Day 22: Edinburgh Castle

Today was the first official (full-length) day of the Media & Tourism / Photography Course through Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We started off with a class meeting.

Our professors took pity on the exhaustion of my fellow, jet-lagged classmates and pushed back our class time an hour so we had extra sleeping time.

We went over our syllabi and started talking about the assignments of both classes and how they may or may not overlap, and then started talking about the "tourist gaze."

We then had a tour of the Edinburgh Castle. 

I have already spent some time in the Edinburgh Castle, so I played tour guide for a few of my classmates as we explored the castle at our own speed for about two hours.

We then headed over to Princes Street for some shopping and walking and talking which was great.

(Have I mentioned how much I enjoy this group of students? It also helps that I have a really good friend on this trip, and the two of us are thick as [very noisy, always laughing] thieves.

Downloading my reading assignment for tomorrow morning,

The Purple Writer

Day 18: Princes Street & Game of Thrones

The first half of today continued the beautiful, sunshiney weather that's perfect for touring in another country. 

We walked over to Princes Street, which was just a few blocks from the Royal Mile we had walked along yesterday. 

We saw the Sir Walter Scott memorial but chose not to pay five pounds to climb up a lot of stairs to the top of it.

The stores along this street were a little more upscale, and one had some pretty impressive whiskey tastings available.

After walking in and alongside the row of shops on the north side of Princes Street, we crossed over and walked through the Princes Street Garden, which was filled with green grass, picnickers, beautiful flowers, and great views of the Edinburgh Castle. 

We eventually made our way down to the Holyrood Palace and walked along the western curve of the Holyrood park until we came back to our apartment's neighborhood.

By this time, the clouds had returned to Edinburgh and it had been lightly raining on us for a little while, so we ate some dinner and then returned to the apartment to give our tired feet a break.

While the other four played Spades, Stephen and I watched 6 episodes of Game of Thrones, because I'd been slacking and hadn't seen any of this season yet.

We enjoy watching shows together, and it was really nice to return to that in the middle of my 7 weeks of sightseeing and study abroad classes in Europe.

Sad everyone can't stay in Edinburgh longer with me,

The Purple Writer