Every day skillz, gotta get 'em
So I haven't really posted a proper update in a while, and that's because classes started to pick up around November and I've been a total bum for the last 5 weeks. Not much of an update there! Haha.
That is, there wasn't much of one until yesterday. I went to Edinburgh to see one of my friends from the states who is in Scotland for a few days. It was a pretty wonderful day, we went to the castle, had fancy afternoon tea, and went to a pretty sweet bar in the evening.
It was the first time I've ever traveled to a city by myself without driving there, I was pretty proud of myself for getting there, but going home is another story. I got on the train home, and an hour later I was 2 hours away from where I needed to be. I got on the train to Dundee, when I needed to go to Dunblane. The conductor was nice enough to help me figure out how to get home. which mostly involved going all the way back to Edinburgh and taking a train from there, but what really got me was when I went to get off the train he said to me "when you get on the next train, just play the tourist card, they should just let you go back."
To be honest at first this phrase felt like a defeat. I've been living here for almost 5 months and I can't figure out how to properly take the train home. But then I realized I was acting like a tourist. Yes, I'm studying here and the day to day is kind of like I live here, but I don't have the same natural sense of where everything is in relation to another like I did in Michigan. I've never had to rely on anything but my car to take me somewhere, I always just use my GPS to tell me how to get there. I haven't taken the time to learn to do things I'm not used to since we've moved.
The thing is, I live here, but if I want to actually live here, I need to learn normal day-to-day skills that people who are from here already know. I'm not saying that I plan to stay here forever, but I need to try to function as if I will. Because getting home 4 hours later than I wanted to is exhausting and kind of not fun.
That is, there wasn't much of one until yesterday. I went to Edinburgh to see one of my friends from the states who is in Scotland for a few days. It was a pretty wonderful day, we went to the castle, had fancy afternoon tea, and went to a pretty sweet bar in the evening.
Look at how fancy this is!
It was the first time I've ever traveled to a city by myself without driving there, I was pretty proud of myself for getting there, but going home is another story. I got on the train home, and an hour later I was 2 hours away from where I needed to be. I got on the train to Dundee, when I needed to go to Dunblane. The conductor was nice enough to help me figure out how to get home. which mostly involved going all the way back to Edinburgh and taking a train from there, but what really got me was when I went to get off the train he said to me "when you get on the next train, just play the tourist card, they should just let you go back."
To be honest at first this phrase felt like a defeat. I've been living here for almost 5 months and I can't figure out how to properly take the train home. But then I realized I was acting like a tourist. Yes, I'm studying here and the day to day is kind of like I live here, but I don't have the same natural sense of where everything is in relation to another like I did in Michigan. I've never had to rely on anything but my car to take me somewhere, I always just use my GPS to tell me how to get there. I haven't taken the time to learn to do things I'm not used to since we've moved.
The thing is, I live here, but if I want to actually live here, I need to learn normal day-to-day skills that people who are from here already know. I'm not saying that I plan to stay here forever, but I need to try to function as if I will. Because getting home 4 hours later than I wanted to is exhausting and kind of not fun.
Special thanks to Bethany for letting me constantly whine at her until I got home
(also for letting me steal this picture from her instagram)
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