elanya

This will be long, I promise. And the first part is transcribed, but here goes... It is very long, so I'll hide it. But to see it all, click

Scotland the Brave

All right. I've actually decided to get cracking on this thing early. The time is 1:47 pm on May 5th, I'm in an Edinburgh park along Princess street, it's an absolutely gorgeous day, and I'm probably going to worsen the sunburn I got yesterday. I have until 3:30, when my train leaves, to kill time. I can feel my shoulders roasting already. tried to nap, but I am too paranoid that either my stuff will get nicked, or I won't wake up in time for my train. So I shall recount the saga of my almost-week in Scotland instead.

Tuesday, April 30th. Met Ian at the train station in Sheffield, took a train to Darlington. I'm convinced the whole station was staffed by women. Transferred there to get to Edinburgh. Train food, even 'good' train food available on GNER is not great, and is of course overpriced. We wandered from the station in Edinburgh to the flat Ian had rented for the next few days. We were supposed to be meeting Kate as well, but she was in the hospital getting her appendix out instead. We found the flat. t was close to Calton Hill, where the fire festival was, and far-ish from everywhere else. We unloaded out crap, and went seeking food/groceries, which we found, again overpriced, at a small local convenience store/grocer/fruit stand thing. We then returned and dressed ourselves for fire revels. I wore my black velvet skirt (the one from Cultures, yay!), my white linen shirt, and the shell of my doublet which I had managed to complete on the train. I borrowed a cloak that Ian had brought for Mary to use later, which she had made from an old army blanket. I also wore her wreath of fake flowers, and did my hair vaguely funkily. There may be pictures later.

We wandered up to the festival grounds early so we could watch stuff getting set up and so I could get a look around. Calton Hill is right in the middle of the city, but it is a nice park speckled with various monuments, including once called 'the Acropolis' and inspired by/based on the Parthenon. People started gathering, and I was happy to see a few other spectators in costumes as well. The festival proper started at 10:00, when the May Queen with entourage started pouring out of the Acropolis. There were torch bearers, drummers, and her handmaidens, all in very nice costumes and make-up. The torch bearers all had black cowls, and masks on the backs of their heads. The drummers had severe looking black and orange face paint (no, no Darth Mauls :p), and the handmaidens were all in white, including their bodies, with flowers sewn on, and carried white batons. The May Queen was dressed similarly to them (or, more properly they were arrayed similarly to her), with a huge white skirt thing that went over her head. She was also accompanied by the Green man, and several blue painted men wearing copper torques and holding tree boughs, who lead the procession.

The procession, accompanied by constant drumming, toured around several stations. The crowds were huge, soI was only close enough to catch the action at tw. But ah, were they worth it... I got to see the first display, at the may gate, where an Old God had a show of green fire slinging imps and black and orange clad warriors dueling with flaming swords. They breathed fire at the Queen, the gate was immolated, and then she progressed through it towards the air station, which I missed, and then to earth, which I also missed. I did catch the water dancers though, by leaving Earth early, since I wasn't close enough to see. The girls were all blue painted, in an enclosure of strips of blue, green, and silver, etc, fabric. They had been set up for sometime, and I knew where to find them since I'd been taking their pictures in better light earlier. They had very quiet music, provided by a violin, an alto recorded, and a djembe drummer, to which they danced very gracefully. I think that if I were able to be in the festival, I'd want to be water. Anyway, the procession continued, but we didn't try to follow it anymore.

At each station, the performers joined the Queen after they had presented her with something (at water, they brought her a basin in which she dipped her hands). They wound around the Hill until they came to the bonfire, where the Queen and the Green Man were married before it was lit. Ian and I watched this from a ways away, and were also engaging in some people watching. There were various wicker stilt creatures wandering around as well, including some other Green Men, and a red bull/minotaur, and so on. We wandered around for quite a while, and I collected some souvenirs... a couple of strps of fabric from the water enclosure. We also came across another display, after the fire had been lit. Some disruptive red (chaos) imps had been hanging around the edges of the procession all evening, and now they had stripped off their cloaks and other clothes, and were being beated away from the Queen's handmaidens by the blue men with the tree branches. Now, for the record, my understanding of things is that the handmaidens were all supposed to be female, and the red imps men. But, they weren't. Eventually, the imps prevailed, and were able to seduce the maidens. They then paired off for some naughty dancing and cavorting and whatnot, and took in all the performers from the other displays as well. I did see some of the couples breaking away from the general mass, probably for some more intimate celebrations in the bushes. Hey, it was Beltane, after all!

That display was very cool because as they initially advanced, the chaos imps were crawling all over each other, a roiling tide of red-painted limbs crashing up against the assembly of white flower maidens. The performers has all stripped down to the barest of costumes, for some of both sexes this meant only loincloths. It was, as I said, amazing.

It was also about 1:30 by that point, and Ian and I were getting tired, a bit chilled, and sore of foot. We headed back to our rooms and had some ravioli. I had a bath and went to bed, still listening to the pounding of drums on the hill at 3:30....

Wednesday May 1: We wandered Edinburgh pretty much all day. I took pictures in a few graveyards and bought a pair of new shoes (Clarks, expensive but long lasting, because my boot were trying to bend my left foot into inhuman positions). We ate at a pie shop called Piemaker for lunch. Ian indulged himself in a 3 course, all pie, meal. After lunch, more graveyards, including many hours at Greyfriars, and then home for a dinner of nachos. Oh, wait, I lie. We weren't hungry quite yet, so we decided to try and find something else to do that evening. Edinburgh is like most English cities, though, and everything closes at 5:00. We found and walked to a movie theatre, but nothing was playing by the time we got there around 10:30. Arg. Even Sheffield has later movie showings... Bleh. Then we went home in disgust and had nachos. We did pass some whorehouses though. Go mixed sauna, heh heh...

