Arrival to Edinburgh
Today, we arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland. The trip here began with an overnight train ride in a sleeper car. We were all bustling with excitement as we boarded the train car. For many of us, including myself, it was our first time on a train like that. The rooms were small but not uncomfortable and we were bouncing between each space trying to get a feel for our surroundings. We were aware that we had to be up early in the morning, prepared for the day, so we all tried very hard to turn in early. That was a difficult task for me because I felt like I was going to sleep on Christmas Eve with the level of excitement that was bubbling inside me. The train gently rocked me to sleep and I woke to knocking on our door with the train workers serving us morning tea.
The sun was shining through the windows and as we unloaded the car the first thing I saw was the large silhouette of a castle-like structure on the horizon. I would come to find out this was a common theme in Scotland. One of the most wonderful things about this place is that magnificent stone structures are hugging tightly to the side of modern glass and steel buildings. This theme of past and present colliding is present in all of the places we have visited so far. However, Scotland is the first to really seem to directly mix the two. For example, London was a mixture of past and present but it took some searching to find a building that was part of Shakespeare’s history nestled between two sky scrapers. Here that sky scraper would be neighbors with a gigantic stone structure with arch ways and beautiful climbing ivy. History seems to be fighting back against the flow of time. Shakespeare has been preserved in England in a way that he’s not here simply, I think, because this place is not as important to his history as the former was. He seemed to be kept alive in a sense in England in a way that the history was still breathing in the country. Here it seems like Scotland’s history is alive an well. I can’t wait to learn more about it and grow to understand what this place is to the people of the world and what it means to be a Scot.
-Lisa
The sun was shining through the windows and as we unloaded the car the first thing I saw was the large silhouette of a castle-like structure on the horizon. I would come to find out this was a common theme in Scotland. One of the most wonderful things about this place is that magnificent stone structures are hugging tightly to the side of modern glass and steel buildings. This theme of past and present colliding is present in all of the places we have visited so far. However, Scotland is the first to really seem to directly mix the two. For example, London was a mixture of past and present but it took some searching to find a building that was part of Shakespeare’s history nestled between two sky scrapers. Here that sky scraper would be neighbors with a gigantic stone structure with arch ways and beautiful climbing ivy. History seems to be fighting back against the flow of time. Shakespeare has been preserved in England in a way that he’s not here simply, I think, because this place is not as important to his history as the former was. He seemed to be kept alive in a sense in England in a way that the history was still breathing in the country. Here it seems like Scotland’s history is alive an well. I can’t wait to learn more about it and grow to understand what this place is to the people of the world and what it means to be a Scot.
-Lisa
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