Edinburgh in retrospect

Holyrood Park

St. Giles Cathedral (right up the street from my current flat)

9 Days until I fly to Portland. HOLY COW!!! I had NO idea that it was that close. To honour this, my last week in Scotland until September, I am doing a post on the past academic year in Edinburgh, and what it has taught me.

1) Haggis=not so terrible, its just you know that it is sheep entrails and internal organs all mashed up and ground into the stomach and cooked for near to three hours. Yes, that ruins the taste. I'm sure cannibals found human flesh tasty, but if you unwittingly fed a person human leg, they would find it good (in theory, I have never tried this) until you told them you had killed your neighbour to bring them this scrumptious delicacy.

2) Fried Mars bars. Yes, they do exist, and yes, you should probably not try to eat one yourself.

3) Wintertime is incredibly awful. I know I was warned by fourth year international students, but I wasn't expecting to be so miserable that I wrote a last will and testament and dark poetry in case my body was consumed by cold, damp, and all together miserableness.

4) Springtime is beautiful. Whenever I walk places, I always try and cut through the meadows. A tree with some sort of blossom lines nearly all of the walkways, and I feel like Anne of Green Gables for a moment.

5) Scottish people, though often unintelligible to the American ear, can be understood through PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

6) The University of Edinburgh will never make your life easy with a set of simple instructions. Instead, you must figure it out for yourself, and hope you got it right. If not, then good luck mate.

7) Primary=awesome

8) If you leave the UK for a month, when you come back, there will be at least two new chocolate flavours (much to my delight).

9) Kilts, unless worn for a formal occasion, are more a ploy to get tourists to give you money, or if you're a sleaze, that other thing...you know what I'm talking about.

10) The underground tours are scary, but oh so worth it. Especially when you find out you live right next door to underground caverns where Scottish Godfather type figures used to rule the slums. I imagine their power ploys went along the following lines:

'Are you a McLeod?'

'No sir, I was just trying to find me mum.'

'Get out of here lad! Get back to yer mum before I slice your ear to sell off to them students at thet university there.'

(boy stuttering) 'I'm so sorry, please don't hurt me. I was just trying to find me mum, but I don't ken which cave we've let.'

'I ken yer mum me thinks. Go to her before I make her into a haggis!'

Ok, so I'm not versed in Scottish or in gangster, as evidenced by the above 'dialogue' but things like that did happen.

Scotland has been interesting, I enjoy it more the longer I'm here, and I'll actually be sad to say goodbye. Thank you Edinburgh for an...enlightening year to say the least....

To look forward to in September:

1) Scottish countryside

2) My gorgeous new flat!

3) Exploring places with 'me mum' :)

4) Finally reaching sophomore year at a university ;P

xx