Edinburgh Revelation

I keep promising myself I won't write anything tonight. I had some wine with my dinner and ended up a little more drunk than I'd planned to be. Therefore I elected to stay indoors tonight instead of going out to dance. I'm full of food and Australian wine, and I don't need to be dancing around at the moment.

Yesterday a lot of us took the train to Edinburgh. It's a gorgeous city; like I said, not very similiar to others I have seen. The streets are mostly brick or cobblestone, and let me tell you, they do not stop for pedestrians in Scotland. I found that out several days ago when this guy Will almost got plowed down while crossing the street to get to the train station. It's also a little confusing with the traffic coming from the opposite direction as you're trained to expect.

So yes, we went to Edinburgh, and it was in this city that I found out that I am capable of many things I would not have formally expected. For one, I spent much of the day wandering. I have never truly done this before. I have always had a good idea of where I am, always had a mental map in my mind. Not this time, but it worked out great. My new friend Rachel and I found out we are very good and wandering aimlessly. We still seem to find the places we want to visit, like the coffeehouse where J.K. Rowling first started writing Harry Potter. We went inside, and I was initially surprised. Its name is The Elephant House, and it's a pretty trendy place. I couldn't imagine how she had found inspiration for her books in there. Then I looked out the window. Perfect view of Edinburgh castle.

After the coffeehouse we climbed to the top of the Scottish history museum, took some pictures, then managed to find some other people in our group, one of whom had a her 21st birthday that day. Consequentally I found myself in three pubs in a row. I was getting tired, and had spent most of my budget for the day on souvenirs, so after the third pub I found myself getting restless. One of my main goals for this journey was to prove to myself that I'm not a child anymore. I want to be able to walk city streets alone, to navigate train, airplane, and bus stations, and to feel completely sure of myself and my ability to make the right decisions.

I excused myself from the rest of our group, and after asking directions to the train station from one of the bartenders, set off on my own. I'm happy to say that in Scotland it doesn't get dark until very late, so even though it was 9pm I could see fine. I wasn't in the best part of town, but there were still a good deal of people on the streets, and I'm lucky to look a lot like the locals. I stopped for a little bit on the Royal Mile to talk with a man selling (obviously fake) Rolex watches. After hearing my accent, he pegged me as Canadian, and when I told him I was American we had a nice rant about our shared dislike of the Bush administration. He gave me a slightly revised set of directions, which I followed to great success straight to the main entrance of the train station.

On the ride back I made friends with a woman named Jana, who was taking a poetry seminar at Stirling University and had her 14 year-old son, Andrew, with her. They were both very nice and we decided to get off at the town of Bridge of Allan instead of Stirling, so we could walk to campus instead of paying for a cab. We all had a good time strolling through the sleepy little town, and stopped occasionally to take nighttime pictures of a distant castle and the grazing cows. At one point I stopped for a few minutes to watch the full moon hover above Wallace monument. That whole evening was such a powerful experience. Not once did I feel in danger or lost.

Scotland is truly a wonderful place. I hope to return someday, perhaps when I'm quite old and can have a little farm with a rose garden :)











Airthrey Castle, on our campus