Travel, Travel, Travel, Travel.

April 1, 2010

So much flying! I left SPU on the morning of March 31st at NINE o'clock after a lovely night with my beautiful roommate, Kathleen, and our wonderful houseguest, Sadie. After gathering at the Sea-Tac airport, we boarded the plane and set off for the wide blue yonder. Over nine hours later, we landed in Amsterdam at EIGHT AM on April 1st! Crazy amounts of time change. It felt great to finally be on our way after the months and months of planning.

After a short lay-over in the Amsterdam Airport (5th largest in Europe) and the learning of the German for "elbow," (it's elbowgen, if you were wondering) and we got back on a plane headed for Scotland!

We are now in (snowy?!?) Edinburgh and are extremely tired. A bus ride to the hotel to drop off our bags and we recieved our first adventurous assignment from Dr. Reinsma: Find Blackwells (a large bookstore) and our HUGE, FREE copies of the complete Chaucer. We wandered for a while but eventually found it, with the help of some friendly locals.

On the way back to the hotel, Chaucer tomes in hand, we stopped in for a spot of tea at the Black Medicine Coffee Co. where (drum roll please) JK Rowling wrote the beginnings of the Harry Potter series! We are sure that we are now destined to all write epic masterpieces as a result of our encounter with this obviously magical location. We have plans to return tomorrow to begin work.

Back to the hotel, checked in to our beautiful quad room with windows overlooking a huge park, we are all trying very hard NOT to nap and it's very difficult. The goal is to stay up until at least Eight PM so as to beat the jeg-lag phenomenon. Showers and food restore some health and off again through the blustery day!