New Year Celebrations in Edinburgh

We left the US on 28 December and slowly made our way back to Southerness. We had a couple to days to recover, prepare, and say our farewells to friends and family in Southerness before heading up to Edinburgh to see 2007 in. Similar to the Arts Festival in August, Edinburgh is abuzz with events at this time of year. The main event being the street party: the center of the city is closed off with about 5 stages for various bands to play and a fireworks display from the castle. 120,000 people were expected. But gale force winds caused it to be called off. Seeing we made a special effort to be there for it and Craig's relative Kyles had kindly got passes for us, we would usually have been quite disappointed. But fate had it that instead we had a great time at a traditional Ceilidh (Scottish Country Dance Party). Zoe was a natural. Noone would have known that she had never danced a Scottish dance before. We even sung and danced to the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne. We had been given tickets from Craig's relatives, Janelen and Derek (since Derek was sick), so their friends taught us the steps and encouraged us to try almost every dance. A lot of fun and sweating was done. Sore muscles the next day too.

After a couple of days to recover from the festivites, we had a feast at Janelen and Derek's house with their sons Malcolm and David. It was our last night in Scotland, and a good end to this chapter of the trip.