Edinburgh

5/22/17

Today it was a bitter sweet because our time in London came to an end.  We woke up early and caught a train to Edinburgh, Scotland.  Once we got to Scotland, we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and then went out.  I must say I really like Edinburgh.  Surprisingly, all the places that I wasn’t as excited about to visit previous to the study abroad, turned out to be my favorite.  

We started off by hiking up Arthur’s Seat which is the high point of Edinburgh.  It was super windy at the top, but the view was beautiful.  You could see all of Edinburgh from up there.  We then took the backside of Arthur’s Seat back down and walked to the national monument and explored some of the structures there.  Their national monument looks like a small version of Zeus’s Temple in Greece.  It’s crazy because from far away it doesn’t look that big, but then when you get right up close to it, it’s HUGE!  After that as we headed back to the apartment we ended up passing by Scott’s Monument, which is this Cathedral looking thing.  It was pretty cool.  

As far as my cultural observation goes for today, coming to Scotland, I assumed that the people here would speak similar to the people in London.  However, I found out pretty quickly that they sound pretty different.  I thought it was actually harder for me to understand the people here rather than the people in London.  It’s crazy that even within English, there are so many different phrases and words that people use that may or may not be used in other parts of the world.  I assumed that I would at least understand from context what someone was trying to say, but I was wrong.  I’ve become fascinated with language and find it so interesting that each language is so different.  The cool thing is how everyone from a particular country can speak that given language and communicate.  

To end the night, seeing that it was raining, a handful of us bought trash bags, hiked back up to Arthur’s Seat and slid down.  Although I was freezing my butt off, it was probably one of the funnest things I did this whole trip.  It was just super spontaneous and it was just a lot of fun to be with everyone having a good time.  It’s crazy that the study abroad is almost over!    

5/23/17

Today we had our last business visit with a company called Royal London.  They were in the insurance industry, and it was really interesting to hear more about this industry seeing that majority of us students didn’t really know too much about it before.  A question was asked about how they verify whether or not a claim from the insured is valid or not, and the answer was that apparently they take the insured person’s word for it when a claim is filed.  With that being said, roughly 60-70 percent of all the claims that are filed normally don’t require extra evidence for validation, but the remaining 30-40 percent do.  Something that I thought about during the presentation was how this company makes money.  I would assume that you have a bunch of business’s/individuals who want insurance (e.g. life insurance) and so they pay premiums every month.  I would suppose that the actuaries working for the company figure out how likely it is for a claim to be filed, because it seems that in order to make money, the amount of premiums that they are receiving from customers is greater than the amount they are paying out for claims that are filed.  

My cultural observation for the day was that I’ve noticed that in the U.K., with every business visit that we’ve had, all the presenters to start have always told us what to do in case of an emergency (e.g. fire).  I feel like this is something that isn’t common in the U.S.  I don’t feel like presenters go over that before a presentation in the States.  Maybe it’s protocol, I’m not sure.  Just interesting to see the differences in cultures, whether they be big or small.  

After the business visit, and later on in the evening, we had our closing banquet.  It’s just crazy to think that we have come to the end of our study abroad.  It was nice to just be together as a group one last time and to recap our study abroad and reminisce about all the places that we had seen and to think about the experiences that we’d had.  The food was cherry as well.

We ended the night by doing a tour of some of the ancient tunnels in Edinburgh.  We heard stories about the ancient city and how part of the city was believed to be haunted.  We actually went down into some of the tunnels and they were pitch black only illuminated by candles.  Not gonna lie, but it was actually kind of creepy to be down there.  But nonetheless, it was a fun activity to do with some of the group.  Can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow for Italy!  

5/24/17

Today was our last day in Edinburgh and we went as a group this morning to Edinburgh Castle.  It was huge and quite the structure.  It never ceases to amaze how old these structures are.  Coming from America, when I see all these structures in real life and learn about how old they are, it makes it seem that America doesn’t have any history and just puts into perspective just how old Europe and other parts of the world are compared to America.  

It’s pretty crazy that the study abroad has come to an end.  It’s weird, it feels like I’ve been away from home for a while, but at the same time, it feels like this past month flew by.  I’ve really enjoyed my time traveling all throughout Europe.  I think the biggest thing that I took away from this trip is that people all around the world are happy and I’ve realized how my upbringing in the U.S. has influenced the way I view the U.S.  For example, coming on this study abroad, I had this view that America is the best and that other countries in the world would love to come and visit the U.S.  I was completely wrong.  I’ve found that in the U.S. we are raised to believe and think that we are the best, however, throughout the whole world you can find people who are happy and content where they are.  It’s been a great experience for me so see and experience different cultures as well as give me a better idea if I would like to live and work abroad.  I’d say after this experience and in traveling to all the different countries, there is only one place that I could see myself living and working in and that is London.  

I’m really glad I was able to come on this study abroad and will always remember this experience!