Sheep and Harry Potter!!

Highlands with Vince

Last week I went on the school trip to Scotland for Thanksgiving break! Scotland was amazing. Everyone speaks English!!! I haven’t been in an English speaking country in 3 months; it was pretty exciting especially with their cool accents. We stayed in apartments on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The first day we went on a guided tour of the city and then Erika and I spent the afternoon in the Christmas market. After about 5 minutes of being in Edinburgh I realized that I was in Harry Potter land. Everything looked exactly like everything in Harry Potter is. A multiple moments throughout the trip I kept thinking Harry would just come walking around the corner. 

Making Stuffing with Summer

Sadly he did not, but I did have a dream when I was there that I was Harry Potter. I later learned that the heavy Harry Potter influence was because Edinburgh is where JK Rowling lived when she wrote the first few books, and she got a lot of her inspiration from the city and from the castles in the area. Erika and I went to the Elephant House for tea, the same café where JK wrote the first 3 books. It was pretty exciting and I had Darjeeling tea, my favorite :) That night my apartment (14 girls) made Thanksgiving dinner. It was hard not being home for the holiday, but making dinner with the girls was a lot of fun and dinner was delicious.

SHEEP!

The next two days were spent on buses, traveling around the countryside of Scotland. We went on a boat in the highlands. It was so windy and freezing, but absolutely beautiful. We stopped in various small towns, went to Stirling Castle and saw lots and lots of fields of bright green. It was extremely windy and rainy the whole time we were there, but was still great. My favorite part was probably all the sheep in the fields. They are EVERYWHERE and I love them. We stopped in a small town on the coast that is known to have the best fish and chips. Personally I wasn’t too impressed with the fish and chips, but everyone else loved them. 

Erika and I had a mini photo shoot on the water before leaving. It was so windy we could barley keep our eyes open and it was hard to walk. We were literally being blown away, but it was fun. I also loved going to St. Andrews. We spent a couple hours in the city and saw the Golf Course and the University (where William and Kate met!). I also got Starbucks for the first time in 3 months! Red Holiday cups and an extremely tall cup of coffee is one of the best things in the world. 

Our travels home were long and exhausting, but so worth it. Hanging out with Harry Potter and the sheep on Thanksgiving break was pretty awesome.