Well, folks, I’m back in Austria.1 The United Kingdom was a lot of fun, though, and I managed to squeeze in a trip up to Scotland at the end.2 And let me tell you, folks, I am very glad I did – only got a day and two nights up there, but it was definitely enough time for me to absolutely fall in love with the city.
It’s a couple different things, really – thanks to Rebecca and her family, I’ve had a deep love of the Scottish accent for quite a while.3 And secondly, Edinburgh specific, is the fact that it’s an old city in a very different way than any of the other European cities I’ve seen this semester. Vienna has a very distinct architectural style, and as long as you stay in the first district you’ll only see, like, four buildings that don’t match that. Prague’s specific style is enforced by the World Heritage Organization. And I don’t really approve of that – it makes for a nice tourism industry, yeah, but living there, you can get bored of it all pretty quickly.
Edinburgh didn’t have that problem – yes, it’s easy to tell that it’s old and a lot of the stuff has been there for a while, but there’s a sense of freedom to the architecture, and the way it varies, that I just didn’t get from anywhere else. I loved it.4
But hey, time to share the love, and that means pictures.
