Did I Mention my Family's Scotlish?

So in case you missed the last post - go read it. This one is about to pick up where the other ended, and you'll just be confused :)

After our amazing trek up Arthur's Seat we were all famished and found the cute restaurant on campus. I actually ordered a pot of tea because I was chilled and have decided I rather like a good cup of tea now and then - who knew? Anyways, after our cute lunch we headed into town to find this 'ghost tour' that had Alyssa and Andrea intrigued. I'm not a fan of ghosts, and not to upset any of them reading this, but I don't really believe in them either... I guess I've never been around people that do share this belief or have encountered one. I also don't do well with scary. I hate scary movies and jump fairly easily. But we were in Scotland and there were underground vaults to explore... We had a wonderful tour guide who spooked the shit out of me(pardon my language, but he did!) The history of the underground vaults was fascinating in itself, but every room had it's own ghost that had it's own story. A little boy is one of the most frequently seen ghosts because he enjoys holding a woman's hand or playing with children on the tour. Our tour guide told us to take our mittens off and leave our hands by our sides to have a better chance of meeting him. This did not happen. While I left my gloves off, one hand was wrapped around Andrea's arm, the other was in a fist in my coat. Did i mention that it's pitch black and you're underground? The only torch that traveled down with us was the one the tour guide held and he turned it off whenever he pleased. But we made it out alive and he promised us the ghosts wouldn't follow us out of the vaults. We were given a shot of scotch and shortbread cookies at the end; which I thankfully took to ease my nerves, which were a tad bit on edge.
After that crazy experience we walked to The Elephant Room, where JK Rowling dreamed up and wrote the Harry Potter series which I so adore. As we looked for dinner places on Saturday night we discovered something we had all forgotten about...Everyone was celebrating Valentine's Day..and we couldn't get in anywhere. Not even Pizza Express! We eventually split up and Ashley, Lindsey and I found an open table at "wannaburger," which turned out to be cheap and very good. I ended my meal with the best milkshake i've had since we arrived. It was finally thick! For some reason everyone over here likes making really really thin milkshakes, but this place did a superb job.

We had a few drinks at the hostel, but were completely worn out from the whole climbing a mountain thing so went to bed a little after midnight. Before going to bed I tried to talk to one of the guys sharing the room with us; I had talked to one of the girls he was with before and she had spoken English and told me they were French and would be there for three days. Well I decided to ask him how his day was. He said good; it was an easy enough questions.
I tried to continue; "Will you guys be going to the Castle tomorrow?"
He replies, "oh, oh, Newcastle."
"No, I'm sorry, the Edinburgh Castle, are you going?"
"Newcastle, Newcastle."
I laugh, not because he was not understanding me, but because this is the first language barrier I had ever encountered and i didn't know what to do with myself.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I not speak English."
I smile and apologize myself, "No, No, I'm sorry, I don't speak a word of French."
We smile at each other, and we both hop into bed. I still look back and smile at how American it was of me to assume everyone spoke English...

We got up early, packed up, and ate our last free breakfast before heading to the train for our ride home. We all discussed going home, only to moments later comment on the fact that we had just called London home. But I'm sitting in my bed, in my flat, which I call home. And i'm completely content. Sure I still have my ups and downs, I still miss certain people so much it hurts sometimes, and wish I was able to fly back for friends birthdays, but i've only got 71 days left of living in London to continue to experience everything I possibly can. Sometimes I dread the number because it seems too long to be away from Bennett and sometimes I dread that number because I feel I still have so much to see. These mixed emotions are finally hitting and sometimes I struggle to put them in their place, but overall I'm loving life, learning new things about myself, and what I can accomplish on my own.