After parting ways with Katie in Amsterdam, I flew back to Edinburgh to meet up with my parents who had arrived the day before. We spent the weekend touring around Edinburgh. On Saturday night, we went on a literary pub tour which was led by two actors who debated whether the great writers of Edinburgh were influenced by the beauty of their surrounding city or its drunken pub culture. It was pretty amusing. The next day was devoted to the Royal Family as we visited a couple of their dwellings located in Edinburgh, Holyrood Palace and the Royal Yacht Britannia. Both proved to be very impressive! It was great to get to see some touristy stuff around town I hadn't gotten to yet as well as have my parents see the city where I had been living for the past few months.
Our classes ended before the holiday so I didn't have any school commitments until my final exams which were still a couple weeks away. With the free time to do so, we decided to explore more of the country while my parents were here. Monday, we loaded up our rental car and headed up into the Highlands for the week. Like my earlier European travels, we did way too much to go into great detail about everything but here are the highlights of what we saw/the things we did.
Monday: Edinburgh to Arbroath (the Eastern Scottish Coast)
- picture stops in many of the small beach towns along the coast
- St. Andrews
.St. Andrews University - the oldest university in Scotland
.castle and cathedral ruins
.the Old (golf) Course
Tuesday: Arbroath to Aberdeen
- Signal Tower Museum (Arbroath)
- Arbroath Abbey
- Glamis Castle
- Dunnottar Castle - one of my favorite things we saw! it was windy and freezing, but the view was beautiful! (see pictures)
Wednesday: Aberdeen to Inverness
- University of Aberdeen
- St. Machar Cathedral
- Cairngorm National Park
- Tomintoul- the highest village in the Scottish Highlands
Thursday: Inverness to Fort William
- Fort George - the views of the Moray Firth were beautiful! There were supposed to be dolphins but unfortunately, we didn't see any.
- Culloden Battlefield
- Clava Cairns - prehistoric burial grounds not far from Culloden. It was kind of eerie but very beautiful too!
- Loch Ness
- Urquhart Castle - beautiful ruins and great views of Loch Ness. Unfortunately, no Nessie spottings!
Friday: Fort William to Falkirk
- Caledonian Canal (Neptune's Staircase) - We got to see them move a boat through the Staircase which was pretty cool.
- Ben Nevis - the highest peak in Great Britain. While in the visitors center, we heard the ranger tell a potential climber he would most likely die if he and his group tried to climb without the proper equiptment.
- Inverlochy Castle ruins
- Glencoe - beautiful mountain range! Unfortunately, with the overcast skies and my not so professional camera, the pictures don't even begin to do it justice.
- Loch Lomond
- Falkirk Wheel
Saturday: Falkirk to Edinburgh
- Bannockburn Battlefield
- Stirling Castle
- the Wallace Monument (from a distance)
- Abbotsford - the home of Sir Walter Scott
- Melrose R.F.C. - saw some Scottish rugby up close!
- Melrose Abbey - beautiful ruins! The burial site for Robert the Bruce's heart.
My parents were flying out early Sunday morning so after a final dinner at their hotel near the airport, we parted ways. Overall the trip was really nice! It was great to see my parents and experience different parts of Scotland! There was a lot of driving involved and I'm not normally one for just taking in the scenery, but we got to see a lot of cool things and meet a lot of nice Scottish locals. I look forward to taking more trips like this in the future!
For pictures of the trip, follow the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NedPix/Scotland?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ-Th4q87b7tbA#
When I got back to Edinburgh, I took sometime to just relax. After traveling around Europe for 4 weeks, I was looking forward to not doing anything for a couple of days! When the relaxing was over, it was time to start studying for exams, which as I've mentioned before, proved to be pretty stressful, but I survived! On the plus side, two out of three of my exams were in the prettiest buildings on campus.
ex: McEwan Hall - site of my Scottish Ethnology exam, also where the University holds graduation ceremonies.
When my exams were finally over, I wanted to take some time to explore the city more and see some things I hadn't seen. I never really went too far into New Town past Princes Street so I decided to spend some time walking around and seeing what there was to see. With the University and most of the tourist attractions in Old Town, New Town seemed much more residential. But just walking around, I saw a lot of beautiful parks and Georgian architecture to see. I also spent a lot of time walking up and down the Royal Mile, doing some souvenir shopping and visiting the sites like Gladstone's Land, the Writer's Museum, St. Gile's Cathedral. One day, some of my friends and I walked up Calton Hill to see the various monuments and great views of the city. That night, we also climbed Arthurs Seat one last time to watch the sun set and take in the lights of the city.
For more Edinburgh pictures, follow the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NedPix/NEDINBURGH02?authkey=Gv1sRgCPee6biP9fCnXg#
One of my last days of touring, I decided to go on a day tour called "Rosslyn and the Roman Borders." The tour was fairly small with about 15 people total. We boarded a minibus in Edinburgh and traveled down to the borders even crossing into England for a short time with a guide who filled us in with lots of historical information inbetween each site. On the tour we saw Rosslyn Chapel, made famous by The Da Vinci Code; and crossed over into Northern England to see Hadrians Wall. The weather cooperated for most of the day, and both sites were very impressive!
For pictures of the tour, follow the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NedPix/RosslynAndTheRomanBordersTour?authkey=Gv1sRgCIfSxuH-9pjeQw#
On Thursday, May 28, I boarded a plane back to the States. It was a long day, but I was happy to make it home! When I first got back, it was surprising how easy it felt to transition back to being home. Though I had been away for awhile, it felt like nothing had really changed that much so it was nice to return to some familiarity. I think the real differences will become apparent when I'm back in Iowa City in the fall and it will be time for me to settle back into school mode. I think the weirdest thing about being home is realizing that that part of my life has come and gone. It seems that ever since I had started thinking about college, I thought about studying abroad, but it always felt so far away. Even when I finally entered college, I always figured I'd have a long time until the second semester of my junior year. Now, with this experience actually come and gone, it seems like things have gone by so fast! I'm actually 21 and I only have one more year of school left! Though the idea of no more homework or mandatory classes is exciting, the thought of graduating and moving into the real world is incredibly scary!
I would really like to think that through my time abroad I grew up. I've learned how to manage money better, become a better planner, and overall, I think I've learned to really appreciate the things I have and opportunities I am given a lot more. It has taken me awhile to really settle in at Iowa, but after experiencing something totally different, I've come to realize it's really been a great place for me as a student of writing and just for personal growth in general. Though it is hard to think about how fast this next year will probably fly by, I'm looking forward to a good summer and hopefully a great year back at Iowa!
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