Student Bloggers

By Hannah K., University of Stirling Summer, Scotland

If you ever have the opportunity to visit Scotland, a trip to St Andrew’s is a must. First and foremost, the views were absolutely incredible. We were fortunate enough to have sunny and warm weather the day we were there and spent half the day sprawled out on the beach. In the morning, we climbed the cathedral and got a killer view of the entire tiny village. We also found time to explore the castle which had an underground mine you could walk around in. Today also marked my first experience at a “chippy:” a fish and chip shop. Essentially fish and chips are just what they sound like: fried fish complimented with fries and drizzled with salt and vinegar. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten in Scotland thus far. Not to be outdone, the gelato shop I went to for an afternoon treat also made the list of best things I ate in Scotland. One of the guides recommended the gelato shop. I sampled the white chocolate raspberry swirl and gave it a 10/10. Aside from the food, St Andrews is also a hugely important place in the golf world. Home of the world’s oldest golf course, St Andrews is essentially the birthplace of golf. We got a chance to see the course but as I will be back in St Andrews to attend the British Open, I didn’t devout too much time to exploring it.

For my first weekend of traveling, I decided to go to England. We took an overnight bus that had bunk beds on it and arrived early Saturday morning in London. We had originally planned on hitting as many famous spots as possible but it turns out, it was Pride weekend and we ran into huge crowds of people/a parade that made it difficult to navigate the city. Most of the morning was spent riding on the top of a double decker bus and driving past many of the major city sites. We did manage to see Big Ben, West Minster Abbey, and from a distance were able to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. If you’re planning on witnessing the changing of the guard, I recommend getting there very early. We got there about fifteen minutes before but were six or seven people deep behind the fence trying to catch a glimpse. The highlight of my London adventure was riding the London Eye. Although it’s a bit on the pricy side, I recommend splurging on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch a bird’s eye view of London.

Sunday was spent on a day long bus tour taking in three major English sites: Windsor Castle, Bath, & Stonehenge. Unfortunately, we were once again met with large crowds and couldn’t fully explore each of the places as much as we wanted. At Windsor Castle, I was able to snap a picture with one of the guards which was a photo goal of mine since I determined I would be going abroad. We also were at the castle while the Queen was in residence but were unable to catch a glimpse of her. My favorite spot of the day was Stonehenge. Although there wasn’t a ton to do at the spot itself, something about seeing a site that was built such a long time ago was incredible to me.

Class flew by once I returned from my trip to England. Unfortunately, I had to really focus on the “study” aspect of studying abroad and spent most of the weekend writing papers. However, I did get to spend a day in Glasgow. We decided to simply spend the day wandering around the city with no set destination in mind. There was some really cool street graffiti and architecturally unique bridges.

My Fourth of July weekend was relatively uneventful compared to what I’m sure most people did back in the States. I spent my Independence day viewing part of a traditional Scottish Highland Games and went on a boat tour of Loch Lomond. The weather decided to be traditionally Scottish and we spent the day walking around in a torrential downpour. It was a really cool cultural experience to witness first-hand a traditional highland games. We saw men parading around in kilts, tossing shotputs & tree trunks. My favourite part, however, was a group of young children performing traditional highland dances. As for the boat tour on the Loch, we braved the rain and stood on the front deck of the boat for the duration of the cruise. The misty and foggy weather set a surreal, fantasy-like look upon the loch and its islands. The Scottish scenery is something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get enough of. Every place I go looks straight out of the pages of fairy tale. In fact, my campus has a large rabbit population and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Snow White pop out of the woods. I’ll be fortunate enough to get a glimpse of even more surreal views as I will be spending the upcoming week touring Ireland. It’s so strange to think that I’m nearing the half-way point of my time here in Scotland. I feel like I just arrived on campus yesterday.

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.