Last days in Scotland

On Thursday early in the morning I took the bus in to Edinburgh. Julie gave me a ride to the bus station and the bus driver gave me a free ride to Edinburgh seemingly since it was easier than trying to get me a ticket that early in the morning. It was interesting to see the city waking up. By the end of the day it was so bustling full of people that at times I hardly got anywhere. The festival is still on and I mostly spent the day walking up and down the Royal Mile between the castle and the palace, going in to shops, (there are tartan shops galore, very touristy) watching buskers, I happened upon a play and saw it. It was alright. Hard to follow but the 2 actors did a pretty good job playing 15 characters. It was sad that there were only 8 people in the audience but then with so many plays a day and so many venues for a whole month, can there ever be many people in any given audience? I had rejuvenating lunch at a hip little restau. I had a yummy spinach salad with goat's cheese and blood pudding. The bp wasn't so bad.
On Friday Julie had a day off and John, Julie and I headed to the east coast where the sun was shining. We spent the day in St Andrews. It was lovely. St Andrews is a quaint wee town nicely set up for tourists. We had a delicious lunch at the Doll's House and we walked around the streets, saw a Scottish wedding spilling out in to a University courtyard, viewed the remnants of the old cathedral and saw the castle and admired the craziness of the kids going for a swim in the ocean since it can't have been all that warm. We went for a short walk along the beach before it was time to head home again.

Sunday I went to church with the Thomsons to both services. Julie usually goes in the morning with Andrew to the children's service. This Sunday the whole family went. The church is pretty packed full and there are tons of kids. The whole front row was full of them and it's pretty noisy, definitely full of life. Apparently a lot of the kids recognized me from school. In the evening I went with John to the quiet service where John plays with the little band. Angela, the teacher at the school, also plays and takes on the leadership role of the band. As we were running through the songs for the service I agreed to teach the sign language to the congregation for the Holy, holy (my heart adores you) I think that's the Argentinian one. The congregation participated very nicely and they mostly all did it when it came time for it in the service. A woman came to speak to me afterward because she's a signer and figured I must be too. British sign language is different though so we had a wee discussion about that. (Everything is 'wee' in Scotland.)

And herewith ends my wonderful stay with the Thomsons and the beautiful visit to Scotland. Monday early morning I flew out to Berlin in to yet another different adventure.