Bagpipes vs. Fiddle

I read through some of my post and realized that they are pretty boring. It reads like a personal calendar. So I hope if I post more often, with smaller posts, it will be more interesting to read.

Yesterday was St. Andrews day which not one person at work knew the purpose behind. All I know is that the castle was open for free. So we organized some guys from the House who wanted to go up to the castle. Of course not all of staff can go on these little trips, since there are things to maintain at the hostel, but since I'm a tourist/volunteer it seems that I always get priority! So myself and another project worker took about 5 guys to the castle. The perks of this job!

Also the night before we had a lot of staff on and somebody suggested taking the guys to a movie. Well the other 4 members of staff had support meetings, interviews, or paperwork to do, so they asked if I would be "willing" to take the guys to the cinema. As you can imagine I decided although it sounded hard and difficult I would have no problem going and watching a movie for free while working.

What I like most about these outings is that it is a great chance to talk with the residents. In the House the environment is always a little restricted. There seems to be a barrier, or an unspoken tension, that always exists between us and the clients. But outside the House we are put on more of a level playing field. Instead of being a "assistant project worker" I am just another guy going to watch a movie with other guys. It's nice.

I got off work early and met up with Nick and Lauren downtown. On the Royal Mile they pulled out a stage for some bands. Dougie MacClean played with his band and a branch of the tattoo marched up and down the mile. Dougie MacClean plays a mixture between folk and rock. I would say he is a guy who made traditional folk music cool and was in his prime back in the 70's-80's. I really knew I was in Scotland when he pulled out a fiddle and his lead guitarist pulled out the bagpipes. With a full band jamming behind them they had a bagpipe-fiddle-sound-off. Kind of like dueling banjo's! Good times!