ceebeegee | On to the next Celtic nation...

I was talking with someone about how St. Patrick's Day is so huge in the North and Northeast and how the Scottish don't seem to have as much of a presence. I think comparatively fewer settled in those areas, but they're quite well represented in the South which was settled by the Scottish and English (which explains the Virginia Tidewater accent, plus the heavy fried diets, as well as the Cross of St. Andrews on the Confederate flag, plus the term Klan (Clan), plus the Klan's usage of the burning cross, an older Scottish means of summoning clans. The South has always had a hard-on for Sir Walter Scott and his romanticism!). In Virginia, Scottish Games are a big thing--Alexandria has them every July and they last a few days. They have the caber toss and the hammer throw, and dancing and a bunch of hot men running around in kilts ;) and a lot of booths where they sell all sorts of Scottish-themed products, like haggis, blood pudding, needlework with Scottish themes and designs, etc. It's a lot of fun.

I've been seeing signs for something called "Tartan Week" advertising a "Scottish Village" in Grand Central Station. I did some research and found this: Tartan Week is April 1-8. They have a parade and everything, and here is the site for the Scottish Village. Sounds like fun! At Tesse's shindig on Saturday I mentioned it to Kelly and she's quite familier with it, so we're going to go do some of these events together. Kelly, like me, is really, really whitebread-looking and nobody gives people like us credit for having an exotic ethnicity in this country! *sniff* Which is one reason I identify so much with my Scottish ancestry--I love my English blood as well, but it's English--it's safe, familiar, the default setting. Scottish is wild, romantic, hot-blooded, poetic, fey.