The Dog Days Are Over

1. Happy September, blogotron readers! I am leaving for Scotland in two weeks. This is exciting! And terrifying! etc! I originally started this blog to write about grad school and my experiences living abroad and we are FINALLY GETTING THERE. In the meantime there are lots of feelings to process and many, many things to do. Soon there will be lots to blog about and probably not enough time to talk about it all. Thanks for sticking around even when things were boring. If you're new, welcome and thanks for dropping by!

2. I feel like I should mention this somewhere, but I can't figure out where else to put it. So - I guess I am putting it here. I have been to Scotland before, exactly once. In the summer of 2008, I went on a study abroad program through UNH at Cambridge University. It was a lot of fun, and one of the trips we could go on would bring us to Edinburgh for a weekend. While we were there, almost the entire group - myself included - had food poisoning, putting a bit of a damper on the whole experience. I distinctly remember feeling like hell but dragging myself down the Royal Mile, through a theatre festival, through The Scotch Whiskey Experience where we were given shots, through the Museum of Childhood, and trying to sleep on every available flat surface. (It was a strange time.) That was Day 1. (For the record, night #1 - prior to Day 1 - involved accidentally wandering into a Scottish punk club. It was awesome.)

By Day 2 I was feeling 100% better, and finally got to see the city - perhaps not in its entirety but significant portions of it. And I fell in love with Scotland. I felt like I was the only one who had fun, and I had completely forgotten about that until I revisited my diary from that trip. "You know how people talk about how they fall in love with a place the second they set foot there? That pretty accurately summarizes my feelings about Scotland. It was all so beautiful and so perfect; I could spend the rest of my life there. I was so immediately comfortable in a way I hadn't expected. I hope one day I get to go back."

GUESS WHAT, FORMER SELF. YOU ARE GOING BACK. Bet you didn't see that coming. This is going to be awesome.