Made it late but safe and sound back to St. Louis and this time so did my baggage! With all the rainfall last week there’s apparently been a recent installment of a waterfall at the gate area, so we had to deplane on the tarmac and take a bus to the baggage carousels, but that just adds the cherry on top to what a mess traveling for this trip has been.
For our last day in Scotland, we went back to Edinburgh for lunch at Innis & Gunn and walked around a little bit. Then back to Stirling to pack up everything.
We had a Ceilidh to celebrate the end of the program and learned a bunch of traditional dances!
Ceilidh Dance Video 1 Ceilidh Dance Video 2 Ceilidh Dance Video 3
Finished my final portfolio project today: https://marisasmeadows01.myportfolio.com
Today was Addie’s 21st birthday so we surprised her with a picnic dinner by the loch on campus and did a mini bar hop from Curly Coo to Nicky Tams, the oldest bar in Stirling with very cute interior design.
Tonight we did an escape room at the Stirling Jail – we did not escape but we did have fun and tried multiple things that the worker said were firsts. After we went out to the Mint Leaf for some amazing Indian Food.
It had been a couple days since my luggage was supposed to land in Edinburgh, so one of our ISS staff was able to take me to a warehouse by the airport where all the late luggage was sitting waiting to be delivered. Sure enough, mine was there – and I think there was a lot of Air Canada bags there because when I told them what airline I was with he said, “Oh yeah, I know exactly where that pile is.” Crazy that it took this long, but I’m glad I was able to get it back before leaving again. That evening we did the Darn Walk into the city for some ice cream.
I wanted a little more than just watching church online today, so I found Cornerstone Community Church that meets in Wallace High School (just a 20 minute walk from Campus) and felt right at home sitting in the fold up chairs. There was a lot of Stirling students there that I got to sit with and talk to which was awesome. Then I just went back to campus to give my feet a break and actually get to work on the “study” half of my study abroad.
Finally got to get out and experience the real Scottish weather – went back to Alva to hike through the Alva Glen. My maps steered me wrong again but this time it was 100% worth it because I got to frolic through a field fo sheep and actually made it to my final destination eventually (Smuggler’s Cove). Ended the night going into town for a karaoke night and learned that “Country Roads” is as much if not more popular in the UK.
We finally took our photography class excursion to Glencoe. We ended up going a lot of the same places that I had been on my Highlands tour last weekend, so I pretty much already had all the pictures I ended up using.
Day trip to St. Andrews; luckily we missed the chaos of the big open last week, but there were still some tents set up in a field and you could see the patches of grass where the other hundred tents were. I had an amazing strawberry tart (and hot chocolate) for breakfast; we mostly just walked around shopping and wandering on the beach since none of us could really care less about golf (though literally every other store was a golf store). I did almost have to throw hands with a seagull as it swooped down to get my crumbs as I went to the trash can – I literally almost punched it in the beak before it would leave me alone.
