Our Scottish friends had arranged a full day for us in the area of Edinburgh.

The four meetings we had today were all of a different character and blended nicely together to make this another eventful and adventurous day on the World Harmony Run. We really like these kinds of days!

Our day began on a serene and peaceful note, as we were received in a beautiful little chapel, called Old St. Paul’s, in the centre of town. Minister Ian had taken time off from work to greet us this Monday morning.

Our good friend and runner Alan Spence, who is a well-known and respected author in Scotland, had written a beautiful poem for a painting inside the chapel, which he recited for us there. Then the minister lighted the candles inside the chapel with our torch and rang the chapel’s bells in the pattern of the angel announcing Christ’s birth.

The atmosphere in that little church was so peaceful and still, we would have loved to stay longer. But both Ian and ourselves had other duties waiting for us. We exchanged best wishes and continued our journey.

Our next stop was on Edinburgh’s famous Royal Mile Road, the road connecting the Edinburgh castle with the Holyrood Palace.

The road has seen many centuries of history and we were happy to run along it. We visited the Royal Mile primary school and gave a presentation for the children.

We admired an interesting painting on the school wall.

At the school we were greeted by Robin Harper, who is the leader of the Green Party in Scotland and the first member of that party ever to have been elected into the English parliament.

Now he has a seat inside the Scottish parliament, which was erected in 1999. We were so delighted to pass him our torch. He is an avid runner himself, having completed several marathons, and he enthusiastically ran with us several times in front of the newly erected parliament buildings.

He was so thrilled about the idea of our run and was all smiles while running with us. At the end of the run he was literally jumping with joy!

Then he gave us a tour of the new parliament. The building was completed only two years ago and built in the style of the Scottish landscape with elements of the sea and sky woven into the architecture.

The debating chamber was the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen, with gorgeous woodwork.

Robin Harper is the kindest of men and we were so grateful to him for his participation in the World Harmony Run.

After that we went back up the Royal Mile Road towards the castle and took some action photographs. Just outside the palace we met a very nice gentleman clad in chainmail who was willing to hold our torch. His name was something like William Wallace. We took his picture. It’s not every day that we get to meet a real Scottish warrior, you see.

We continued running for about 15K towards the Dean Park primary school, where we had our fourth and last meeting of the day. Outside the school we met up with Scott Balfour, who is Scotland’s national triathlon champion in his age-group of 55-60 years. Scott is the father of Kirsty Balfour, the European swimming champion who grabbing two gold and one silver medal in the recent European Championships in Budapest. Later on Scott ran with us for about 3.5 miles and we had a very nice chat while running together. It’s so inspiring when people like Scott come out to run with us and we can exchange our inspiration and joy. He also joined us for the school program in the school.

We had a great time with the kids and took them ‘around the world’ on their schoolyard. The head teacher, Colin Russel, was very kind to us and we were happy to be of service to his school in our humble way.

We were finished around three ‘o clock and spent the remainder of the afternoon shopping in the “Run and Become” running store, which is owned and run by members of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Edinburgh. We would like to thank them deeply for some new running gear they provided for the team.

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Distance: 35km

Team Members:
Uranta Kane (Scotland), Adarsha Kelly (Scotland), Alan Spence (Scotland), Shyamala Stott (Scotland), Arpita Stott (Scotland), Karteek Clarke (Scotland), Andrea (Austria), Erika Pongracz (Hungary), Abhinabha Tangerman (Holland), Miroslav Pospisek (Czech Republic), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Annemijn Schuringa (Holland), Robert Senovsky (Czech Republic), Bakul Keaney (Ireland), Mark Schrader (Germany).

Harmonemail:
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