Edinburgh

It has been quite a while since I last posted and a lot has happened (that’s why I haven’t posted).  I have been to Edinburgh, Paris, starting work at TAIT Stage Technologies and yesterday I went to Richmond in London.  I’ll pretty much write a post about each of these individually and start with Edinburgh through the end of classes. 

On Friday, February 10 I took a train with my friend Josh to Edinburgh.  It was about a four-hour train, and door to door it was a little slower than air travel, but showing up to the airport three minutes before take-off might not have worked as well as showing up to the train station three minutes before departure.  Although that was not the plan and was pretty stressful, we made it onto the train with enough time to walk away from the door before the train started to move.  After a much-needed sigh of relief, we found some secluded seats, made ourselves comfortable and had a very peaceful and relaxed journey to Edinburgh.  If you can’t tell, I really like traveling by train.  It is calmer than planes, more spacious, had less security and restrictions, had better views (usually), and more food options.

When we arrived we realized that the hostel we had booked was right across from the station so we took the long trek to check in and meet our friends who flew in earlier in the day.  That day we went to Edinburgh Castle, saw the Scottish Crown Jewels, the dungeons, and living quarters.  We then found the Tartan department store that had tartan versions of everything you could think of, except shirts, and I love plaid shirts.  But there were scarves, shoes, hats, gloves, bagpipes, pants.  And the size of the building was incredible.  You walk into a fairly small store, go down a flight of stairs and you walk out into a three-story underground tartan wonderland. 

We went to some bars, one was called Frankenstein, so we had to go (even though it wasn’t Young Frankenstein).  But in the basement of Frankenstein they played a bunch of Frankie Valli and other similar genre songs, so I was very pleased.

The next day we went on a tour of the Highlands and Loch Ness.  We had a boat tour on Loch Ness and didn’t see any monster which was very disappointing.  (This is where my memory is fading more, but hopefully pictures make up for that). 

When we came back from Edinburgh we jumped right into a very stressful week.  All our end of semester papers were assigned and due that week and the next so there was not much time to see anything, but I did manage to get to Amaluna, a touring Cirque Du Soleil, where I met with the assistant Technical Director.  Additionally, in order to get out of my room for work, I went to some great study spaces the Molly found for me.  First, I spent a day at the National Art Museum in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It was cool to casually walk past priceless artifacts on my way to the bathroom.  The second day I went to the Imperial College Library and studied next to some London students.  The next day I went to study in the park in front of the Peter Pan statue.  This brought my stressful week to a close and it was time to move onto the next part of the semester, “spring” break and the internship phase. 

-Drew