Zion's Scotland Blog Week 5: Goodbye Scotland

 Hello from home! I just arrived last night and I'm already missing the Beauty that is Edinburgh. I live in a small town too so it's kind of weird to no longer be in a busy area in a building with other people. I even forgot what it was like to have A/C and high water pressure. For my final week in Edinburgh I visited Inverness, did some shopping in Leith, and finished up essays for my class. I've done so much during this trip the dates get mixed up in my head and I have to check my phone for photos from that day lol.

   

Inverness was super amazing. It was a 4 hour bus ride there and the scenery was just so beautiful, green, and lush. While in Inverness I visited Leaky's Book Shop, walked along the River Ness, and just explored the shops in the town. It was very peaceful, but on the train ride back I had the worst motion sickness of my life (and I never get car sick).

    Since I didn't do too much this week with finals and getting ready to leave I want to take some time to reflect on my experience. I LOVE Scotland. I would live there if I could, but honestly, not even looking at it from a logistical angle, I don't know if I would. I missed my family during the trip and being a foreigner while not horrible as most of the people were really nice feels a little alienating at times as people automatically assume something about you whenever you're interacting. Make a mistake and your a dumb American, be loud with your friends in public and your obnoxious, take photos of something beautiful and you're a tourist and so on. This wasn't a constant feeling and it definitely didn't affect the trip, but it made me miss home and I found that when I met other Americans I would get excited just to know someone from home. 

   

I'm really going to miss Scotland and just Europe in general too. When I first applied I wrote about how I was interested in seeing how lifestyle affected people's health here and while I found the food options not that different from America the amount of areas accesible by walking is a huge health benfit that we don't have in America. While in Scotland I walked an average of 16,000 steps a day. Additionally the integration they have with city and nature is amazing, making it really easy to be active.

    I would definitley go back and hope I some day will. For my first time travelling abroad I felt so comfortable and safe and I would 10000% reccomend visiting Scotland if you can! There's truly nothing like it anywhere else.