Still out of order

So I promise, I’ll get to my trip soon, but I do need to talk about yesterday. It was a really busy day with a lot of really exciting firsts in it. Read on.

In the morning I went to this tantric yoga class upstairs in the Forest. I’d never taken a yoga class before (except when I attended one Betsy was taking when I was little), and for a first one this was quite intense. It lasted for 2.5 hours, and I was having great difficulty with a lot of the positions we were holding. There were about 11 people there. The instructor was this small Indian guy; he was really good. I stuck it out to the end, then collapsed downstairs in the Cafe.

After a little while just sitting on a sofa staring into space, I got up and went to get fabric for my Beltane costume. First I had to walk up to the Princes St. Mall to get cash out of the Barclay’s ATM (Bank of America doesn’t charge when we get money from Barclays). Then I went to Edinburgh Fabrics and got 2 meters of this light green fabric. I’m going to make trousers out of them, and presuming it’s warm enough, not wear anything but body paint over them.

At 5:10 I met up with my friend Sara from FolkSoc, who was going to lend me her flatmate’s bike for to ride in Critical Mass, which she helps organize. On the way to her flat, we tried having one of us sit in the seat of her bike while the other pedaled in front of them. Possible, but really difficult. We got the bike, and headed down to the Mound for the start of the ride. There were about 30-40 people, I’d say, all but a few under 30. We rode all over the city centre. We were going slower than I’d like, and we were really pissing off the drivers behind us. I was trying to get people to go faster, under the assumption that getting people angry with us doesn’t help anything, but a lot of people who do Critical Mass are interested in getting back at cars for the injustice that bikes have to deal with most of the time. It’s an understandable sentiment, but I think not a helpful for acceptable one for Critical Mass. But it’s not my city; not my bike ride, and I won’t be here for the next one, so I guess they can do what they want. Although, talking to Sara and her friend later, they agreed with me that such retaliatory actions weren’t a good thing.

I had dinner with Sara and her friend in Sara’s flat, and then walked back home. I was going to go to a Beltane-related party, but I was too exhausted.

Today I have lots of Beltane stuff. I’m hoping to make my costume at this green point meeting, and before that there’s a meeting where we pick up our passes to get on the hill. I’m still really sore. I gots to go now, though, so I’ll write you all more later. Hope things are looking peachy for you all.