Orientation

Our first team activity in Scotland arrived at 10:30 last Sunday morning. We were all quite a bit travel weary but happy and excited to finally be in District 1010. We had an orientation scheduled at the Queensferry Hotel overlooking the Forth Bridges. It was a great first glance at all we were scheduled to see and do. Helen Houston a rotarian and tour guide, gave us a wonderful background on much of the Scottish history that we would be in contact with.

We had a nice lunch also in a gorgeous room overlooking the Forth bridges and set out to do our first bit of touring. We headed towards Culross, an old preserved harbour village where we learned about the value of coal there and why all of the building had red tile roofs. The coal ships needed to use something as ballast to increase their stability, and they used these tiles to keep their ships upright. This made for a rather distinct and attractive town with white buildings and red roofs set against the green countryside of Scotland. From what we've been told, most of the buildings on the coastal edges of Scotland will have red roofing, for this very reason.

We had a nice walk through the town and got to see the ruins of the abbey as well as the portions inside that are still being used for service today.

Right before we left Culross, we were allowed to walk through the palace garden which had spectacular views of the harbour and was full of gorgeous flowers and other plants. The sights and smells were quite overwhelming to the senses.

At the end of the day, we had a fantastic dinner party, barbeque style, with many of the members of the Dunfermline club. It was the most extravagent barbeque I've ever attended, with enough food to feed an army. The food, drink, and company was so much fun...it really made us feel at home. Before the night ended we had been visited by Dunfermline's newest mascot, Fergus the bear. I don't know if it was the whisky or bulky costume, but he wasn't the most agile of bears. We all had our picture taken and eventually made our way back with our hosts to cap off a wonderful day in Dunfermline.

~Scott