Homestay Weekend

I didn't actually stay in this castle (Lowther Castle) but we can pretend

One of the tenets of my study abroad program is the mandatory homestay weekend that all students must take part in.  During a homestay weekend, students are sent off to live with a family for the weekend, which will hopefully give some insight into what real life - not student life - is like in the UK. This past weekend was mine.

What I Did This Week

Snow falling on Drummond Street on Feb 13, the day before my family arrived. Snow's not uncommon here, but it rarely ever sticks because it's not quite cold enough. 

This week was probably one of the best I've had since I came to Edinburgh, due to a few different things. Firstly, and probably most importantly, my family came to visit this week! My brother's high school (read: my old high school) had the week off for February break, which just happened to coincide with the University of Edinburgh's Innovative Learning Week (for some students, it's a week to present projects, for me it was a week off). So, my parents and brother flew out and arrived on Valentine's Day to hang out and explore Edinburgh with me. 

It seems as though my family brought that blinding winter sunshine that is so typical to New York with them, because we had incredible weather all week. This hasn't happened to me at all in Edinburgh yet - although there have been a decent number of sunny, rain free days, I hadn't yet experienced this many in a row. My family visiting, the great weather, and the lack of school definitely contributed to my improved mood this week. 

Write It Out

Not an exciting travel post, and no pretty pictures of Edinburgh today. Instead, I'm talking about calendars! Because that's really exciting!

agenda: Ban.do (sold out)

One of the biggest things that stressed me out when I first arrived in Edinburgh was the thought of being here until May. There was something about the blank space of 140 days between January first and May twenty-first that really, really freaked me out. I knew in the back of my mind that pretty soon school would start and that would help fill in some of the time, but it still scared me. It felt like forever. It still feels like a pretty long time.

On February first I was really excited. I had made it an entire month in Edinburgh, despite telling myself over and over on day three that I was going home, that I wouldn't have to stay. I'd been desperate to go home, I'd told myself that I would be going home, I'd cried and wished I would wake up at home, but I had made it an entire month. But then I realized, or remembered, that I'm here for four months. And while I had made it through the first one, I still had three more to go. I wasn't even halfway there yet.