The Worlds

Highland dancing competition. A ballet-like dance involving stiff arm poses and strenuous jumping to the beat of a bagpipe.
Drum major competition. Consists of walking up and down a field, to bagpipes and drums, while twirling, throwing and catching a baton. Check out the wee boy at the far end of the line. Perhaps 6 years old? Everyone cheered him on, as it took him quite some time and quite a number of steps to finish the routine.
Highland games competition. A good many events described below. Check out David, the American competitor chillin in the red kilt, adidas jumper and sunglasses. He's my boy!
Misha the Russian competitor. He broke the world record before our very eyes for "throwing the 56 pound weight for height". 19 feet up and over. But only after removing his shirt. Naturally.
David "tossing the caber". The object is to throw this huge log end over end and get it to land perfectly upright before falling over and hopefully not crushing anyone (which it almost did to an unmoved crowd more than once).
Jen, Narcisse and Mel.
The Pakistani bagpipers, blowing the competition away with their uniform's style. There was also a stylin band from Oman.
The grand finale march. So many bands that the audience gave up clapping quite early on. Near the end, one underappreciated but jovial band member looked at us and said, "Come on then, cheer."

Having been woken up Friday morning to the sound of drums and bagpipes somewhere in the near distance from Narcisse's flat, I was reminded of the posters around town announcing the World Pipe Band Championships being held the following day in Glasgow. I mentioned this to Narcisse, who said she would never think to attend, but after finding an online video of last year's competition, we couldn't resist. The following morning, we made our way to Glasgow Green on bus and had a bit of trouble finding the entrance until we spotted a kilted man on our side of the fence. After a comment (by yours truly) that we were, for perhaps the only time in our lives, "chasing skirts", we found our way in. We went immediately to the highland dancers competition, along the way passing the "beer garden", which only truly began to live up to its name later in the day when empty cans started to sprout from the well beer-watered soil. The dancers, with their stoic faces, stiff arms, and very muscular legs were entertaining to watch. We sat down by some bags indicated that Houston, Texas was being represented. And we met Jen, a woman from the DC area on vacation getting to know the land of half her forefathers. We discovered that we both had mutual aquaintences from our respective alma maters. Small world. For the rest of the day, the three of us stuck together, which definitely rocked.

Next we made our way to the Highland games arena, the stuff you catch on ESPN 2. We watched "throwing the 56lb weight for height". The official description in the progam says, "The athlete picks up the weight with one hand, swings it between his legs and heaves it up and over the bar, hoping it misses him on the way down!" When David from the US was up, the announcer asked, "Are there any Americans here?" to which I replied with a manic, gritty "Woo! Go US!" Everyone watching the competition either gasped in horror at this display of extroversion or giggled. It was great. And it got a pumped fist, and later a hammed up gun-and-wink acknowledgment from David, who seemed like a laid-back, fun-loving guy. After watching for some time, we really felt like we knew all the competitors like our own brothers. It was a great moment when Misha took off his shirt (because he was wired for Russian television and felt restricted) and lobbed the weight over the world record-setting bar. And then he grabbed his accordian and played "Amazing Grace". Which it was.

We also watched a bit of the top class competition for pipe bands. Each band was being graded by 5 or 6 judges for various aspects. I most enjoyed the coordinated way the drummers twirled their sticks, attached at the wrist with elastic, in various patterns. With Jen's encouragement, we also had fun commenting on different kilt tartans and trying to guess their names (listed in the program as a way of identifying the bands).

So yeah, you can tell we were all perhaps too excited about the whole thing, but it was pretty sweet to be surrounded by 8,000 band members and 7,000 spectators. Everywhere you looked, some of the 230 bands present could be seen practicing, marching about, and generally making a delicious ruckus. After getting home in the evening, both Narcisse and I could still hear pipe music in our heads, most notably of all "Scotland the Brave".