Thursday, August 5
We walked to Astley Ainslie Hospital in the morning as a class. There, we had two presentations by SLTs (the Scottish Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service & Edinburgh Community Health Partnership). At the end, we got to hear from a stroke patient who now suffers from expressive aphasia, which was a very insightful and unique experience.
When the presentations and talk were over, we walked back to the flat to get some lunch and take a quick nap and then went to climb Arthur’s Seat, a dormant volcano that is right next to Edinburgh. The views along the way and at the top of the climb were breathtaking! It took us about 45 minutes to climb to the top over rocky “stairs” and dirt trails. On the top of the peak there were two rock monument structures—one was a sort of compass, and the other was a “seat” which was really more of a stone stump. We spent a fair amount of time at the top taking pictures and taking in the scenery all around us. It incredible to see the sea on one side, countryside farms on another, the city of Edinburgh on yet another, and cliffs in yet another direction. Such diverse and beautiful land! It was a great experience and we didn’t want to leave, but it started to rain a little bit so we decided to head down before we got stuck in the middle of a downpour on steep rocky, trails.
We came back and went to dinner at a local pub, although I didn’t eat since I had food back at the flat. We then hung out for a little at the flat before Thao and I went to walk around the Royal Mile. When we were there, we saw a street performer that does magic tricks with a cigarette—incredibly, he was a performer we had seen just a week or so before at Covent Garden! We also saw a group of artists dressed up as nuns with cigarettes and beer that were walking down the middle of the street in slow-motion apparently in an attempt to attract people to go see there show. It didn’t impress or tempt me to pay to go see them but it was entertaining to see their odd antics in the street! We then came across an 18-year-old street performer who juggled fire on two men’s arms.
Next, we did a little shopping and went to Frankenstein, a pub that has been around since the early 19th century. As the name suggests, the pub was decked out in Frankenstein décor with cobwebs, old horror movies playing on a projection screen at the front, and strange, old contraptions on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Business was slow at first but then it picked up for about an hour or two. Lots of the girls from our trip were there and one of us even won a 300-pound bar tab after entering into a lottery and picking out a key that unlocked the “beast” in the cage (it was a man dressed up in a wolf mask). We stayed later than everyone else and then walked home after getting kicked out at 3 am since the place was closing up. We stopped because some of the girls wanted to get food on the way home. One girl got chips and cheese and then stepped outside to wait for everyone else, but her food was stolen right out of her hands by some guy that sprinted by and grabbed it. I guess that’s life in the city late at night haha. With that as our final event of the day, we headed back and were glad to finally get to sleep in the early hours of the morning.
Friday, August 6
I slept in after our very late night at Frankenstein. After everyone was finally ready, we headed down to the Royal Mile to walk around for a couple of hours to see the hustle and bustle of the Fringe festival. There were lots of street performers, actors and comedians handing out flyers for their shows, and other theatre people and musicians just having fun amongst all of the tourist and festival-goers. We got to see a lot of really strange stuff as well as some very talented people. It’s definitely very exciting and I’m so glad that we get to be here for this huge event!
When we had seen our fill of festival madness for the day, we walked back, stopped at Tesco (a grocery store) and then went back to our flat to pick up a little before the rest of our class came over for our final summary session of the program. We all tightly packed into our little living/dining room here and talked for a couple of hours about what we’ve learned, experienced, etc. It was a nice little wrap-up of the program.
After our meeting was over, we had a little over an hour to nap and get ourselves ready for the Taste of Scotland event. We all took cabs over to Prestonfield which is a complex including a hotel and a large stable that is decorated elaborately inside—this is where we had our Taste of Scotland dinner and show. The Prestonfield grounds are gorgeous and the inside of the hotel is very ornate and beautiful as well! Apparently several celebrities have come to stay there including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Elton John, Sean Connery and Winston Churchill. Pretty cool! Inside of the stable, you would have no idea that it actually was a stable. Everything was covered in red velvet, the walls were covered in sparkling lights that looked like a night sky, and there was a fairly large stage at the front with golden pillars and red curtains. It was much fancier and more elaborate than I expected!
Our dining experience at Prestonfield started off with our choice between a potato and turnip soup or game paté. Unfortunately, I was feeling adventurous so I chose the paté, but upon tasting it I immediately regretted my decision. It had a very smooth texture and it tasted almost like a funny, mushy hot dog but worse haha. Even though I only had a couple of bites and didn’t particularly enjoy it, at least I can say I tried it! Next up was the main course and we had another choice between beef with carrots and potatoes or poached salmon with green beans, potatoes, and Hollandaise sauce. I picked the salmon and it was delicious! It wasn’t anything too exotic to me, but I enjoyed it all the same! The main course was followed by lemon tart with Cranachan for dessert. It was a little bit sweet and tart and very rich, but I really enjoyed it. After that, we were given coffee or tea (I picked tea) with homemade Scottish tablet (a fudge-like, buttery tasting treat that was very sugary and a little gritty but quite yummy).
After tea was served, it was finally time for the show to start. We were provided with over an hour of Scottish entertainment including everything from dancing, singing, accordian, violin, drum, keyboard and bagpipe playing—it was incredible! In the middle of the show we had a break for a haggis ceremony in which a man presented the traditional Scottish dish with an eccentric “Address to the Haggis” and then we were served the odd dish. I was really scared at first since the description of how haggis is made does not exactly make my mouth water (it’s basically all of the leftover insides of a sheep that are ground up and then cooked inside the sheep’s stomach with some seasoning). We all worked up the courage to try the haggis, which was served on top of mashed potatoes and it was surprisingly tasty! It was quite peppery and had a strong seasoning flavor but was very edible and savory! I was pleasantly surprised by how well I like it. After our haggis tasting experience, the show continued on with the second half, ending with a group singing of Auld Lang Syne. And with that, our show was over and our study abroad program was officially over! It was very bittersweet!
After saying our goodbyes to Dr. Cooke, we took cabs back to the flats. Thao and I quickly changed and then walked over to the Assembly at George Street for a show called “Gutted” that was part of the festival. The show started about a half hour late, but luckily we made some friends with a Scottish couple and another couple that was from London and we passed the time talking about everything from NHS to Michigan winters to popular (and not-so-popular) festival performers. It was cool to get to hear their experiences and points of view about a variety of topics. The show eventually got underway and we spent the next hour plus watching a musical comedy about revenge that bore a close resemblance to Sweeney Todd. It was interesting and most of the actors were pretty talented. I thought it was a nice changeup from the two comedians that we had seen already at Fringe. The show finally ended around 1:30 am and we walked back to the flat to crash after another late night on the town. Only two more days left in Edinburgh; I’m having a great time and am going to make the best of my last couple of days in Europe! It’s hard to believe that our month here is almost over!
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