ceilidh, castle, and the queen

Ok, another post-quick before i get further behind...

It's been a busy weekend. Thursday night EUMC threw a ceilidh - which is a traditional scottish dance. It was really fun, though 4 hrs long and full of dizziness! Some of the dances were really complicated, but i got the hang of most of 'em. Lots of spinning and whatnot (people always say it reminds them of that part in titanic when they dance below decks... you all know what i'm talking about). Some of the guys wore kilts too. Good times. (sorry forgot the camera!)

Friday night was pretty low key, my friend Mary's flat had a little party so we went up there for a bit. Nothing too exciting.

Saturday Liz, Courtney, and I got up early and went to the castle - I hadn't been yet(much to everyone's astonishment im sure)! It was awesome. It was a beautiful day too, so perfect for strolling around the grounds of an ancient castle. Saw the crown jewels, Mary Queen of Scots bed chamber, and the war prisons where they had these old doors that prisoners had carved their names on - there was even a carving of the american flag (original 13 colony style) from a revolutionary war prisoner! The exhibits were very nice, i think theyve recently redone them.After the castle we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the movie theater to catch a matinee of "The Queen" - very enthralling movie focused on the time right before and mainly just after diana's death. As everyone most likely remembers, there was a lot of controversy dealing with the lack of response from the royals after the accident. People were very hard on the queen, and the movie goes to great lengths to portray what the queen was going through and why she acted the way she did. I enjoyed it very much, especially since it gave such an in depth look at the state of the monarchy and how it is viewed in the eyes of the british people.

Saturday night was a little hard, cause of the wedding. (those of you unaware, my cousin dan got married saturday night to the lovely ellen - first of the cousins to get married, everyone there but me!) It's all good, i know im so lucky to be here and i love edinburgh of course, but it still made me sad that i was missing the wedding = ( Sarah did call me during the vows... but all i could really here was similar to the teacher from charlie brown type voice. oh well, it was the priniciple of the thing, i used my imagination! Made my friends have a toast with me in honor of the newlyweds ; ) I had a really fun night out though and got to talk briefly to everyone at the reception after, so that was nice - thanks everyone and hope the rest of the night was great! Haven't talked to anyone today, looking forward to hearing more stories and seeing the pics!

congrats to dan and ellen boldt!

~R