Life's a Beach: No Work and All Play

One of our family friend, Alison, owns a company in Edinburgh that runs courses for English teachers from all over Europe. She let me help out with one of the courses right after I got back from Finland, and so I worked pretty intensely for a week, but it wasn't all work. Part of having the teachers there was showing them Edinburgh in the hopes that they would come back with their students. That meant I got to play tourist with them and see some things I hadn't seen yet around Edinburgh.

One day we took a bus tour, and around Old Town and New Town, which are very close to where I live, we passed so many places I would love to go back to and see properly.

One thing we did stop for was to see Fettes College. This is so random, but I saw this massive building on the bus coming back from Skye and I wondered what it was. When we pulled up in front of it, I realized that's what I saw from the bus. All I can say is that I wish my high school had been that beautiful!

I also realized I really want to go to Newhaven. The harbor is beautiful and the Waters of Leith join the Firth of Forth (I promise those are all real things) within walking distance, so I hope I can make it down there sometime.

After the bus tour, we went to the real event - dinner. We went to a pub in Duddingston called the Radical Road. There we had fish and chips and mushy peas - very good! After dinner, we headed over to another pub called the Sheep's Heid. That's the oldest pub in Edinburgh and there they have a really old bowling alley - actually, it's called skittles, but it's the same thing. So we got to play skittles, which was really fun and I got to talk to and get to know some of the teachers.

To get home, we had to walk around Holyrood Park, so naturally it was a beautiful walk and since Edinburgh is so far north we could still see some things at 11pm.

One day the only thing I really had to do was walk everyone to the movie theater, but we met a lot earlier than we needed to, so I took everyone to the Mound for a little detour, since the weather was really nice.

The other cool thing I got to tag along to was the trip down the east coast. The first stop was lunch on Portobello Beach. We had packed sandwiches and fruit and stuff for everyone and we all sat and looked out at the sea while we ate. Luckily it was a gorgeous day, so you could see everything.

Then we went to see castles (I mean, what else is there to do in Scotland?). The first one we went to was called Dirleton Castle. We got a little tour of their gardens, which were so impressive. Again, we lucked out with the weather, so the sun made it all look so perfect. I felt uncomfortable walking on the grass because it was all so pristine. The castle was also pretty cool, but there wasn't too much of it left and we didn't have that much time there.

Our next stop was another castle - Tantallon. Before we went into the castle, we took a break for scones and shortbread - staples in Scotland - and some much needed tea. By then the clouds had rolled in and it had cooled off. After our break, I warmed up by climbing around the massive castle. It is surprisingly big and would have been quite impressive in its prime. It's made of red sandstone, which is unusual for east-coast castles, so it has quite a unique look to it.

Another unique feature is that it's built on a cliff that looks over the North Sea. The view is amazing. Also in sight from the castle is Bass Rock, which is a bird sanctuary. It has hundreds of thousands of birds that live there, so from land it looks white. I couldn't take a picture of it, but there's also a cloud of birds flying over it, which is pretty crazy looking.

After the second castle, we drove back to Edinburgh.

Those were the highlights of my week working with Alison. It was an intense week and I had to work a few late nights, but I loved it so much. It didn't feel like work a lot of the time. I helped run around and bring people things, make copies, and help entertain the teachers, but I also got to tag along on the trips. I hope I will be working with Alison again in October.

That course ran Sunday to Saturday, so I had the weekend to myself, but the following Tuesday I went to Dundee. My mom works with a personality profile company called Insights, and the world headquarters happen to be in Dundee, Scotland, which is an hour by train away from Edinburgh. She arranged for me to talk to the translations team there and learn about what they do and about the company.

Someone from the translations team, Paul, met me and showed me around a little bit and then talked about what he does, what their translators do, how he got started as a translator, what the company does, and all the languages that the company uses. He talked with me for three hours. I can't believe how nice he was and how helpful that was. I feel like I know what I should do if I want to move into the field of translations or just learn more about it as a possible future career opportunity.

After my wonderful tour and mini shadowing, I headed back to the center of Dundee, walked around a bit, and then got back on the train to go back to Edinburgh.