I’m having an amazing time in Scotland. The people here are very friendly, and there are so many things to do!

Only ten minutes from my apartment, there’s a shopping district which has a small street market every weekend. A few of my flatmates and I went there this past weekend and bought some sweets there.

This past weekend, most of my flatmates and I, took a bus tour up to the Highlands, which was a lot of fun. We had to be at the Royal Mile by 7:45 in order to catch our bus. The Royal Mile is the road that starts at Edinburgh Castle and ends at Holyrood Palace, which is the official residency of the queen when she’s in Scotland. It’s only about a twenty minute walk from my flat to get there, which means that I have a view of the castle when walking home from class. It’s still amazing to me to see such amazing historical monuments just going about everyday business. Here’s a picture looking down the Royal Mile from the top, near where the castle is.

Unfortunately, our group was separated between two buses, with everyone on one bus except one of my flatmates and I. It turns out, however, that we got the more entertaining bus driver. He was very funny and had a strong Scottish accent. He kept saying “Fantastic!” in a very enthusiastic manner. It was quite foggy out, which David the bus driver was worried about, but the fog burned off pretty quickly after we were on out way. At our first stop, we got to see some Highland cattle, which are the cutest cows of all time.

We stopped at a few places after that to take pictures of amazing views, especially of the Munros, which are mountains that are over 3,000 feet tall. There are 280 of them in Scotland, and some people make it their life’s goal to climb to the top of all of them.

Here’s a picture of everyone who went, that we had another person on the tour take for us:

That’s Liz, Rachel, Megan, Kayla, and then me.

After that we went to the Three Sisters, which is the place they filmed parts of Skyfall, Braveheart, and the Harry Potter films. This is the ridge Mel Gibson as William Wallace runs along after the Battle of Falkirk in Braveheart:

After that we went to Loch Ness and took a boat cruise. The weather was perfect for it, which was great after how foggy it had been in the morning.

Liz and Kayla actually swam in the Loch, though very briefly, as it was quite cold.

After that, we drove through Inverness. Our bus driver told us that “inver” simply means “mouth of”, so Inverness means “mouth of the river Ness”, which I found interesting. After that, we drove back to Edinburgh.

Classes have been going very well, and I’m finding the material very engaging, though I have a lot of reading to do for each of my modules. The professors here expect their students to call them by their first names, which is a strange transition for me.

Until next time,

Emily

In just a few hours, I’ll be getting on the plane to go to Scotland. The closer I get to leaving, the more nervous I feel, but also the more excited. I think I’d be much more nervous if I wasn’t travelling around Scotland with my parents before I start orientation for the university on the ninth of September in Edinburgh.

Most of my ideas about Scotland come from my godparents, who are from the United Kingdom and are one of the reasons I chose to study in Scotland. One of them is Scottish and the other is English. From my experiences with them, and with other members of their family, the Scottish seem friendly and very proud of their heritage.

I am curious as to what occasions people wear kilts, or if they wear them at all besides formal events. My goal is to go into the country intentionally with as few preconceived notions about the culture as possible, because I’m sure to be proven wrong. I really want to integrate myself and learn about the culture first hand while I am in Scotland. I’m going to try to experience everything that I can while I’m there.

I am expecting the culture to be similar in some ways to my own in America, but also that there will be large differences. Learning about these similarities and differences is one of the reasons I’m so excited about studying abroad.