My Semester In Scotland

At the¬†beginning¬†of this week, I was lucky enough to go meet my family at the Edinburgh airport and invite them to my new stomping grounds. We had a busy week planned filled with lots of things to see and places to go. Starting Monday, I picked them up at the airport and then headed to check in to their hotel. Once settled in, we took off on a walk to go see my flat and have dinner at the ‘golf tavern’ next door where we met a bunch of my friends and had a great meal and of course…a pint! Tuesday turned out be a beautiful day in Scotland so I took them climbing Aruthur’s Seat, the mountain in the middle of town, and then we jumped on a train headed for Glasgow. We did some shopping, walked around and just took it easy the rest of the day. We took the train back in the late afternoon and proceeded to crash after all the walking around we did. Wednesday was just as fun. I took them on a tour of the three different campuses that make up my uni. At the last campus, I had my scottish culture class so I decided to invite my sister along to join me. She loved being able to go to a college level course and what was even better was the topic was right up her alley… Scottish Architecture. After class we headed back downtown to meet my parents and then headed to a pub called ‘Deacon Brodies’ for a early dinner. Today, Thursday, I am just finishing up my class of the day and then Dad and I are planning to play golf at one of the local courses as long as the rain holds off! Tomorrow morning, Friday, we are flying out of Edinburgh bound for London for the weekend.¬†

Last night I was hanging out in one of my buddies’ room and we were chatting and he asked if I had any plans for the night. I said no and he asked if I wanted to hit up the local jazz club. Being the jazz¬†aficionado¬†that I am, I of course said yes. We took off and got there around 10ish. It was in this little basement bar with red lights… typical jazz club. There was a quartet on that consisted of guitar,bass, drums and sax/flute. They were really good. It was more modern jazz and not the swing type that we were looking for but non-the-less we enjoyed it. Around 12:00 they finished and the MC for the night announced that next was a funk band. As soon as they started we new our entrance cover fee had been well worth it. The funk band consisted of a female vocalist, guitar, drum kit, electric bass and a guy on the B3 Hammond Organ. It was great! They played everything from Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT to Cannonball Adderly’s Mercy Mercy Mercy. People were dancing, singing along and just grooving. The atmosphere was perfect. Suddenly we realized it was 3am so we decided to head back to the flat. When we got outside it was pouring so we walked a little ways then took a cab. On the way home my buddy tells the cabby suddenly to pull over. Im thinking what the heck is he doing? He told me that the “chippy” (thats fish and chip shop to you and I) was still open and we were making a “pit chip stop” on the way home. Yes thats right. There was a fish and chip shop open at 3am. Only in Edinburgh.¬†

 

My final destination was a week long visit to one of my favorite places on earth… Florence, Italy. It had been years since I was there yet as soon as I got off the train from Rome I felt right at home and familiar with my surroundings. Other than one day of rain it was seventy-five degrees and sunny. Florence was a bit of a mix of work and play. I was there because I loved the city and because my graphic design artist was doing her semester abroad there. We got a lot accomplished while at the same time enjoying the beautiful weather. There were many days I would go sit in one of the many piazzas and read for hours. Each day was a different piazza. Before I flew out of Edinburgh for spring break, a good friend of mine lent the book “Think Big and Kick Ass” by Donald Trump. It was a great book about never settling for mediocracy and putting your heart into life when it comes to owning your own business. One of my favorite parts of sitting in public places to read was the people watching I could do between chapters. It was so obvious to pick out the American tourists and I know can see why we have a bad reputation for being loud and pushy. In all of the traveling I have done my biggest concern is to try to fit in the best I can and not stand out.¬†

Through the week I did mostly walking around and a little sight seeing. I was most looking forward to my day trip to Venice with a bunch of friends. We left early morning Saturday April 5th on a train bound for Venice. Generally I sleep when Im traveling on a plane or train but this was one ride I did not want to miss out on. The Italian countryside was wonderful. Off in the distance you could see the Italian/Swiss Alps all snow capped. After two hours we crossed the water and arrived in the Venice train station. We took a taxi, in Venice a boat, to Murano where we watched a glass blowing demonstration as well as bought some fun souvenirs. ¬†Next stop was to St. Mark’s Square where I found a nice little cafe on the water and sat for over an hour just chatting with my friend. We waited until the last minute and then ran to the train and finally arrived back in Florence late that night.¬†

