This morning, eager to be out of the city and back in my beloved Highlands, I took the earliest bus possible to Inverness. It’s a four-hour trip, but the changing scenery rolls past like a movie, getting progressively more gorgeous with each northward mile. We passed several small castles, and even the ruin of one sitting out on a hill in the middle of a field–no tourist signs, just the lovely stone walls hanging out among the trees and sheep.
Tonight, after having a bit of a wander by the water (a wee wander), I went to the Highland Music Gala–a huge concert with six or seven music groups made of kids from around the Highlands. The show opened with a drum corps, each drummer wearing a kilt outfit (is it still a kilt if a girl is wearing it?)–and then the lights went out and the kids pulled these crazy blue, glowing drumsticks out of their socks and all you could see was a long line of flashing blue sticks. Fantastic. And when the lights came back on, a line of bagpipers was marching onto the stage to join the drummers.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
The whole section of traditional music was exactly like something you’d see in a movie, tartan outfits and all. But, unlike men playing the bagpipes on the corner for tourists in Edinburgh, it felt like an authentic display of culture–really, a high school concert in little Inverness couldn’t be more removed from the tourist trail. Later in the show, there was a ceilidh group with reelpipes (kind of like bagpipes without the mouthpiece) and a heartbreakingly amazing singer.
Now, if you’ve ever been to a concert like this, you know the audience–parents, grandparents, a few siblings, maybe some aunts and uncles. Not random foreigners with no connections to the kids who are performing. I was a stranger among the Scottish families, and yet, I felt right at home. The man to my right told me all about his son the reelpipe player. When he got up to at intermission, the woman to his right leaned over to ask how I was enjoying the concert and to ask me if I’ve ever played music. Between groups, the women to my left started a conversation about nothing in particular–and I found out that the correct pronunciation of “ceilidh” is “kay-lay,” or “kay-lee” depending on your accent. This endearing tendency of Scots to chat with everyone in their immediate vicinity is one of my favorite things about the country. Bus stops, grocery store lines, in stores, on the street–there’s always someone to talk to.
In Scotland, it seems, you’re never a stranger.
