Singing in the Rain

Edinburgh, rainy Edinborough.

As they say around here when you pull out the ponchos, Wimbledon must have started.

Indeed it has, but not before we escaped up to Scotland for the first time (debate amongst yourselves: should Scotland count as the 21st country that we have visited together, given that it is part of the U.K. for which we already have credit?)

We caught up with a great group of high school seniors from the hometown, led by groomsman and great friend Ben. Their team was running an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in order to establish relationships with local teenagers. While there were torrential downpours, amazingly whenever they were throwing a frisbee the rain stopped instantly.

We watched, relaxed, and shopped in the historic city centre... and stayed in the finest youth hostel in town.

The most shocking moment of the trip was seeing a girl who I used to babysit... when she was 5 years old! Now she's a senior in high school. If it weren't for the unique red hair, I'm not sure I would have believed her claim to be the same girl who once declared me her favourite babysitter despite stiff competition.

Today I discovered that I have access to a TV viewer on my pc at the office... I snuck a peek at the marathon of a match that Mr. Henman eventually put away.

Two posts in ONE month

What a deal!

Our weekend was quite a diverse set of activities!

1. The Artois Championships
http://www.artoischampionships.com

We saw Andy Roddick in his semifinal match, and then watched the top 3 doubles teams in the world. (And another team that was not in the top 3 obviously). After having such good seats to this, it will be harder to be motivated to go get a grounds pass at Wimbledon which starts next week.

2. Pearl Jam Concert at Wembley Arena
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Jam

It was loud, but I mostly have full hearing back. Strong political statements against Blair for going with Bush into the Iraq war - the statement was something to the effect of friends don't let politicians go to war drunk.

I found myself fascinated by the people trying to have a few seconds of crowdsurfing before being hauled away by the body guards. The people who did this in the first 15 minutes of the concert don't seem very bright - why give up your front row standing room only spot before you've even watched 3 songs? (Would you use the word watched or heard here?)

3. Church picnic in the park

Played a pick-up football (soccer) match that ended up with at least 20 players... amazing how people come running when there's a chance to kick a ball around.

Where were you in 1991?

Well, the most recent excursion took us to the smaller, lesser known countries of Lithuania and Latvia. Make sure your mental geography book is updated - they have only been re-recognized as sovereign states since 1991... before that they were victim to Soviet takeover, "freed by the Nazi's" and "freed" by the Soviets.

We spent a lot of our time in museums, including a KGB museum. Learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and digested our experiences on the beaches of Latvia afterwards...