It was 8:30, and no one was up yet. I thought this was sort of weird, considering that Grandma is definitely an early riser, but then I realized that maybe our plan for today was sleeping in and I just wasn't informed. So I crawled back under the covers with a movie on my iPod, thinking that it was nice to be able to sleep in.
An hour later, I heard Grandma proclaim something along the lines of, "9:30!? It can't be!" Pa lept out of bed, threw some clothes on, and ran down to the complimentary breakfast, which ended in ten minutes. I figured that a cup of yogurt and some cereal were not worth the effort it would have taken to get ready and get down there. So I got online to check my email, deciding that if I did a blog entry at 9:30 in the morning every other word would be misspelled and none of it would make any sense. I wondered how I ever got by in school.
We didn't end up leaving for the Gathering until 12:30, which was perfectly fine because we had seen most of what was there the day before. The first thing we did was go to the Heritage Tent so Grandma could get her DNA tested. This supposedly would tell you who your ancestors were. Pa had done it yesterday, and now he thought it would be nice if Grandma and I did it. Grandma and I had agreed back at the hotel that it would just be a waste of time for me to have it done; since I didn't have a Scottish last name they wouldn't be able to look me up in their database. We decided it might be interesting for Grandma to do it, though, because her father was adopted by a Scottish family and took their last name, Hume, but he really came from a different Scottish clan. However, when we got to the tent, the guy there told us that her brother, Uncle Dick, was the one who needed to be tested because it was only the X chromosome that could tell him anything. Well, we tried. And we saved 119 pounds in testing fees.
After that, we wandered around a little while until it was time for Pa to run in his race. He was participating in the Nairn's Oatcakes Hill Race, which was a race where you had to run up a giant hill (it was more like a small mountain), go around, run back down, and do it all over again. Best of all, Pa was wearing a pair of shorts that had the Fraser tartan sewn onto it! Grandma had made it especially for him, and it was pretty awesome. Out of all the runners, he was the only one who had shorts with his clan tartan.
It looked like it was going to rain by the time the race started, and our feet were killing us, so after Pa started, Grandma and I found a picnic bench, put our hoods up, and waited for Pa to come back to start his second lap. We figured we had at least half and hour before they completed one lap, since that hill was so grueling. But after the time was up, and we headed back to the starting line, we discovered that Pa had already finished! We felt so bad that we couldn't be there when he ran across the finish line, even though Pa said it was okay. He said he did pretty well, though, and he had made a new friend from the Fraser clan who was running also.
We ate lunch, watched the stone putting finals, and saw a pipe band play, and by then we decided we'd had enough. As we were heading out, Pa had his sights on a hill next to the one he had run up. I was up for climbing it with him, so Grandma basically had no choice but to agree. When we got to the top, it was phenomenal! We could see over all of Edinburgh from up there! There were miles and miles of old houses and churches, and the sounds of bagpipes drifted towards us from the Gathering.
I could have stayed up there forever..
We went out to dinner afterward, and then we went back to the hotel to pack. It was a good end to our time in Edinburgh, but I was a little sad, because as we walked down the street, I wondered if I would ever see Edinburgh again. But hey, anything's possible, right?
Love,
Kiera
An hour later, I heard Grandma proclaim something along the lines of, "9:30!? It can't be!" Pa lept out of bed, threw some clothes on, and ran down to the complimentary breakfast, which ended in ten minutes. I figured that a cup of yogurt and some cereal were not worth the effort it would have taken to get ready and get down there. So I got online to check my email, deciding that if I did a blog entry at 9:30 in the morning every other word would be misspelled and none of it would make any sense. I wondered how I ever got by in school.
We didn't end up leaving for the Gathering until 12:30, which was perfectly fine because we had seen most of what was there the day before. The first thing we did was go to the Heritage Tent so Grandma could get her DNA tested. This supposedly would tell you who your ancestors were. Pa had done it yesterday, and now he thought it would be nice if Grandma and I did it. Grandma and I had agreed back at the hotel that it would just be a waste of time for me to have it done; since I didn't have a Scottish last name they wouldn't be able to look me up in their database. We decided it might be interesting for Grandma to do it, though, because her father was adopted by a Scottish family and took their last name, Hume, but he really came from a different Scottish clan. However, when we got to the tent, the guy there told us that her brother, Uncle Dick, was the one who needed to be tested because it was only the X chromosome that could tell him anything. Well, we tried. And we saved 119 pounds in testing fees.
After that, we wandered around a little while until it was time for Pa to run in his race. He was participating in the Nairn's Oatcakes Hill Race, which was a race where you had to run up a giant hill (it was more like a small mountain), go around, run back down, and do it all over again. Best of all, Pa was wearing a pair of shorts that had the Fraser tartan sewn onto it! Grandma had made it especially for him, and it was pretty awesome. Out of all the runners, he was the only one who had shorts with his clan tartan.
It looked like it was going to rain by the time the race started, and our feet were killing us, so after Pa started, Grandma and I found a picnic bench, put our hoods up, and waited for Pa to come back to start his second lap. We figured we had at least half and hour before they completed one lap, since that hill was so grueling. But after the time was up, and we headed back to the starting line, we discovered that Pa had already finished! We felt so bad that we couldn't be there when he ran across the finish line, even though Pa said it was okay. He said he did pretty well, though, and he had made a new friend from the Fraser clan who was running also.
We ate lunch, watched the stone putting finals, and saw a pipe band play, and by then we decided we'd had enough. As we were heading out, Pa had his sights on a hill next to the one he had run up. I was up for climbing it with him, so Grandma basically had no choice but to agree. When we got to the top, it was phenomenal! We could see over all of Edinburgh from up there! There were miles and miles of old houses and churches, and the sounds of bagpipes drifted towards us from the Gathering.
I could have stayed up there forever..
We went out to dinner afterward, and then we went back to the hotel to pack. It was a good end to our time in Edinburgh, but I was a little sad, because as we walked down the street, I wondered if I would ever see Edinburgh again. But hey, anything's possible, right?
Love,
Kiera
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