A Week Later...

It's been a week since my last post, so I felt it was about time to update. The past week was very normal: basic, easy, and rather mundane. It's surprising when you can say that while you're living in Edinburgh, but that's the place I find myself in these days. I've gotten into a pretty decent routine, which has a way of calming you down, but also makes time go by so much faster than you could ever dream of. It's almost been 5 weeks since I arrived in Scotland, which is both amazing and frightening at the same time. I'm really of two minds. One of them yearns for Maine and all that goes with it. The friends and family, the car, the food, the sights, and places, and everything else. But then there's the fact that I'm in an amazing city, with many parts still unexplored.

It definitely took most of the first month to feel at home, but I don't want to feel at home all the time. There's a certain sense of regularity which seems to persuade me not to take risks, and not to do anything new. Stay with what you know, is what I'm often feeling. I can completely understand why this happens. You arrive in a place that you don't know, and despite the fact that I know the language, everything else is unfamiliar. I struggled to find my place, to find food, to find anything that I could label as familiar. It took a while, but now that I feel like I've reached that place, it's very hard to make myself feel like venturing out into the unknown again.

One way that I will be doing this over the next couple weeks is writing essay. A bad example I know, but the academics are different. However, the big adventure will be at the end of March. I've now booked, along with a new found friend, an 11 night tour of Spain and Italy--Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome. That will definitely press my panic button. I know some Spanish, not as much as I used to, and next to no Italian. We'll be staying in rather basic hostels, trying to find cheap food, and be beyond tired. But hey, this is what it's all about in my book. Being able to be in Europe and experience all that it has to offer, though brief, is a chance that I couldn't pass up. While my mind is still trying to deal with spending the money necessary to make it happen, and leave what I know behind, I'm sure that not doing it would have produced bigger regrets.

But as for now the challenge is to find the adventure in the mundane. When you're a student on a limited budget you seldom venture out of your comfort zone. I cook the same couple meals. I go to the same grocery stores. I don't eat out. I walk the same path to and from class each day. While it's great to be a student in Edinburgh, I pray that I can reclaim that sense of adventure again. Maybe not enough to scare me, but enough to remind myself why I'm here. I'm here to experience, not to just pass the time. May it be so.