Ah so much to get into this post and I have no idea where to
start! This weekend, the program went to Scotland for 4 days and wifi was
essentially unavailable.
Let’s start with some entertaining stories. On the coach buses, the bathroom is in the
center of the bus, built into the side, with stairs going down. So where seats should be there are little
stairs. Getting on the bus the first
morning, I was watching this girl and all of a sudden she disappeared and there
was a crash. She fell. This same girl also played a claw game at a
rest stop while the rest of us got food or went to the bathroom. And she lost her phone. Struggles.
Second entertaining story- somehow a boy in the program lost
all of his suitcases. He was late to his bus and a PA (program assistant) went
to go find him and started packing his stuff because he was missing and it
looked like he hadn’t returned from formal hall the night before. The PA packed his stuff in grocery bags. Turns out the kid was at breakfast. They pushed him to a later bus and the PA
returned to his bus saying, “Homeless boy isn’t coming.” How on earth someone loses their suitcases
after arriving to Cambridge, but nothing else, is beyond me.
All right so back to true Scottish things. After essentially an all-day bus ride we
reached Edinburgh. First night was fun, not too much to report. Second day though, we started the day hiking
Arthur’s seat, this mountain(ish) that overlooks Edinburgh. Pretty cool.
Except the peak was incredibly windy, so at one point 3 of us were
literally blown backwards and had to regain our balance after stumbling
over. A bird was flying up there and
literally had no control. We watched as
it was whipped around with the wind.
From the hike, we walked down to Central Edinburgh, got
lunch, and went to the Elephant House.
The Elephant House is where JK Rowling wrote much of the first Harry
Potter book. The place is practically a
shrine to her. Actually the bathrooms
are legitimately. People signed thank
you all over as well as their favorite quotes.
Obviously some friends and I wrote in it. The funniest were over the toilets of both
bathrooms. In the women’s it said “This
way to the Ministry” with an arrow pointing down, and the boys said the men’s
said “Tom Riddle did a piddle.” Tons
more happened after that, but typical tourist stuff.
Next day, the full day hike I signed up for. Dunkeld Hike, which was beautiful and so
peaceful. It was less of a hike and more
of a walk. Although as one of my friends
said, “I want this hike to be less of walk and more of an amble.” We ate at a Loch, where I was one of four
people to wade in the water. It was
pretty nice. But then, the saddest
thing- A poor sheep got out of his pen
and couldn’t get back in. And he was
terrified of us, but he kept running around the fence and trying to jam his
body into the gate.
Then that night, we had a céidihl (pronounced KAY-LAY),
which is a Scottish dance thing.
Basically they told you to get in pairs, 3s, or 4s and yelled out what
to do. It was basically a lot of
“forward 2-3-4, clap, clap, back 2-3-4, and spin, and spin, and polka!!” So that was interesting. From there though, some friends from my hike
brought me and a few other people to Greyfriars Kirk, a graveyard by the
Elephant House. Arriving after midnight,
we saw the grave of “Tom Riddell, esq.”, “Moodie”, and “McGonagall”. The supposed story with McGonagall was that
he was a poet, but was pretty bad. So
after his death people would “transform” his work.
After the graveyard, I slept 2 hours and woke up to hike
Arthur’s Seat again. I wasn’t too
pleased when the kid leading my group made me scale a mountain at one point,
but I’m trying to forget about that.
There were literally 100 people there for the 4:30 sunrise. Of course it was cloudy so all you saw was a
sliver of red. But it was
entertaining. Edinburgh University had
it’s grad ball the night before, and grads came still in dresses and kilts, and
still quite drunk. So that was a scene.
Ah so much! And I didn’t even include the drunk altercation
with one man and his girlfriend had with a bouncer, and then the police on our
way to the cemetery!