The next day one of my other friends and I went to mass in the Florence Duomo. It is a gigantic cathedral church. It is so big that mass was held in one of the corners of the church. As we sat down for mass we realized there weren’t many people around. The priest stood up and welcomed us in Italian. We figured he would then say mass in English. Well we were wrong. The entire thing was in Italian. Even though I didn’t understand half of the words said it was really neat to partake in. ¬†Being a music aficionado I loved listen to the echos of our singing through the building. It was incredible. If only one of my high school music groups could perform in there. The sounds just resonated through the building growing bigger and bigger and then suddenly decaying away slowly into the massive building.¬†

Monday was my return day. The flight was scheduled to leave Florence at 1:00 giving me an arrival time of early afternoon. Well as luck has it, my flight was delayed and delayed and delayed. Each delay was due to “bad weather”. Now my flight was filled with mostly Brits so when the intercom spoke in English they told us that due to bad weather our flight was diverted to some airport way outside of Florence. So we naturally all looked outside to see what the weather was like. It was yet again another perfectly sunny day and approximately seventy degrees. ¬†We all just laughed and wondered what on earth could be casing our flight not to show up. Long story short we had to take a bus out to the middle of nowhere. We all unloaded our own luggage off the busses and had to recheck them in. As we got to the terminal Im looking around and there are only five terminals. Ok so its a small airport. Let me give you a little idea how small. The only planes around were sesnas. Thats right. Single engine planes meant for under ten people. Then off to the right was our jumbo jet. We walked out to the plane and as we are taxing down the runway Im thinking to myself wow this is a really short strip. Sure enough the engines are full throttle and in seconds we are off the ground. We barely made it feet from the end of the runway. As we took off the plane started shaking and all of a sudden the engine noise just died to a light hum and Im thinking to myself we are going down. The nose of the plane started to tip forward and all of a sudden the engines roared back up. In the end it was the scariest flight I’ve ever been on. I landed safely in London and had to buy a new ticket to get to Edinburgh since I had missed my connection. So a mere six hours later than I was supposed to be I was back in my flat in Edinburgh.¬†

Its funny… my mum asked me when I called her how it felt to be back in Edinburgh and to think that spring break was already over so fast. I said to her… are you kidding me? I still have a month and a half left of vacation! Granted I have classes to go back to and tests to take but in the end this semester has been one of the best things I have ever done. I just cant believe where I am in the year already! Time has flown by. In two weeks my family is coming to visit for a week and then the four of us are off to London for the weekend. After that I will have a mere month before I pack my life back up and move home to good old NH. Until then I plan to do a little more traveling and of course a lot more blogging!¬†

For the middle part of my spring break I decided to hit Rome for four days with some of my new friends I met in Edinburgh. I flew in on Wednesday March 27th. It was a long day of travel that included a flight from Prague to Brussels, a layover that was supposed to be two hours turned into three, the flight from Brussels to Rome and then a train from the airport to Termini Train Station. It was the largest station I have ever seen with over twenty-five platforms. Very easy to get lost. My hostel was impossible to find so I ended up taking a taxi there. I arrived that evening, unpacked a few things and headed out to find some true italian pizza. I was not disappointed. The next morning I met up with my friends and we all walked around just exploring the city. The second day of our trip we went to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Both were just outstanding. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take any pictures so you will just have to trust me. It was breathtaking. The next few days we went to the colosseum, Spanish steps, and the Trevy fountain. The last day we decided to get some food and just sun bathe on one of the grassy hills next to the coloseeum. As we were relaxing, there was a big wedding party taking pictures. Can you imagine have the colosseum in the background of your wedding pictures? So neat! The most important topic to mention in all of this travel was of course the amazing food. I thought I ate my way through Prague. That didn’t even compare to the amount of amazing food my friends and I consumed. From pizza to pasta to paninis to tratorias and right down to going to the local grocery store and buying mozzarella balls, salami, focaccia and olives for dinner. It was all so good. Next stop is Firenza, Italy = Florence!

Be sure to check out the photos in my Rome gallery!

 Rome, Italy