As I write this post on Tuesday afternoon, there is a light dusting of snow outside my window from overnight precipitation. This past weekend, however, the weather was sunny and beautiful! I climbed two volcanoes (not as impressive as it sounds), and discovered a really fantastic coastal down just east of Edinburgh.
I’ll start on Friday. I went with 4 other friends down to Princes Street Mall in Edinburgh to do some shopping. I’ve been living off of one suitcase of clothes for the past 3 weeks, and decided it was time to add some more interest. Long story short, I was able to get a couple of shirts, a nice sweater, two pairs of tights, and a few accessories for £65 or so. A lot of stores were having sales, and SO many places also give a 10% or 20% student discount of you show your student ID. I wish more stores in Tacoma did that! Afters shopping, I made dinner and had a movie night with a couple of friends. We watched Post Grad (which was really great), and it was nice to have a relaxed evening!
On Saturday, most of my friends went on the ISC’s trip to Dewar’s World of Whisky in Aberfeldy. They got to see some highlands scenery, and then take a tour of the distillery before trying various samples of whisky (the Scots spell it without the “e”). I didn’t get a ticket, though, so I took advantage of the beautiful day, and decided to conquer Arthur’s Seat. It is a rock formation (formed by very old volcanoes) that towers over Holyrood Park, just outside my window. The summit is 820 feet, so it’s a rather steep hike, but it didn’t take too long, and the views at the top were outstanding! Here are some of my favorite pictures:
Heading to the top... It got a LOT steeper than this!
You can see the Edinburgh Castle in the upper left corner!
This is from the summit!
I took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy, but that night was the Catholic Student Union’s Burns’ Night. I’m really glad I went, because this night was much more traditional than the EUSA one last Monday night. We started with sherry and appetizers upstairs, and then went downstairs for dinner: delicious seafood chowder, haggis (I stuck with the vegetarian) with neeps and tatties mash, and then cranachan for dessert. (Cranachan is whipped cream mixed with honey and whisky, atop fresh raspberries.) Also included was Address to The Haggis, a Toast to The Laddies, Toast to The Laddies, and the Toast to Burns’ Immortal Memory. We then moved upstairs for some performances of Burns’ poems. Overall, it was a very fun – and very Scottish – night!
Sunday was, well, fantastic! Earlier in the week, my friend mentioned a small coastal town about 40 minutes east of Edinburgh called North Berwick. He suggested we take a day trip there this past weekend, so we hopped on a train (my first time in Waverly Station) around noon, and headed east. North Berwick is right on the ocean, so we headed straight to the water after getting off the train. I was tempted to take my shoes off and walk in the sand, but decided against it. To top it all off, there was not a cloud in the sky! After the beach, we headed to the North Berwick Law! “Law” is an old Scots word for a conical mountain… This one was about 600 feet tall, and is a 300-million-year-old volcano cone (similar to Arthur’s Seat). The climb was pretty steep – my second in two days – but it only took about 20 minutes, and it was VERY worth it once we made it to the top. After reaching the summit of the Law (and taking pictures with the funny whale jaw replica that’s up there), we headed back down (without slipping, which was quite a feat for the muddy hillside), and went back to town to have lunch. At the end of the day, before catching our train back to Edinburgh, we went back to the ocean to watch the beautiful sunset. It was the perfect ending to the day. Here are some more pictures:
Catching the train at Waverly!
The view from the top of the Law!
This whale jaw replica is at the top of the Law... and we all pretended to be eaten by a whale!
What a beautiful way to end the day!
So far, this week is off to a good start. It seems like the weeks are starting to feel more “normal”. I’m figuring out my schedule and making it to classes that feel familiar. I’ve even started spending some time in the library! My first major assignment is due in just under 2 weeks, so I will start on that this week, too. My friends and I have also started planning for our Spring Break travel (we get 3 weeks off). We are having a hard time finding tickets that line up with our schedule, but hopefully we will be visiting 6 cities in 6 countries: London, Rome, Prague, Vienna, Munich, and Paris. I bought my plane ticket from London to Rome last night!
Happy Groundhog’s Day to those who pay attention… looks like we’ve got another 6 weeks of winter. I hope it’s not too bad over there in Tacoma.