I recently made a trip to Scotland for the Beltane Fire Festival. I wasn't really sure what I was signing up for when I said "yes," but it ended up being a pretty good time. I should mention again that I didn't really know what I was signing up for. I make mention of that again because of the fact that our hotel was over $500/night. Split amongst multiple people, yes, but holy crap. I will never make the mistake of not getting details again. I am not ashamed of making a scene about prices. I did the math and it turns out that we could have stayed in a hostel for $435 less a night (that's for the group).
At any rate, the festival was a pagan welcoming of spring. Beltane is Celtic for May 1st, which is when the festival ended (with shirtless painted hippies bouncing around). Leading up to that was a 3 hour interpretive dance without talking. The best part is that all of the characters were out of recent movies. The people in black were the Sith from Star Wars, the blue people Avatars, the Spring Queen was Queen Amidiyla (Star Wars), etc. I felt a little bad for the hippies because about 8,999 of the 9,000 people in attendance of the event were really mostly there to see topless hippies. I was the one exception, of course. I was there for the culture (in actuality, I didn't realize there would be toplessness until I saw it).
No tickets for the after party. In actuality, seeing the hippies under the harsh light of nighttime (versus pitch black) let us know that we were amongst some pretty serious World of Warcraft gamers. We were better off elsewhere, I think.
When we weren't taking in the pagan poetry, we were walking around the city seeing the sites. On Saturday I went my separate way for a bit and wandered the stairways and narrow streets. In case I haven't said it before, I should mention that I think Edinburgh is an awesome city. Something I really like about Edinburgh is how there are secret alleys everywhere. The city itself is built on 7 hills. In order to make more space for building, the Scots of old created massive bridges between the hills, thereby leveling the city. That created a system of underground passageways and spaces beneath the city. That was where poor people lived. Apparently only 50% of the underground spaces are mapped. What that means for the above ground world is lots of stairs going between the built up places and the not so built up ones.
In one such stair filled alleyway I found a museum for Scottish writers. I really liked the Robert Luis Stevenson section. He had a lot of great quotes about traveling. I never realized that he himself was deathly ill at all times, yet he still traveled as much as he could. Often, he would incorporate scenes from his travels years after his trips were finished. He apparently had an incredible capacity for remembering minute details and dredging them up years later. I guess it is one of those "you had to be there" type scenarios, but randomly stumbling upon a museum with his journals, personal items, and a plethora of quotes on display was a really cool experience.
Other than that, we did a fair amount of drinking and staying out until all hours. As I mentioned earlier, there is an extensive underground in Edinburgh. The Grass Market area has a lot of pubs that take advantage of the extensive spaces created by the huge bridges. One such place had about 8-10 separate rooms, including a movie theater. There was also some torture equipment on display, which made for fun pictures (none by me, only the stag do chaps).
Haggis!
More fun: I totally met a real life prostitute! I had no idea (a clue for me should have been when, for no reason at all, she told me her last name was "Hooker."). Long story short, all the bars were closing, but the guys I was with didn't want to go back to the $500/night hotel room, so we went to a casino. I don't gamble, so I was chatting it up with some fun people (prostitutes). After two hours of talking I was still clueless, but someone spilled the beans at the very end. It got a little awkward at that point, but it was 6:00am and the casino was closing. Long night followed by a couple hours of sleep and a 6 hour drive home (I had to drive way past my place to drop someone off). I was very tired for the next work week. That's what weekends are for.
Other than that, I have been very busy. I sat down and looked at my calendar yesterday. It turns out I have plans for every weekend from now through Memorial Day. That's in September. May, June, July, and August are all booked. I have never been more busy on a social level in my entire life. It's a good thing, but my homebodiness is worried. So little time for sleep and chores. I could have worse problems, I suppose.
Someday I will finish the floor, then I will have lots of pictures. until then, here is what it is looking like at this point.
I'm not sure why this is upside down...
