Day 4: Monday, 3 August 1998

As with the Royal Mile, it is now hard for me to remember what I thought of the first day. I remember little episodes, but it is very hard to tie them down to a particular day.

Juggling in Hall 1

Medowbanks Sports Center is a really huge venue (third largest in Britain, if you believe the hype) and we had the run of the entire place. There was one main gym (Hall 1), two smaller gyms (Halls 2 and 3), an outdoor stadium/arena, a soccer pitch with "ultra turf", a gymnastics room (complete with bars, mats, etc.), the Internet room, squash courts, a cafeteria, a snack bar, showers, lockers, and probably a bunch of stuff that I've forgotten. There was a whole indoor area under the stands for the arena where the vendors sold props and other things throughout the convention.

Smoking, ventilation, cafeteria.

That first night we went to dinner at the Masala Pot, a dine-in and take-away Indian place just one block away from the sports center--very convenient. It was a tiny restaurant, geared mostly for take-away with only six or so tables packed pretty closely. It also looked like there were only three people working there: one guy in the front to take orders and two in the back preparing the food.

We got there early--about 6:00 or so--because we wanted to catch the Welcoming Ceilidh. Well, it turns out early was good because a lot of people had the same idea. There were three tables there before us, but one was leaving. It left us just enough room to fit our group between the two remaining tables. I think there may have been one table left, but I'm not sure. All of the people there were from the convention.

We ordered fairly swiftly--there's not too much variation in the names of Indian dishes, surprisingly enough.

I also ordered a sweet lassie (they were out of mangos), which, after seeing the menu, I thought would be similarly easy to predict. Well, I was wrong. So were two other people at the table.

The lassie was sour, like plain yogurt but more so. But it was also sweetened, so it had a strange sweet sourness to it. Not the tart sour of a sour gummy bear, though, more of a smooth, rounded, creamy sour. And it had ground almonds in it, which gave it a strange chalky consistency.

I didn't mind it so much. Not a beverage that I would have regularly (if ever again). But not one that was so unpalatable that I couldn't drink it. Seth didn't like his at all and returned it.

Anyway, we got the lassies and some spiced pappadoms pretty quickly. And then we waited. And waited. And then a group of about four came in to order some take-away. And we waited. And they got their take-away. And we waited. And then a huge horde of around twelve came in for take-away. And we waited.

And finally, more than forty minutes after we ordered, we got our food. It was good and we were hungry, so we didn't grumble too loudly.

I can't recall all of the things that we ordered, but it was a good, very yummy variety. I do remember that I ordered something that I had never heard of that ended up being one of the favorites. Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was. Something yellow and creamy. Maybe with chicken. And the nan at this place was the biggest I'd ever seen. When the guy told us he'd bring out three, we were all kind of skeptical. But when these huge, floppy, elephant-ear sized loaves of nan arrived, we figured he knew what he was doing.

One of the oddest things about the meal was the horde of twelve waiting for their take-away. About half waited outside so I couldn't hear them. But the other half sat directly behind me on a row of chairs. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them.

Two were Dutch, I'm pretty sure. And two of the others, a boy and a girl, were definitely American. I call them "boy" and "girl" because that's what they seemed like when I couldn't see them--not young or teenagers, but not adults yet. After getting a look later, I'd that they were about college age. The girl talked a continuous stream of conversation all on her own. She got some support from the boy during lapses and sometimes just as affirmation. She seemed to have a wide-eyed innocence about everything, even though it was clear that she'd been traveling--make that scrounging--around Europe for quite a while.

I think the scrounging part was the oddest to me. I've never been at the point where I'm scrounging to last through the day. And I don't think they were penniless either--just on a very thin budget. After all, here they were at a restaurant. But the way the girl moaned about having to pay £5 for dinner was amazing. She was adamant in saying, "This is just something we can't afford." And on top of that, when we offered what was left of our huge, floppy nan (about half an ear) to them (just so they wouldn't starve while they waited), the girl gushed out her thanks so exuberantly--like we had saved her baby or something--it made me feel very . . . squeamish. I don't like feeling like something I'm just going to throw away is so important to someone. I'm told the same happened with half of Alan's lassie, but I didn't notice.

Anyway, it was a memorable eating experience, that's for sure.

The Welcoming Ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee) was a blast. At first I didn't have much interest in joining in. After all, I'd missed the lesson earlier in the day where they taught all the moves. But it soon became obvious that almost all of the people had missed the lesson. :-) And it looked like a lot of fun. So I asked Qarin if she'd be interested, and off we went.

I don't remember all of the dances that we did. They were all traditional set dances that involved a lot of choreography. The fiddle player would start a new dance by getting everyone to divide up into groups of the right size and then go over each step. She was pretty good, so at least the easy dances went fairly well. There were a few times where the instructions were a bit complicated and things began to fall apart in certain quarters. But it was alway fun--and hot.

The one thing that I couldn't do to save my life was polka. There were a few dances that were very simple except that they had a polka part in the middle. I tried it a few times, but it was a complete disaster. My feet would be on Qarin's or under Qarin's or I'd be bouncing at the wrong time or in the wrong direction and it was horrible. After that, whenever a dance called for a polka, I bowed out.

The ceilidh lasted a long time. It seemed like it was a good two or three hours. I didn't dance the whole time, though, because it got so hot in the gym. (It was in Hall 2, not the largest venue.) And there was a lot of smoke. Somewhere around the mid poin, Qarin and I went for a walk outside around the track.

By the end of the ceilidh, my feet were completely destroyed. I could barely walk on them, let alone dance. So walking home was completely out of the question. We then learned that catching a cab was extrememly easy. And for £4.20 (or thereabouts) for four people, it was a steal.