Athena Sobhan

I FINALLY MADE IT TO TWO MONTHS!!!! I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that all this time has passed by so quickly.  It has really been an amazing experience so far, especially this week.

Just like last week, I was focused on my studies, working on my group projects for this week.  I once again opted out of going around the city to work on that as well as getting prepped for my trip to Scotland on the weekend.  

I headed out to King’s Cross Station on Thursday after class to catch my train to Inverkeithing, a town in Scotland not too far from Edinburgh.  When I arrived at the station, I encountered an American man that was being so rude to the person at the information desk, which was not pleasant to be around.  She even asked me to come around him to answer my question and he got annoyed with me, which was annoying but I ignored his snide comments.  Eventually, I finally moved away from the rude man and headed out to catch my train.  The journey lasted 5 hours in total.  It was very scenic and beautiful, even though I slept for a lot of the journey since I was so exhausted from the week.  

Eventually I arrived in Inverkeithing, where I was greeted by my cousin’s friend James and and his lovely mum Helen, who graciously allowed me to stay with them for the weekend.  The first night, they ordered pizza and we all got reacquainted since we hadn’t seen each other in four years.  They have four lovely cats named Spence, Gerard, Diva, and Mary, who were interesting to interact with since cats and I usually don’t mix well, however most of the cats took a liking towards me (Gerard would run away whenever I came into the room).  

We went exploring around Edinburgh over the couple days that I was there and I really enjoyed the atmosphere around the city.  We ate at the Elephant House Cafe where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books back in the 90’s, which had some lovely brownies and tea there and explored a cemetery where a lot of the names in Harry Potter were inspired from.  It was quite creepy, especially the part of the grounds that was gated due to an angry ghost that lived in the area (spooky :o).  I even ran into a girl who also lived in my building back at my apartments in London, which was such a random coincidence.

We also went up to Edinburgh Castle and I got to see the Scottish crown jewels and admired the view of the city.  The sun made the city look even more beautiful that day.  I even got to hold an owl, which was pretty much the highlight of the entire trip.  

Overall, it was an amazing trip and I am so grateful that Helen let me stay with her and her family over the weekend and showed me around the city.  I know that she will be reading this and I just want to say thank you again and that I am so glad that we got to spend time together 🙂 

That was pretty much my week!! I am excited that I have travelled around so much already and now I’m pumped for my next trip to Paris and Zurich.  Cheers for now!!