bad news: if you ever leave your keys on the other side of the automatically locking door, well, you are locked out. I always check and double check to make sure that I have my keys with me. But Saturday night, as Andrew was back in the states for work, I ran out the door without thinking. As the door was about to close,  I tried to get my foot in to prop it open. But it was too late. I looked in my purse and pockets hoping for my keys, but to no avail. I was locked out, and Andrew wouldn’t return until Monday morning, 36 hours later.  Now, it turns out that a lot of people have had this happen to them. So everyone had suggestions. One friend explained to me how to break in using a plastic coke bottle. Great idea, but didn’t work for me. Another friend explained I should just catch a train and get the keys from my flat mate. Brilliant, except my flat mate was an ocean away. I kept thinking why don’t people just call a locksmith when this happens. I quickly found out; the locksmiths here know that if it happens on a weekend, they are your only option for getting back in. So their weekend prices are outrageous. It would have cost 150 USD for me to get back inside. That wasn’t going to happen.   In the end I was very fortunate to have a friend offer me a place to stay until Andrew returned. Slumber party here I come! Fortunately Andrew took his keys with him, and had them in his pocket when he arrived on Monday morning. We are getting a copy of those keys made!