It's Not Goodbye, It's See You Later

Well, this is it. Today's my last day in Scotland and tomorrow morning my flight leaves to go back home. I’ve recently been doing a lot of reflecting. The crazy thing is, the main reason I originally thought about studying abroad was because most of my friends from Cornell were planning on going abroad and I didn't want to miss out. And I chose Scotland fairly randomly as well. I didn't know much about it, but I knew they spoke English and I'm part Scottish, so I thought why not? 

Now, I can't imagine what my life would be like without this experience. I always say that there's a reason for everything, and I believe that if I hadn't come to Scotland, my future would be very different. Even little things that happened here, like breaking my foot ended up mattering. It was the longest I'd gone without running in years, and once I was able to run again I gained an appreciation and perspective on running that I'd never had before, which led me to sign up for my first marathon! (Philadelphia, this November.) 

Summiting Ben Nevis with Owen absolutely scared the shit out of me but I also inexplicably loved it, and I predict that Ben Nevis is only the beginning of the relationship between me, Owen and the mountains.

Probably the most important revelation I had here was regarding careers. I didn't talk about my classes much, but one that I particularly loved was Environmental Pollution. It was in that class that I truly discovered how fucked up the world is. (Oh, darn it I'm trying not to curse. My grandma and her friends who read my blog thought I cursed like a sailor in the last post, so I would like to apologize for that). But in talking about the situation of the environment, I believe a strong curse word is appropriate. Basically, we needed to start caring about how dire the situation is years ago, so we're waaay behind. Anyway, I learned about a career path: ecotoxicology, which is essentially studying environmental contaminants (ie. pollution) in the soil, water and air, predicting how certain chemicals will affect us, and trying to figure out what the safe levels of chemicals are (if any!). The past year or so, I realized I wanted to study pollution but I wasn't sure how; I had no idea what job to type in a search engine for that. Now I've got my answer! So, I'm really excited to see where this new idea brings me. 

So what have I been up to these past few weeks? I spent too many hours in the kitchen, studying for finals with my flatmates which was fine; my finals went pretty well, but a side effect was that my food consumption turned into cheese, cheese flavored chips, and macaroni and cheese. 

I also did a few days of adventuring in between finals. My heydays of hitchhiking now just a thing in the past, I looked to public transport once again to rely on. I can’t say my faith had been restored. I missed an early bus I was trying to take to St. Andrews, a town an hour or two away from Edinburgh, so I had to take the train, which was twice as expensive. If you don’t know already, I am pretty frugal with my money. So you can imagine my annoyance at coughing up the dough for the train. When I finally made it to St. Andrews, I told the man at the travel center, “I’m not spending any money today. What can I see?”

The coast in St. Andrews

 The man, thank you kind sir, actually did an excellent job planning out a money free day for me. Putting me on a road as close as possible to the castle without going in, finding a free museum, wandering the golf course, exploring coastal paths, it was perfect. The train ride home was way better than the bus could've ever been. A group of guys were playing music, no less The Beatles, and that’s something we can all enjoy. A man sitting nearby was so happy that he shared a few beers with strangers sitting behind him. You don’t get that experience on a bus, do you.

 

Castle ruins

Another day, I went to this “island” which is an island half the time- you can walk there during low tide but once high tide comes you’d be stranded! Don’t worry, I didn’t end up stranded and thank god because the island was quite creepy. I’m not sure if it was the anti-Jew graffiti (which was so horrible), the broken bottles, the unmarked tent, or the building labeled ‘dangerous, do not enter.’ But after some timid wandering and a quick lunch, I was outta there! The beach back on shore was much less sketchy and I spent the rest of the day walking along the coast. And getting caught in a hail storm and hugging a tree for cover. Come to think of it, later that day back in the city center I got caught in another hail storm on a run. C’mon Scotland, really?!

 

On the way to the island

The path out to the island

Sadly, I’ve also had to say goodbye to some really amazing people who put up with me this semester. Kerry was the first of us flatmates to leave last weekend, and our last day all together was more perfect than we could have planned: shopping, free icecream, sun (a rare sighting, I know!), dinner, movies, and maybe a drink or two. I’ve said it before, but I truly got so lucky to have such wonderful flatmates. They didn’t make fun of my complete lack of cooking skills in the beginning, or the fact that I was always eating some combination of cheese, chips, and peach rings, or that I was always running out of food. Oh, who am I kidding, they thought my food habits were pretty weird. But we became so close that I didn’t mind. They had my back when I broke my foot, when I went hitchhiking and updated them with safety texts, when I went exploring without a cellphone. I really hope I get to see these girls again!

 

Our last night together

Yesterday I climbed Arthur’s Seat with Kathryn, thank gosh she was in two of my classes as we deciphered the strange Scottish academic ways together! Today I got dinner with Laura and Miren and a few others, we shared some wild and amazing nights together this semester! And even though they live in Spain, I know that this isn’t goodbye forever, it’s see you later.

This morning I went on one last run in the park around Arthur’s Seat and somewhat accidentally ended up going to the top of it to say my goodbyes. The rest of the day was spent packing, perusing used book stores, and panicking. But I think mostly everything is done and accounted for, and I am so ready to be back on US soil tomorrow!

 

Scotland at its finest

I want to thank YOU ALL for reading my blog over the past few months. I know it hasn’t been so regular, it’s been infused with curse words, and some of the posts were dreadfully long. As challenging as it’s been, I have had a lot of fun writing it and I sense that I may be blogging more sometime down the road.

Cheers,

Breann