Edinburgh, Scotland 📍

Hello party people! I had the pleasure of traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland this past weekend! It was an absolutely unique city with an immediate wave of history and culture blasted right in our faces. I traveled with 6 of my friends/flatmates who are also studying theatre through Florida State. Arriving early Friday morning, we immediately absorbed everything Scotland had to offer us. We saw Edinburgh Castle and explored the city center. Per one of our great program leaders suggestions, we went to a grocery store to pick up wine and cheese to have a picnic at the top of Arthur’s Seat, which is a huge mountain overlooking the city of Edinburgh. We chased the sun to the top to make it to a good spot to watch the sunset. Half of us made it to the peak and half of us settled at a cute sub-peak (I’ll let you guess which group I ended up in). After a long and rigorous hike, we regrouped and had our full picnic at the bottom of Arthur’s Seat. We spent the whole next morning exploring Edinburgh and everything it has to offer before we participated in the Edinburgh Pub Crawl. Lunch was spent at the Café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book on a napkin and I had STELLAR avocado toast while imaging looking out the same window Rowling did when she imagined HP. We emotionally and physically prepared for the crawl by laying in a cute little park under Edinburgh Castle. The Pub Crawl had us fully immersed in Scotland’s nightlife scene and gave us an overall great and fun understanding of the diverse Scottish drinking culture. The next day we got up bright and early to check out of our hostel to explore and make the most out of our last day in Scotland. Though it was tempting to buy a kilt, I stuck with some small gifts for my flatmates here in London and for

my friends back at home.

We learned so much about what it means to explore a city for the first time with a large group of friends. My lovely friend Nina made a video of the whole experience, which I'll attach to this blog. I’m so grateful for the first independent trip of this semester and I’m feeling more confident and excited about the trips to come!

Since we've been back in London, this whole past week has been full of introspective thinking due to the shows we've seen over the past few weeks. The theatre here has me feeling so unbelievably inspired and even more excited than ever to be a part of this industry. I feel more ready than ever to see more of what London has to offer after a weekend away. I’ve been missing everyone at home desperately but know now, more than ever, that I’m exactly where I need to be.

Hugs and Kisses

Allie :)