Visitors...and a parade

So, I got to see some friends from home today! Liz D. and Liz G. are in Edinburgh, before taking off with some of the other Brown/U.Edinburgh girls who I've met this semester on a trip around Scotland.

We got lunch, and as we were walking down to the library to check email etc, we saw these people.



Hmm, we thought. A marching band. Then we got to the library, and thought it would be a good idea to show our visitors the Meadows, the big, beautiful, don't-walk-in-it-after-dark park next door. Where we saw another marching band.



I mean fifty or so.



It turns out we stumbled on the march commemorating the 300th anniversary of the union between Scotland and England, being sponsored by the pro-union political groups against the Scottish nationalists. There were no Scottish flags we saw (except for the one at the pub in the first picture), but lots of Union Jacks:





Also lots of pro-Protestant sentiment. We were given leaflets by a man who told us it was necessary to prevent the separatists "cos otherwise we'll have to have a Pope."



On the other hand there were also plenty of cute kids.

ok, it's a scotland blog...

Woke up at 5AM on sunday morning to climb up Arthur's Seat, the pint-sized mountain (?) conveniently located in the middle of Edinburgh. The other people in the picture are Bria, Anna, Bob, & Lewis, all from the FolkSoc group I've been going to.

is this a scotland blog or a dance blog?

...unclear.

Anyway, I had a rollicking good time at the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival (IFVDF, pronounce it 'iff-diff') last weekend. I stewarded in exchange for a slightly cheaper ticket and a purple haggis t-shirt, but mainly I wore myself out watching & participating in everything from swing to irish step dance (which brings back 8th grade memories...)

Some pictures:

Remco, Amber, & Bryony at the 'Dem' ceilidh, w/ performances by lots of the visiting groups, some traditional,

and some not so much.

Can I please be this morris troup (Gog Magog Molly) when I grow up?
Sadly I have no pictures of the New Scotland dem (these are the people I dance with) - they did a medley to songs from the Sound of Music, complete with lederhosen, nun costumes, and the following lyrics to 'Do a deer' as they executed their flawless pas-de-basques:

DO a deer, I need a beer
RAY - the man who buys me beer!
ME - the one I buy beer for
FA - a long way to the bar
SO, I think I'll have a beer
LA - la la la la la laaaa
TEA - No thanks, I'll have a beer...

um. yes.

That night was a series of social dances in Teviot (one of our FOUR student unions) with swing upstairs:

and contra (yes!!) downstairs: