Justine goes to Scotland!

I am officially leaving Edinburgh in one week. I feel like I just arrived! I know a few people who are already back in the US from their semester abroad. Two of my flatmates moved out already and some are leaving this weekend and the beginning of next week. I am staying until the last possible day along with 4 or 5 of my flatmates. I am glad that there will be people here until the end. After that, I am visiting my flatmate, Sarah, in Ayr for 4 days. Ayr is on the west coast of Scotland. Then I am visiting my other flatmate, Josie, in Newcastle, England for another 4 days. Newcastle is in northern England. Then I am flying from Newcastle to Nice where I meet my family. We will be there for 1 week and then we are traveling to Northern Italy for another week.

I have been spending my last few weeks here just hanging out with my flatmates and other friends. Last weekend the weather was gorgeous! It was in the 70s and I even got sunburn! (I didn’t know that was possible in Scotland). We were in the Meadows a lot that weekend. The Meadows is the park behind the University. We had a BBQ on the Meadows for our flat dinner (all 12 of us!). It was so much fun. I played my first game of touch Rugby. We ended up staying there until around 9:30 pm because it was still light outside! I wish that weather would come back to Scotland. The past few days have been ok, but definitely not warm enough to have a BBQ.

Flat 9 BBQ in the Meadows

My first rugby game

On Tuesday, I went to the Safari Park with Sarah, Steph, Josie, Molly, Luke, and Liz. This is different than a zoo because people can drive through it. I did not know that these existed…I have just seen them on TV and movies. Have you ever seen Jumanji? They drive through a Safari Park in that movie. This park was right outside of Stirling, so we had to take two buses there. It was a great day! We saw lions, rhinos, elephants, mercats, and lemurs! We also went on a boat ride to see the island where the monkeys live and we went paddle boating.