Grot's through and through

I married a Greek woman (although her dad is of Irish decent you'd never know it). I did so by choice and fully aware of the consequences (My Big Fat Greek Wedding actually came out a month or so before we started dating so it was like a blue print of my life to be). I come from a family that is. ... well. ... kind of with out culture. We've been in this country so long that we don't really have those "ties" to the home land. We have, however, taken a strong shining to our Scottish ties and we proudly wear the badge when ever asked; with out donning the kilts or shouldering the pipes of course. As Gina and I progressed in our dating we butted heads a few times about how our children would be raised (many, many years before we had even really thought of actually having them), not wanting to label them and pigeonhole them in to one "ethnicity" when they have such great backgrounds on both sides to embrace - which basically means neither of us wanted to cave in. We coined the term "grots" as part of our agreement on how to raise them. Equal parts Greek as they were Scots. As I rolled this idea around in my head the last few years I even noticed that it was almost destined to be, just look at the flags of both peoples. Blue and white. Even take the cross in the upper left hand side of the Greek flag and rotate it a mere 45% and you've got a beautiful combination of the two. Like it was meant to be. So, after spending Friday night and Saturday day at the Greek Folk Dancing Festival we spent today (Sunday) at the Queen Mary Scottish Festival. Well, I did, with my parents, as Gina actually has to work at the FDF and couldn't come with us. So we traded "Opa's" and bouzoki's for haggis and bagpipes, both of which the girls seem to openly enjoy. Yesterdays dancing was fully entertaining and the bagpipes (50 plus in unison at times) seemed to enchant them like a snake charmers flute. A thing of beauty, really. As for me? I'm just exhausted and can't get the high nasal drone of the zampogna/bagpipe out of my head. One more time; Brave Scotland, away!!!!