Men in Uniforms

After weeks of doing nothing else than watching TV, every public occasion seems exciting. So when we learned that there was a 'Highlander' parade on Union Street, Sarah, Deburah and me got up early (!) and made our way downtown. The first thing Deb and Sarah, who was officially on a diet, did, was to get highly unhealthy food in a nearby shop to keep their mouths buys until the parade arrived.



It turned out, however, that the parade was not, as I had naively imagined, a traditional kilt and bag pipe march with highland cows, but a military parade of the Scottish army. We got nice patriotic flags to wave when the soldiers were marching onto the square at the end of Union street where a Church service was read and patriotic pathos made it hard to breathe.



As a devout pacifist and army-hater I felt I was going sick and turned away from the soldiers Deb and Sarah admired (Alena is worse, however, she adores men in uniforms!). Soon, to my great comfort, I found the guys I was siding with; a small, very courageous group of anti-war demonstrators. Much nicer guys than the soldiers!



I was the only one to think so, though. The most desperate thing I saw was a girl who absolutely wanted to get a soldier-boyfriend and went to speak with everyone she could to ask him whether he has a girlfriend. However, she was not too successful – Scotland's men in arms found her almost as superficial as I did. I almost went to tell her how sorry I was for her…