Ceramics

My lovely wife has taken a summer class in ceramics. She excelled at it, by my estimation. I think you may agree if you see these pieces.

Day 2 - Liam and Mary's Wedding - June 8

Today was the day of the wedding! We got ready (even though Jason didn’t have a man comb for dad to borrow) and headed over to the Airth Castle at about noon. When we arrived, we met even more family members than we had the night before, and all headed in to the ceremony. Liam was piped in to the Star Wars “Death March” and then the rest of the bridal party was piped in as well. The ceremony went without a hitch…until some of the flowers caught on fire because of the candle inside the ring. Happily, one of the people in the first floor saw it right away and jumped out of his seat to save the day. It caused a commotion, so the minister stopped and Mary looked over to see what was happening. Once it was all taken care of, she turned to the photographer and said, “Well, did you get a picture of that?”

After the ceremony, it was time for wine, pictures, and caricature drawing on the front lawn of the castle. Then we moved into the reception room for dinner. After piping in the front table, which was not the bridal party, but parents, friends, etc…, they piped in Mary and Liam. Once seated, Mary gave the first speech and then most of the front table followed suit and we toasted them several times.

Once the speeches were done, the haggis was piped in and then addressed by the Master of Ceremonies (AKA the wee Monopoly man) using a poem by Richard/Robert Burns. We couldn’t understand a word of it, but it was still an interesting ritual…which was followed by my first glimpse of haggis with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). As they were serving us, Megan and I were asking the others at or table if they were going to eat their haggis, and every single one of them said that it is delicious, or lovely, or brilliant and that we needed to try it. We thought that they might be putting us on so that they could see our faces when we found it completely disgusting, but we decided to try it anyway. Megan and I were both shocked to find that not only was it not gross, but it was really good! We each ended up clearing our plates (well, I didn’t eat the neeps). Jason came back from smoking and went through the same ritual to find that he likes haggis as well. The rest of dinner was spent laughing and chatting…somehow it is easier to do that here than it is most places…maybe because I’ve met several of the people before and enjoyed them, so the new ones hold no threat and each is as fun and nice as the last.

After dinner we had a little down time while they switched the room around to accommodate the band and a dance floor. Once that was finished, they piped in Mary and Liam again and they did their first dance. After that, we did the Slosh, and even Aunt Nettie got up to do that one. Later in the night, I was dragged out to do the Gay Gordon with Alan (Zoe’s husband). Once the band was finished, most people left. Some, however, moved into the bar area to make a singing circle. Since it was full, Jason, Megan, Alana, Lewis, and I made a separate circle and chatted while the others sang. The funniest part was when Jason and Lewis both confessed to liking the game “Guess Who” when they were kids, so they decided to play the game using people in the room. We were laughing hysterically at them, and the singing circle couldn’t figure out what was so darn funny. We didn’t get to bed until about 3 am (and it still wasn’t completely dark outside). All in all, the wedding was lovely, and we all had a great time…and not only did I get to go to a wedding in a castle, but I got to spend the night in it as well!

Day 1 - Travel and Arrival in Scotland

I cannot believe that I have finally made it to SCOTLAND!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED! I was thinking on the way from London that this is the trip I have wanted to make ever since I can remember. It was never a question of if I would come…but when. Even long before DoDDS made travelling financially possible, I knew that I would someday make it here. My grandpa was from Glasgow and he used to tell me story after story about Scotland, sing Scottish songs, and make up wild tales about two Scottish horses (Clarissa and Fiona). He would visit his homeland every so often and come back with pictures and even more stories.

As if that wasn’t enough to spark an interest, there were the visits of Grandpa’s siblings and their kids and later the kids’ kids. As I was growing up, the visits were always eagerly anticipated and even when the visitors were new or unknown by me, it never took more than a second to feel like we had known each other forever. Since I have been looking forward to this trip forever, the past few weeks of anticipation have been at the approximate level of a four or five year old anticipating Christmas morning and the many presents left by Santa.

So it was with barely contained excitement that I embarked on this adventure. I left school on Friday, June 6th and sped a quickly as my gigantic van would take me to the airport. Only flight was delayed in my travels from Tokyo to Chicago to London to Edinburgh and I had two seats together on all the flights expect the last one (and it was only an hour long. The funniest thing about travelling was that as soon as I hit London, I kept hearing Maggie’s voice everywhere I went. And of course I knew that Maggie was not in London, but in Edinburgh, so that was impossible. I had to retrain my brain that Maggie is not the only person in the world with a Scottish accent. I thought it was only me, but my dad and Megan said they had the same problem at first.

The London airport was gigantic and I was starving when I arrived. Since I missed my connection I had time for breakfast…soldier eggs and toast..,a fitting first mean in the UK since Grandma and Grandpa used to make them for me all the time. In the airport, I saw some fun signs, one of which said, “Loo seat is wonky.” Another said, “Mind your head when standing.” There were others that made me laugh too, but unfortunately I can’t remember them. We have fun comparing British phrases with our American ones with the cousins too. For some reason they think, “JiffyLube” is really funny, but we laugh when they call soda pop “fizzy juice”.

After saying hello to Maggie and Colin, I needed to get to explore. Hearing the music and crowds, Dad and I headed over the Corstorphine Fair (held every two years and right out the back gate of Maggie’s house). There were thousands of people wandering around the park and listening to music. We meandered through the fair and then I took a walk through the neighborhood to take some pictures.

At about 5:00 pm, we headed to Airth Castle for the rehearsal dinner that was not a rehearsal dinner. ;) Basically it was all of the people in the wedding, out of town guests, and random other friends, but no wedding rehearsal was held. We saw all of the family and chatted and ate. It was great fun and we were there until about 11:30 pm…which felt like about 8:00 pm since it was light outside until about 10:30 pm! We then headed home to crash…at least I did since I hadn’t slept since the flight from Tokyo to Chicago however many hours ago that was… All in all, it was an awesome first day! :)

I also posted some pics at flickr.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennellinjapan/collections/72157605497908361/