Thursday, May 2: Went to the Royal Art Gallery of Scotland. It was nice, and they had an exhibition on Rosslyn, a cool chapel with some interesting history, including Templar and Masonic links, as well as cool related art and architecture. It was even more interesting for Ian and I for incredibly geeky reasons. Apparently, it was the home of a historical figure from the PBEM/LARP game in Sheffield, a very old Malkavian who came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror in 1066. Hee. We both play Malks, so it was especially amusing. We made some interesting in game plans too...

We indulged in as much geeking as we could before we met Mary at the train station at 5:30. And when I say 5:30, I mean 6:00. Blech, stupid late train. We took her back to the flat, and then went out to dinner with the intention on going on a ghost walk afterwards. Dinner was meh, and the ghost walk a no-go for lack of participants. So we tracked down a blockbuster, and they bought a bunch of movies including the Mummy Returns, which we then watched. We also cleaned and packed up most of our stuff that evening, since check out was at ten the next morning.

Friday, May 3: We managed to get out on time, even, and taxied to the train station with all out stuff in the hopes of dumping it there until we left for St. Andrews. Unfortunately, the train station is on crack, and instead of having lockers to keep luggage in, they have a service which costs four pounds per item, won't take garbage bags of things, and goes though your stuff. We said no thanks to that, taxied to the museum, and left our stuff in the museum's free coat check instead.

Oh, I almost forgot something important!. The gnomes. On Thursday, some of the other hotels in the huge Edwardian town house complex we were staying in got gnomed. Well, imped. We stole the imps, go us!. Although one was accidentally decapitated during the rescue attempt, it is believed that he has gone to join his impish brothers from down the street (crushed to death by vandals) back wherever they came from. Arrr!
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That was the end of the stuff written in Edinburgh, but I shall continue. We spent pretty much all day at the museum, and had pie for lunch again, which Ian and I had also done on Thursday. Then around 5, we caught a train to Leuchars station, then taxied to St.Andrews, getting dropped off at a student housing place where some of M&I's flat mates from last year were living. We ditched our stuff there, and walked further in to town, stopping by a Tesco to gather groceries. We then had a little picnic in the cold wind by the ocean. Yay ocean! And then a taxi to a safeway to meet up with more of M&I's friends, who were preparing stuff for the SCA feast and fair the next day. Ian got roped in to making spanikopita (sp?) for them, and I chatted with some of the various personalities around. I found crash space on someone's floor. Someone being Jessica, the much harried cook for the feast. Poor girl, I understood her pain. I slept on the floor, it was actually quite comfortable.

Saturday, May 4: I got woken up around 9:30, and dressed quickly for the fair while Jessica went to pick some stuff up for the feast. Stuff meant hoards of bread and raw meat, so I got to perch in the back of Dave (Jessica's man)'s car and they took me to Allena's place to drop off bread. I left my stuff there thinking it would be convenient to get back to, and Dave drove me to the castle ruins where the fair was taking place.

The castle was cool. I took pictures. They also had a mine and a counter mine that were dug in the mid 14th centure when the castle was attacked. You could climb all around in it and everything! I had to play in it, even thought I was wearing my Gypsy skirt of doom (with an off white blouse and the underboob corset-y thing that Longpig gave me for Christmas, yay!). I investigated the rest of the castle, poked around the stalls, watched some fighting, people watched, and whatnot for several hours. M&I showed up around 1:30 or so, right in the middle of the falconry display, which was quite quite cool. The Kestral was adorable :D After that, I watched more fighting, bought some cheap little bracelets, and a present for mom. Hee hee, no, not telling what. Hope she likes it, though :D

The feast started winding down around 5, som M&I and I (heh) went to get ice cream, and try to figure out our plan of action for that evening, since my convenient idea of leaving the stuff I needed for the feast had not turned out to be convenient at all. We got things sorted, and then walked out to Kate's dorm to visit her, since she was out of the hospital and planning on going to the feast. We hung out with her until it was time to go, and then taxied to the church where it was taking place. I grabbed my stuff, which had been brought for me by (Ewan) Todd, who kind of reminds me of a cross between Balthcat and Rob Brander. Which sounds unflattering to anyone who knows the latter, but Todd was nice and it was more of a visual resemblance than anything else ;D. The feast was excellent. I must have the recipe for rose pudding. There was also a dish that was basically a whole chicken in a pasty. Mmm.. very yum. And grilled asparagus! And tonnes of other tasty stuff too, miao! I helped with the clean up, and in return got to crash on Jessica's floor again. Well, I'm sure she would have let me regardless, but I would have felt bad. They don't have the rule here where the cooks don't do clean up. Poor cooks! :o Anyway, went back, to Jessica's, and actually wound up sleeping on the couch, because someone else was on the floor. Slept well regardless ;)

Sunday, May 5: got up around 9:30, I think, and took a taxi from Jessica's to Leuchars to catch a train back to Edinburgh. Mary and Ian had decided to stay an extra day to do some sight seeing of their old haunts, but I wanted to get some work done, and didn't want to pay anything extra for changing my ticket. Once in Edinburgh, I went to a park to kill time, see beginning of this entry. Got back home around 7:30, took a shower, and came online, and IC'ed for many many hours. yay! The end.