Student Bloggers
Let the adventure begin!
Date
September 2, 2014
My goodness, what a whirlwind the past 12 hours have been. After a surprisingly smooth plane ride where my neighbors were a darling man from Edinburgh and a woman from Montana, I arrived in Edinburgh at 7am local time. After schlepping all my luggage onto a bus and then getting a tad bit lost on the way to my hotel, I finally arrived, dropped off my stuff, and began exploring.
It turns out that my hotel is quite close to the Scottish National Gallery, so after grabbing a quick cup of coffee, I headed out for some culture. I did appreciate that the Gallery had free admission and although it was not as large as other art museums I have seen, it had a good collection of art from various time periods, as well as Scottish Art.
I then realized that it was only 11am so I still had a minimum of 3 hours to kill before I could check-in to my hotel room. Now this scared me a bit because I am not one of those people who usually picks up and travels solo to new and unfamiliar places. I like plans and schedules. But I swallowed my fear and decided to just wander. I walked up towards the Edinburgh Castle, checking out the floral clock on the way, and checked out the souvenir shops around there and then made my way back West along High Street, which is a touristy area of Edinburgh. A few hours later, I ducked into a narrow alleyway only to stumble upon an extremely charming tea shop. After enjoying a ham sandwich, scone, and some tea, my jetlag was beginning to set in so I went back to the hotel, where I am currently sitting and writing this blog post.
I am excited for the next 110 days. I know that this will be an adventure that I will be glad that I had. It just may take me a few days (or weeks) to settle in and feel less lost.
Cheers for now!