Interning & Edinburgh

Elizabeth Houde London Internship Program, England

Date

December 1, 2015

Thursday (aka Thanksgiving for those in the States) was my last internship day.

I love my internship. Some people broke into song for absolutely no reason (a Christmas song, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Let It Go). On the other hand, I did accidentally make someone cold coffee (I saw that there was French press coffee, so I thought that would be better than instant, but it turned out that it was cold, so that didn’t really work out). I love the people there (even when I accidentally make them cold coffee and feel like a terrible person because of it).

The other reason is of course that it’s a sign that my time in London is getting shorter and shorter. I have less than a month left here, which is terrifying. I feel like I live here. I mean, I do live here, but I’m experiencing the crushing inability to pretend that I won’t be leaving much sooner than I want to. At this point, that’s going to happen anyway. I will never really be ready to leave.

If I were going to be here over Christmas, that would be a different story. I’d miss my family for Christmas, but I wish I were going to be back here next semester.

So let me tell you about Edinburgh, something significantly happier than the fact that I can’t just stay in London forever.

I bought a ring. Both a wonderful and a terrible decision.

I fidget like crazy. I tap on my mug of tea. I click my pen or flick it against desks and just in my hands. Between typing, I keep tapping my fingernails against each other. So like great decision because I don’t own rings and I rather like owning one. Bad decision because within an hour of buying it it became another thing to fidget with. I spend half the time at my internship clicking my fingernails on my mug and pulling my ring on and off my fingers, putting it partway on other ones before taking it off, etc. I occasionally realize that this is a hazardous activity. I’m waiting to accidentally drop it in my tea. So far it hasn’t happened. There is still time.

I got to see a friend who I hadn’t seen in a year. I met her Scottish friend (who was really nice and showed us around Edinburgh badly). I saw the castle. A lovely castle. I enjoyed it. I got a very good tuna melt and a scone.

I also actually did have haggis, which is good if you like spiced meat. It literally just tastes like spiced meat, and it’s great with neeps and tatties (turnips and mash…potatoes. I mean potatoes). This is also around the time that I made a bad joke about H&M that you all are clearly dying to hear about (Haggis & Mash is now what I call that place).

Aside from that, we (my friends and I) did an underground tour for Halloween. We went to the Scottish National Gallery. We went to the ELEPHANT CAFE (J.K. Rowling is all I have to say). We went to a graveyard with epic headstones (see pictures for further details…and maybe zoom in on the names a little should you feel a little ambitious).

So Edinburgh was great, and I had a wonderful time with my friends and bought a ring to further my fidgeting.