Location: Perth, Scotland

Savanna: Today I woke up after a glorious sleep to catch my train to Perth. I grabbed a coffee at the train station (which the Spanish barista gave me as a present) and was almost the first one to board. I absolutely had to have a forward facing window seat so I could see all the beautiful Scottish country-side we were about to pass through. AND LET ME TELL YOU. I was not at all disappointed. I literally smiled the whole way! The quaint little stone villages and hundreds of sheep and lambs we passed were well worth being 30 minutes early for the train.

Arriving in Perth was wonderful because I hopped in a cab and the first thing the driver says to me is “Scone Palace for the sword stuff?” And out-loud I say “yes please,” but in my head I’m thinking “am I actually giving off that vibe? Like I’m some kind of bad-ass Knight?” The idiot grin on my face for that cab ride certainly confirmed my lack of bad-assery, but I was too excited to care.

My friend Land met me at the entrance to give me a supports bracelet for the weekend. Immediately upon walking in I saw dozens of people all dressed in period correct clothing milling about big white canvas tents, heard the sound of clashing swords coming from the lists (the wooden arenas) and smelled woodsmoke from the campfires set up everywhere- all with a huge stone castle looming in the background.

Me again. With the dumb grin.

We walked over to Land and Sky’s tent where they explained the grounds a little bit and caught me up to speed on what to expect today. Keep in mind this tent is also period correct… white canvas, wooden buttons, two little peaks held up with wood dowels and HAY BALES FOR BEDS. I am not joking at all that’s really what everyone’s sleeping on.

So yeah I rented an air-b&b down the road.

I went and helped some of the team suit up (10 vs 10 opening rounds were beginning soon) then rushed back to Land’s tent and changed into a white linen dress and black wool skirt, which I will apparently be wearing for the next 4 days.

I don’t think it really hit me where I was until I jogged over in my new garments to see teams from South Africa, Australia, China, and Switzerland, to name a few. There are 30 odd countries represented here and again, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

Our team fought hard today, but lost out in 10 vs 10’s eventually to Poland. Wade represented Canada in pole-arms and kicked butt against a huge South-African guy, but lost out to France by a small margin.

After 8 hours of fighting we ended the day by grabbing some pasta and ice cream, and going over the fight videos to see what we could improve on next time in that category.

I’ve only been travelling for 2 days and it’s felt like 4. So much has happened already and time is passing quickly but I feel lucky that every minute has been so wonderful so far.

S (&M)

#YXYGirlsgohereandthere