Guess who I saw today? And no, I won't be directly talking about religion. This post was originally verbose, but sometime between writing it and typing this I've become moody and the phrase "who cares" and "why would anyone want to read about my musings about secret service" popped into my mind. So instead, here's some pictures and a bit of text.
Today is St. Ninian's Day (Scotland's first saint). A parade was planned, and the pope had a scheduled appearance.
The atmosphere was very similar to the queen's silver jubilee a few years ago. There were people selling souvenirs, police everywhere, and mini flags being handed out. Except this time the souvenirs didn't have the queen on them and the flag being waved was the Scottish flag.
The St. Ninian's Parade was very Scottish. Tons of bagpipes, a primary school child dressed up as what I'm assuming was supposed to be the pope (wish I had taken a picture of that), drums, kilts, kids from local catholic schools yelling "Hurrah for Scotland!", and people dressed up as famous Scotsmen. Even I, a visitor, felt patriotic.
45 minutes later I could see bright police motorcycles in the distance. Behind the motorcycles were two trucks, one of which had a large, menacing camera on top recording the crowd. I could see, just a few feet behind the truck, security men with large earpieces, jogging and looking tensely alert. Suddenly the pope's vehicle came into view from behind the truck. Torn between just looking and looking through the eye of the camera I managed to take a picture.
And now I have my privately sponsored flag as a souvenir
I've had the Pope John Paul II drive by when I was young and working in Sydney city .. in about 1994 .. it was exciting and there was a feel of love in the air and I'm not Catholic ...
ReplyDeleteI'm not Catholic either. I'm also not British, but I really enjoyed seeing the queen for the the silver jubilee. I just think it's pretty exciting seeing cultural icons, and being part of a positive and happy crowd.
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