Coming Attractions

Aug 7, 2015
2 min read

Today was our day to perform on the "preview stage" in the middle of the street festival at the Royal Mile. We also went to a lot of AHSTF shows, which varied in quality, but were all worthy in heart. A bunch also went to a one-woman show simply because she came up to us on the street and asked "are you ready to kick the crap out of racism?" Our group responded with a resounding "YES," and ended up having a transformative experience at a moving and hilarious show. In the evening, we took a post-prandial stroll up to the castle, where we got to see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Throughout the day, I've been asking for kids to send me their blog posts. The days are very, very, busy here, and the kids cannot reasonably trade creative writing time for sleep, so you'e been stuck with mostly my thoughts. I think at this point at least 8 kids are halfway down the path of creating a post. Fingers crossed, you'll get more opportunity to read their words soon.

In the meantime, here are some images courtesy of Rick and Elsabe Dixon (and a few of mine too), to give you a look into what we've been up to most recently.

The Tattoo features military bands from all over the globe. This year, there was a delegation from The Citadel, which made a group of screechy girls from South Carolina who were sitting directly behind us very happy.

The Tattoo takes place in an enormous stadium built around the castle. I've been to 4 of them now, and this year's was absolutely the best I've seen, in part because it didn't rain. Umbrellas are outlawed here. When it rains, everyone just gets wet. Thank goodness the weather was with us!

Here's a great shot of us handing out flyers on the royal mile. It was really something to see the kids find their confidence and join in to the chatic whirl of trying to get punters (the word for tourists looking for something to see) interested in our flyers. We had enormous crowds during our street performnce, and even got to extend by 15minutes because the group scheuled after us never showed up. I was posing as a tourist in the crowd during the performance, and enjoyed eavesdropping on the audience. "This is bloody brilliant" said one English chap behind me. I also overheard a French family say that the costumes were beautiful." Yay!

There were a lot of street photographers vying to take the kids' pictures. Since I've been taking pictures on the Royal Mile of random performers for years, it was great to be able to provide some subjects.

One of the highlights of the Tattoo was the "Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps." Their precision and drumming were jaw-dropping, but then they brought in their flagmen who not only twirled and hurled the flag around...in the end the flags shot sparks. Surrising, Funny, and delightful!

The Indian dancers were joined by these Scottish dancers for a rousing rendition of "Jai Ho," which all the American kids in our section sang along to. It's an international wonderland!