A New Experience

In one of the many travel brochures we have collected, we noticed that their was an announcement that mentioned something about Highland Games in Falkirk, which is relatively close by to Glasgow. Not knowing anything about Highland Games or what even happens at one, I thought it would be a kick to go and see if we could find these games. It seems as though there are Highland Games of some sort all over Scotland, some on a very large scale, some much smaller. We had no idea what to expect at these games so it was worth at least trying to see if we could find them.
 
Our first frustration of  the day was not being able to find anything that showed where North Green Park was in the town in Airth. In fact, where the hell is Airth (EER-TH) anyway? Well, it we did seem to find where the small nothing town was ( I guess the consider it Falkirk or a part of Falkirk) but nothing helped us find the park. We decided we had nothing better to do so we hopped in the van and headed out towards Stirling because both Falkirk and Airth are very close to Stirling. We were driving not really knowing where the heck we were going and Michael's GPS was no help since it seemed to be running low on its battery. We continued following signs toward Stirling, making contingency plans to spend time in Stirling if we were unable to find Airth. Of course, to top off everything, we hit a place on the motorway where they were doing major construction and sat in traffic for a good 20-30 minutes.
 
We somehow, surprisingly enough, found Airth and since it is so small, we were able to find signs that led us to the Airth games. As we drove to the car park, we saw that we really weren't driving to what we know as a park... it was actually a huge field. The games were held on this huge grassy area, nothing like what we would consider a park to be. As we entered through the entrance gate, we were bombarded with what lied before us.  I couldn't stop laughing at what I saw! There was so much going on all at the same time it was a little overwhelming at first. You had bike racers riding their bikes around the outer circumfrence of the field, runners were running on the same track, in the middle of the field there was a corner where there where young ladies competing in highland dancing, at another part of the field these huge men were throwing heavy weights around and then there was the tug-of-war teams pulling the rope back and forth. It was absolutely crazy but quite interesting.  I wouldn't say this was a huge event; it was more like the local community highland games... with games and rides for the kiddies as well. Oh and yes, of course, plenty of food booths were there. Since we hadn't had lunch, we figured we would pick up something at the games. I was a little hesitant as most of the food that was there was high in grease or drenched in sauce. I was happy to find a sign at one of the food booths that said they had "chicken wraps".. PERFECT! I felt this might be the more healthier alternative available at the time. Well, let me just say that the Scottish chicken wrap definitely ISN'T close to what I would consider an American wrap to be. I watched the lady prepare my wrap and almost cringed at what she was doing to my poor wrap! At first things looked okay. I saw lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes being placed in the tortilla... all good! Uh oh, then came the fried battered chicken pieces followed by some sort of salsa sauce, cheese, and the BIG UH OH... MAYONAISE!! Mayo seems to be a well-used condiment around here. I guess I have learned you have to be careful for what you ask for.  I should have settled for the chicken burger!
 
We stayed for quite awhile at the games. Met a  cute poodle named Casper, talked to Casper's owner, huddled under one of the tarps where this man who was trying to sell various types of clothing was getting very upset with all of us for coming into his area to try and get out of the sudden pouring rain! The rain blew over rather rapidly and we continued to watch the various sports and dances. We even caught this guy doing a brief show with his eagle which was pretty fascinating. Glad we stayed at long as we did because I felt we were able to see so much of all the various things that were going on (even caugh bagpipe competitions and a band of bagpipers!). We plan, later on, to head up to Inverness to catch some other Highland Games that we anticipate will be a much larger venue! That should be interesting to see and to compare with Airth's little event!
 
We headed back to the homestead and relaxed a bit and had some dinner. Then around 8:00PM we went over to Daniel and Patricia's house. These folks are friends of some friends of our who graciously invited us over for drinks and tea. What an absolutely delightful couple. We talked quite about about politics, Scottish culture, sites we haven't yet seen and got to know eachother. They are very nice people with such hospitality. Daniel is quite a character.. he is quite a history buff! Daniel and Patricia are both Jewish and advised us to go to one of Scotland's oldest synagogues, Garnet Hill. Patricia's mother, in fact, is the Vice President of the synagogue and she said she would try and arrange a tour if we so desired. Maybe not a tour, but depending on time, we may join Daniel, and his 1o month old son, Jacque, for services before we leave Scotland. We'll see!