As part of 'Homecoming Scotland' we attended an event this weekend called 'The Gathering'. During 2009, Scotland is celebrating what they're calling 'Homecoming Scotland'; a series of events to celebrate the Scottish culture. One of these such events was 'The Gathering'. This weekend all the Scottish 'clans' gathered in Edinburgh to celebrate their ancestry. Some of the festivities included Highland Games, Highland dancing, Pipe bands, lots of Scottish food and just general Scottish stuff (i.e.- lots of kilts, swords, capes, etc). The event was held in the field behind Holyrood Palace.
The Gathering
The official Patron of the Gathering was His Royal Highness, Prince Charles. Kyle & I were pretty excited to see some official royalty up close and personal.
Prince Charles
One of the events that I mentioned they had is called Highland dancing. Highland dancing was derived from the Scottish Highlands and is done to accompanying bagpipes. The dancing itself looks similar to a very athletic ballet. It's quite impressive really.
Highland dancers
Another event was the Highland Games. Highland Games are a series of events celebrating the Scottish culture. The most exciting events are called the 'Heavy events' or the 'Strong man events'. One such event we saw were the men trying to lift up heavy stones and placing them on top of a whiskey barrel. They had to see who could get all five stones on the barrels and who could do it the fastest. The competitors came from all over the world including America and Australia.
A few of the 'strong men'
Here is a video we took of one of the events and a Pipe band in the background. The announcer was actually quite amusing.
In the midst of the games, they also had a tug of war competition going on. I never realized their was a technique to tug of war, but apparently there is. We got to see the world champions in tug of war (I can't believe there is a world champion- who is judging this kind of thing?).
Tug of war
Aside from the really cool stuff that we got to see, we also saw some pretty funny stuff. One of my favorites was the line for the Tea Pavilion. Normally you have a long line for the beer garden (which did also have a long line) but only in the UK do you also have a long line for the tea pavilion- where you can actually go inside and be seated for tea and biscuits! I love it! My second favorite sighting was the babies in kilts. Really, you cannot get much cuter than a baby in a kilt.
The Tea Pavilion line
Baby in a kilt
Another baby in a kilt
Last but not least, they had a stage set up for Pipe bands to perform. Kyle & I were fortunate enough to get to see a very lively, entertaining band called the 'Red Hot Chili Pipers'. We had seen their CDs for sale around town, so it was funny to get to actually see them perform live. Here's a video of them:
Quite the Scottish weekend!
-Stacie
1 comment:
How fun!! Although I'm not sure I figured out what the strong man event was that you filmed....2 guys fighting over a log?? ;)
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