Oh, goody, it is a parade...

I had an interesting day in Edinburgh on Saturday. The highlight of which was getting caught up in an "Orange Walk" which was not quite as friendly as I had thought it would be.

Coming from Florida I assumed there would be citrus involved . Anyway, after touring the new Scottish Parliament Building (short review: hugely over budget but absolutely fabulous building) all traffic on the Royal Mile was diverted so I had to walk back up the hill. That's when I started to see the worrying signs: huge police vans with riot shields, horses wearing riot gear, many many many police and a crowd of really really white people - a bit like stumbling across a KKK march in the South, I expect. But then there were the women and children divisions...

Weirdly, they were wearing band uniforms like high school bands in the Macy's Christmas Parade, playing drums and piccolos, and carrying signs saying "Defenders of the faith", "No Papacy" etc. Except for the signs, I expected the bands to suddenly stop and do a breakdown; you know like FAMU does when they are in a parade, but no they only just kept on marching - endlessly.

Basically, it was very surreal.

I never found out what the LOL on there insignia meant but a history of Orange Order can be found here.