Student Bloggers

By Hannah K., University of Stirling Summer, Scotland

I finally arrived in Scotland around noon on Saturday the 13^th after my flight was delayed for a few hours. Unfortunately, my luggage decided it didn’t want to go on the same flight as me. However, I was determined not to let my luggage mishap dampen my spirits. Upon arriving on campus, I struggled to adapt to the five hour time difference and succumbed to a nap. After my (way too short) nap, I headed over to a welcoming reception at the castle located on campus. The reception was a great way to meet some of the people on the program and of course, get some food after a long journey across the pond.

Luckily, my luggage arrived Sunday afternoon. The majority of the day was spent grocery shopping and familiarizing ourselves with the city of Stirling. Most importantly, Sunday marked my first encounter with haggis: a common Scottish delicacy. What is haggis, you ask? Haggis is a “dish consisting of a sheep's or calf's offal mixed with suet, oatmeal, and seasoning and boiled in a bag, traditionally one made from the animal's stomach.” I had my initial hesitations but I have to admit, it actually was not as bad as I had heard. As it is a traditional Scottish food, I highly recommend that any adventurous traveller try it!

On Monday, my classes started. I only had class for two hours on Monday and for one hour on Tuesday. I was surprised by how fast it went by. Thursday marked the first day trip I took outside of Stirling. I spent the day in Edinburgh, one of Scotland’s major cities. Throughout the day, I ventured down the Royal Mile (a major shopping street), climbed around Edinburgh Castle, saw the Scottish crown jewels, and went on a Harry Potter walking tour of the city. The highlight of my day was seeing The Elephant House, the birthplace of Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling used to sit at the small café and it was there that she wrote most of the manuscript for the first book. It was pretty cool to see the sites that inspired the places in the novel as well as tour the graveyard where she spent a lot of time wandering. Turns out, the names on the graves influenced the names she gave to her characters. For someone who grew up loving the books and movies, I was in heaven.

I decided to spend my first weekend in Scotland getting to know my new home. I spent the morning climbing Mt. Dumyat. The view from the top was incredible. It happened to be rainy and foggy but you could still clearly see the city outlined below us. On the way up, we ran into our first Scottish “wildlife”: sheep. They were just as cute as I had imagined them to be. After our hike, my roommates and I spent the afternoon exploring Stirling Castle. We concluded our day on the town by participating in a ghost tour of the city. The ghost tour was pretty cheesy but in the best possible way.

That Tuesday, my abroad program held a highland dancing lesson. It was one of the best parts of the week. Although none of us could perfectly master the moves our instructor tried to teach us, we had a great time and cannot wait to show what we learned at our closing Ceilidh.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading off to spend the day in St. Andrews, home of golf, the meeting place of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and of course, another castle. This weekend I’ll be heading to England. Cheers!

Hannah King is a student at the Trinity College, Connecticut and is blogging from her summer abroad at the University of Stirling Summer in Stirling, Scotland.