Hello! It's crazy to think that I've been in Scotland for over a month now. I have a little less than two months left here. Time is going by so fast. There is so much to see and so much to do!
Here's what I've been up to these last couple of weeks:
On Friday, February 21st, all of us at the palace took a coach bus out to Glasgow for the day. This city is bigger than Edinburgh, but Edinburgh is still the capital. Kind of like the relationship between St. Paul and Minneapolis! Glasgow definitely has a much different feel. It seemed more run down; I didn't like it as much. However, we toured a couple of museums. One had old time cars and the other was the art museum. Then we also got to tour the Celtic Club Stadium. That was really cool to see! Everyone here takes soccer so seriously. A lot of pubs don't allow you to wear team colors in, as fights are bound to happen. I hope to be able to go to a game at some point while here!
A week later, on February 28th, was my friend Cassie's 20th birthday! During the day, we had a field trip for our Child Development class. We got to tour a nursery/daycare. I learned a lot about the education system in Scotland. It was an interesting experience. Then to celebrate for her birthday, a group of us went out into Edinburgh. We went to a couple pubs and all had a great time. We went to a pub called Finnegan's and it's an Irish pub that plays lives Irish music. Yay for some folk music!
On Saturday, Kelsey and I went out with our host family to walk their dogs on Yellowcraig's Beach. It was such a lovely day. I had a lot of fun and the scenery was relaxing after a long week.
On Sunday, Cassie and I went into Edinburgh and we walked down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. This is where the Queen stays when she is in Scotland. Then we went over to the park where we climbed Arthur's Seat. This was by far my favorite thing I've done here so far. The 45 minutes hike up was worth it to see the 360 views of the city. You can't come to Edinburgh and not climb up to Arthur's Seat.
Hmm... Pretty much during the week isn't too exciting. I go to class, do homework, plan other trips, and just hang out. Nothing too worthy to mention on here.
On Thursday, March 6th, right after class at 4:30, Cassie, Kelsey, Megan, Amanda, and I got on the bus to head to the airport. We went to Dublin, Ireland for the weekend!! It was so much fun. We got to our hostel around midnight on Thursday. Just had a chill night there before a busy weekend.
Here's the cool lights they had at the hostel!
In the morning, we went on a walking tour of Dublin. That lasted from 11am-2pm. I'm glad we did it because we got to learn some history about Ireland as well as see places and get ideas as to what we wanted to do during our stay. We had a slight break, so of course we stopped for some Irish coffee. ;)
At night we all went on a pub crawl and had so much fun!! We went to five different pubs and finished the night at a club. We all had a great time, or so I've heard. Ha.
On Saturday was another busy and educational day! We got to tour the Dublin Castle. That was pretty cool. How awesome would it be to live in a castle? The rooms were so elegant and royal. We also then toured Trinity College. There we saw the Book of Kells. Now that's some old religious history right there! We toured another museum. They all kind of blend together after awhile.
On Sunday we toured the Guinness Brewery! SUPER AWESOME. I like to call it seven floors of dark malty goodness. :) On the seventh floor is the famous sky bar. Up there you get amazing views on Dublin. It's a must to go to! Oh, and your entrance ticket includes a pint of beer. Here they pour it the proper way and it's a glass full of heaven. Haha. Yay for beer!
After the tour, we all had lunch at an Italian place. We all were feeling pretty good. Haha. We then toured a museum about the Vikings coming to Dublin. "Dublinia"
After that, we toured the cathedral and went down into the crypt. I thought it would be spookier than it was, but it was still interesting to see. At this point we all were exhausted and museumed out.
We then went back to our hostel to take the taxi to the airport. We got back to the Dalkeith Palace just before midnight. We made pretty good timing. Now we have a week of classes and will be in Scotland for the weekend.
Our next big fun will be a ten day spring break which will be from March 21st- March 30th. Cassie, Kelsey, and I will be going to ITALY. We will be going to Naples, Pompeii, and Rome. I'm so excited to go back to Italy. PIZZZZZZZZZA and PASSSSSTA and WIIIIINE. Haha.
This sums up the past couple weeks of my life. See you all in a couple months!