I am In Scotland, Dalkeith more specifically, which is about 30 minute bus ride away from Edinburgh. It has been a good time so far, we’ve done quite a bit, so bare with me for another wordy blog. I’ll try and add some pwetty pictures along the way.
Let’s see, Edinburgh Gorgeous place. Like most cities I have visited abroad, lots and lots of old, but breathtaking buildings. I have thought in my head, man a lot of these places are the same, lots of old buildings everywhere, its hard to take so many pictures of what looks like the same thing, but nah, no one building is alike. The only thing they have in common is the old and beautiful part.
Royal Mile is a long strip (probably a mile?) in Edinburg that leads to the Edinburg Castle. Lots of food, shops, and just stuff. We walked that, took some pics, grabbed a bite, people watched and headed down to Arthurs Seat. We could see Arth’s Seat from the Castle, and before I knew we’d actually be climbing it I was like wow, that’s a big hill/mountain/bump/volcano (officially an old volcano that’s inactive) Leading to find out we’d be hiking up that son of a seat.
Getting up that seat was quite the experience that I am happy to have had, it took a lot out of me physically and mentally. Very long hike which obviously was physically tiring, but also being up there and seeing everything, being at the top and just soaking it in that I’m there was pretty great, almost got a little emotional almost which I feel like dumb about. It’s just kind of exhausting to think of all that I’ve been through the past couple months/year, how hard I’ve worked, the ups and the downs, and now I am sitting at the top of a late volcano hill in the middle of Scotland? If anything it just made me feel very grateful and proud of myself. The other thing that was very difficult, was the WIND. OHH my, ok no joke the wind was predicted to be at like 50mph, and we were at a very high level in the sky, which we had no wind blocker. At points when it got really bad sometimes we had to bend down, or plant our feet and just stop for a few until the huge burst passes because it literally would blow us around. Our hair was crazzayy! They had like severe wind warnings and such, so we did not pick a good day to go.
Here is a picture or two of Arthurs Seat.
The next day we had class, so we all just met in a group and talked and stuff for a bit. Pretty low key. I shall give you the scoop on our palace. It is HUGE, pretty much the size of a hotel, LOTS of doors and hallways and confusing places. The doors are like double doors, and then there are 2 doors to each entry way, so you have to go through a door to get to a door that goes into a room, I don’t know, it’s weird. Also the bathrooms, well ugh. There is 3 different bathrooms with a few toilets each, and barely half of them work, and none are on my floor, and they like always are out of order, and are so hard to flush. Its very frustrating. Also, my first shower was horrible, I could have been more productive in the faucet with how little the water pressure was, lame. But my second shower wasn’t as bad, but still weaker than I’d prefer. We also get groceries, individually and as a group, Pete our professor bought some for us with our budget and I’ve gotten like fruit and cereal and milk on my own, plus some chocolate of course So that way we can at least eat at home a few times, I try to only eat out once a day minimum, but sometimes when we go to like Glasgow like we just got back from we can’t really get groceries at places like that so kind of got eat out a lot.
Dalkeith Palace (the name of the place we’re staying) it’s actually a strictly Wisconsin home, for students from Wisconsin; we have our own sign and everything. The people who run it our two wives, their puppy and bird, and of course the house pet, Charlie the Peacock. The ladies are very very nice.
Here is a picture of our Palace:
We’ve been out for a few drinks here and there, but nothing major, there’s a few places around here that are pretty cheap, like a place called blacksmith which has cheapish food and drinks, probably the cheapest in town so we’ve been going there a bit. I am rooming with 3 other girls, Rachel, Taylor and Brittany, all nice girls of course! (Thankfully)
Next there’s Glasgow; it’s about an hour and a half train ride from Dalkeith. We left there on Tuesday morning pretty early, and had the whole day to explore. We had a few Museums lined up to go to, one was at the Glasgow University (which is the 2nd oldest in the UK) and it’s like a medical museum, but they wouldn’t let us in because the students at meetings or something, actually a couple museums fell through. That’s okay though because those aren’t my favorite anyway. I still went to a few though. Glasgow at first was a little iffy, but then the 2nd day we hopped on a city tour bus, $9pounds for a 2 day pass on a bus that takes you to all the major spots around the city and you can get on and off as much as you want and get back on any of the other buses, definitely convenient especially in the rain. We went to the Cathedral which was really pretty, a Botanical Garden, City Street where all the shops are, river side, and other just random places. Below I shall post some pictures.
At one point Taylor and I got separated from the group on accident, so we went off to find them, fail, so just went for a walk ourselves. We walked in this path that is surrounded by tons of trees and it’s kind of hidden in a way, and we had a little scare. There were two men down there that were standing around for 5-10 minutes where we were taking pictures of flowers. It was a path, then in the path there was a little half circle coming out of it where the flowers were, and me and Taylor were in the half circle, and the two men were on both sides of the path, so if we wanted out we’d have to pass them. They were just standing there basically watching us, so Taylor came up to me and kind of pointed it out, I noticed them before but didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and got carried away following a bee from flower to flower trying to get a goody. She showed me the guys were standing on each side of us, and so we looked around for a way out and we found a stair case going UP the hill behind all the flowers and ducked out right away, then ended up climbing an un-pathed hill to get out of the trees more and up closer to the University. It was pretty scary, to be honest I feel like we got out lucky cause I really didn’t doubt if we hadn’t left sooner we’d be out of the trees with empty wallets and no cameras, or worse. Our hearts were racing for a good hour needless to say, but we got out safe, smart and money/camera in hands, and that’s good
Here are some pictures from Glasgow city The hotel we stayed at was Scottish so here is a picture of our room as well:
The first two pictures are of the from a museum in Glasgow
This picture below is a picture of the Scottish Hotel we stayed at :)
Then the next two pictures below are from the Glasgow Cathedral
The next two are from the Botanical Garden in Glasgow
Then this one is the shopping street in Glasgow, its suppose to be the biggest (or 2nd) biggest outdoor shopping area in the UK, we only went in one store called the "top shop" im almost glad we dont have it in the states because its very dangerous $$
The last two pictures are from the Gasgow University
We got back on the train and are now back home (which is the palace in Dalkeith, I just call it home because we’ll be here for a few weeks)
The weather is kind of crappy, actually really crappy but we knew that coming into the trip so I definitely am not let down or anything. We knew it would be cold, and rainy, and that it is. I didn’t know it would be this WINDY though, it’s one thing to be rainy and a little chilly, and actually it wouldn’t even be that chilly if it weren’t for the wind. But the wind makes it a lot worse than it has to be. Today walking around Glasgow I wore leggings, then jeans over them, a tank, t-shirt, long sleeve, north face AND a rain jacket.. That’s a Lot of layers, and not once was I warm; I was pretty comfortable I guess, chilly at times though.
But anyway, I am going to get some sleep, we have class tomorrow for a bit, and it will be a pretty low key, I will probably do some laundry tomorrow night before we leave for the HIGHLANDS!!
Hope everyone is doing well, miss you family!! <3
PS the pictures are out of order; but ill fix that say thusrday.
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