funny part of town

Robbie took us to a part of Edinburgh for dinner that is pretty happening, particularly with the young people and tourists.. called Grassmarket, it used to be the place where hay could be purchased to feed livestock. Funny experiences: a guy with a glass of red wine and a cigarette came up to Robbie and asked him "how much he could press?" Robbie said he didn't know how many kilos... and then the guy said well, he'd bet that he could do more press ups that Robbie. WHAT'S A FELLOW TO SAY? Then we saw a Edinburgh ritual played out... a hen party.. which involves the bride and her friends trooping around town on teetering high heels and scant costumes. The bride wears a big letter L on her back pinned to her skirt or blouse back, which indicates that she is a "learner" as any Scot knows because a learning driver has to post an L in his car while practice driving. We saw three brides in one evening. She invariably looked bedraggled and not humored. Most pubs posted signs that said "No Stag or Hen Parties"... so I don't know where the hen party was always headed... except they were on parade. We saw a burly bunch of rugby players from Mediterranean country looking tanned, healthy and virile, especially compared to the local Scots, who hadn't seen a lot of sunshine for, oh, atleast six months. We saw a number of very pink/fuschia glowing sunburns on the sun-thirsty Scots who for four days had bared their epidermis to soak up the rays. I saw one older woman who was sitting quietly on a park bench with her eyes closed, face raised to the sun looking for all the world that she had died and gone to heaven. Maybe she had? Oh, we had a lovely encounter with a man in Glasgow. We met him on the street as we stopped him to ask about a good pub in the area and we fell into conversation about Scotland and America. He had lived in Ann Arbor for some years and had returned to Glasgow, his home and now was married and had little kids. He seemed almost whistful about America. He had really enjoyed his time in Michigan and wondered what we thought of Scotland. We ended our convo on this note: that times they are a-changin', but that, as Obama points out in his speech to the Muslim world, all people want the same things: peace, a good life, happiness. All those people on Grassmarket St. were looking for those things on that evening in May.