My Semester In Scotland

This morning I got up with a whole list of things to do and I seemed to get distracted (not a surprise) by the beautifully clear warm day outside my window. The sun was so strong and so warm it was just the kind of day you walk outside and you can’t help but smile and realize how great life is regardless of the bad things that have been going on. Across the street is the nicest little pastry shop so I headed over to get two pastries and a juice. Next door to the bakery is a wonderful fruit stand where I bought two plums.¬†I¬†came back to my room, grabbed my iPod and a blanket and headed back out to have breakfast in the park right outside my flat. I spread the blanket out under a big oak and looked up at the clear blue sky with not a cloud in it. Let me tell you, that is a rare experience here in Edinburgh. I slipped on my headphones and just melted into the grass as for the¬†briefest¬†moment, I didn’t have a care in the world. No thoughts of school, the work I had to accomplish, planning the final stages of my spring break trip, relationships… nothing. One of my favorite guitarists in the world is George Benson. He has a song called “Got To Be There”. The title was just so fitting of the moment that I was experiencing. You just had to be there.¬†As I got ready to head back inside and face reality and the pile of papers on my desk, the clouds started to roll in and even now as I’m typing this blog entry, the sun seems to drift in and out from behind the clouds catching my eye every once and a while in its short bursts of warmth. The moment was so perfect that it was if someone had planned it just for me.¬†Of all the fun things I am doing here in Scotland and all the traveling I have done and will be doing, I know this is one of those times that will stick with me forever. So simple, uncomplicated and so effortless, the moments that I enjoyed sitting under that tree.¬†