possibly my new favorite place on the planet <3 scotland

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Sorry its been awhile since written a blog! Last week was our first week of teaching and I have been super busy planning/writing lesson plans. My practicum has been a BLAST, but it is really getting me to think about what does and doesn't work for me when I become a teacher. I did my very first, actual lesson on Thursday...My teacher wanted me to do it on commas....not exactly the most exciting of topics. It was a liiiittle shaky for my first lesson...I thought I was introducing the purposes of commas, when it turns out they new a lot more than I thought..and I was called out by one of my students for putting a comma in an incorrect spot...they, apparently, don't use commas the same way we do back in the states....WOOPS! Sooo, that was that haha...however I LOVE my teacher Ms. Dwyer...she has been nothing but helpful and gave me some great feedback! I felt a lot better about it once I talked to her. And she is super excited about my lesson I will be teaching on apostrophes! I know, SO exciting! But she said she really liked my lesson plan, so I was excited! I also taught 2 classes baseball!! Yes...around 60 kids at one time....THAT scared me at first, but it turned out really well and the kids were HILARIOUS playing baseball! But they loved it and we had an awesome time!

QUICK OVERVIEW OF BARCELONA: SO pretty! Reallllly smelly, LOVED the beach...my skin is still thanking me for burning it lol...saw A LOT of body parts at the beach.....LOVED las ramblas and La Familia was possibly one of the most beautiful buildings I have or will ever see in my entire life..Barcelona was beautiful <3

But anyways...Scotland...

Walking down the steps to the train to leave Scotland was possibly the most depressing moment of my life...I DID NOT want to leave! I loved Edinburgh...plain and simple.

The minute we left the train station when we got there we heard bagpipes and, of course, we all flipped out! haha..We stayed in Edinburgh, which was BEAUTIFUL! It was the perfect size...actually pretty small, but really easy to get around. This was the first time we didn't have to take a train, subway, or bus anywhere! And the walking was no where near as bad as it was any place else we've been! The first day we went up in the Scott Monument and had a GORGEOUS view of Edinburgh..then we spent some time in the park and ate the best mint chocolate chip ice cream ever 😊

One morning while I was there I woke up to a small brass band outside my window! That was different..we stayed in a really cool hostel and had a 38 person room! We were nervous about it at first, but it turned out to be completely fine..there were really nice people staying there! It was a nice change from our last hostel in Barcelona where no one talked to anyone..we went sightseeing both days and went on a free walking tour..our tour guide was great! He had a ton of really cool stories to tell about the city. We learned about the stone of destiny, some ghost stories, and Greyfriars Bobby! We also went into the coolest souvenir shops haha...they had some fun stuff everywhere.

We also met a bunch of people from Denmark and America while we were on our Scottish visit..we went out with them both nights, one of which was a Pub Crawl...that was definitely an experience, especially since our new buddies were Danish and the Pub Crawl was during Denmark's football match of the World Cup...they were going nuts. I definitely had a blast with them, they all had great senses of humor and they were all fun to chat with.

In a nutshell...I loved everything about Edinburgh 😊 It was the time of my life, so far, and I did not want the weekend to end. If I had to choose one place to go back to that we've been to so far, it would definitely be Scotland..I really want to go during Christmas time! I heard it's beautiful 😊 I'm not going to lie though, eating Haggis again is one thing I can do without next time...

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Comments

[Janet]

Love reading your blog
Abby, I visited Edinbourgh, Scotland in 1998. I also loved it and could move there in a minute. Your pix are great. We are in MN for the summer. Hope all continues to go well for you and the time will fly quickly. Maybe I will see you in the Fall. Love, Janet