Onnnn My Waaaay....Home.

Fringe University '13

Before I get to the depressing stuff: last night we went to Villager & Frankenstein as our last night out. It was sad since our group went from 10 to 4, but we had fun anyway!

Frankenstein test tube shots:
last legal drinks for a year...unless I move to Europe
in the spring for co-op :)

I guess now would be a good time to explain the "on my way" reference over past few days. Our flat was located in George Square, right across the street from the main Assembly Venue, and right behind the main Meadows walk that leads to Chambers Street and the Royal Mile. Throughout the festival, street performers would line up along the Meadows walk to sing, play instruments, or even one guy set up an area for acrobatics.  Anyway, there was a guy who would consistently set up on the bench outside of Sainsbury (within eyesight of our living room window) and sing one of two songs on repeat. Every single day. Day in and day out. We didn't really notice the first few days, but after a while it got to the point that his voice was ringing in the back of our heads even when he wasn't out there.  We're still not totally sure what the song actually was, but "on my way" constantly reverberated up to our flat until one day last week during class we decided to open the window and yell back "where ya goin'?!" He definitely paused for a second, finished the song, and we never heard from him again.  Anyway, long story short...we're onnnnn ouuuur wayyy home & the festival is on its way out.

 

Assembly George Square during set-up 

...During the festival

And break-down...  

Underbelly during set-up

During the festival

Break-down...

I'm currently sitting at our gate in the Edinburgh airport. It's 1:30 and we've been here since around 9:40. We left the flat at 9 after dragging our huge bags down the 44 step spiral staircase and piling into a rather tiny taxi. 

50lb limit? No problem.

Allison's flight to Heathrow is at 11:50, Julie's to Dublin is at 1 and Gayle and I are headed to London at 1:45. We knew we were way early, but I'm one of those safe than sorry people, plus by leaving early the four of us split the taxi so we didn't have to deal with the Airlink bus.

We arrived at the airport and went straight for the check in counter to print our boarding passes. Turns out everything is self-serve here too. I started noticing that back at the grocery stores when there were longer lines to go to self check out than there were for the actual person cashier. I don't know if thats some kind of 'anti-social technology age' thing, or just a perceived convenience of doing it yourself, but all I know is self check out is most definitely NOT convenient when you're trying to use an American card in Europe.  So we went to the kiosk to print everything but the system rejected our confirmation numbers because we were too early. Allison went through and Gayle and I went to Costa to sit and wait since there's not much to do in an airport before going through security.

At 10:45 on the dot we went back to the kiosk, printed and tagged everything, and went up to security. More self-service kiosks!!! Instead of the person standing there checking passports, there were turnstiles. We scanned and got through security without a problem, then headed to gate 10 to find Allison. We sat with her for a few minutes until her plane started boarding then went over to gate 11 to wait for ours.

Not that I was at all surprised but our plane was the only one on the board listed as delayed. It turned out to be only 20 minutes so I don't really even consider that a delay, but I found it pretty ironic that each of our four flights this trip were all delayed. The flight was super short, and when we landed we were able to bypass security because it was a domestic flight. We followed the signs for connecting flights and ended up in the main Terminal 5 waiting area. Finding Allison was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Our original plan was to just meet at the gate, but Heathrow doesn't list the gates until 30 minutes before the flight so Gayle and I walked around for a little and got food. While we were in line to pay Allison found us so that made life easier. 

Finally our gate came up on the screen so we went to find that. Two trolly rides and a walk  through a rather quiet and creepy terminal later we found our gate. Heathrow gives you 45 minutes of free wifi so I started that on my phone, gave all of the necessary social media updates, texted my parents, and by the time I was done that they started boarding. So much for a delay...we were boarding early! Definitely not complaining though.

 Eight hours later we landed in Philly. Good ol' Philly. The flight wasn't terrible. It was about an hour and a half longer than going because of the jet stream but we didn't have any annoying French kids sitting in front of us so that was good. The line at customs took forever because they didn't separate US/International passports, but we were in no rush.

Customs:

Have you been near livestock or on a farm?

No.

[hey mste israel people: barry much?! haha]

Do you have any edible items in your luggage?

No.

8/30 Update: I'm home safe and sound. I didn't hit my head on the ceiling when I got into the shower for the first time in a month, and sleeping in my nice big comfy bed was beyond words fantastic. Waking up alone and not waiting in line for the bathroom was weird, great, and depressing to say the least. 

Now it's time to go through all of those flagged emails and that two page long to-do-asap list. Jet lag isn't really a problem since I'm pretty sure we never actually got on Scotland time, and unpacking is more like repacking since I have about a week and a half before heading back to school.

Mom & Dad, thank you for making this trip possible. These past five weeks feel unreal; I had an amazing time, learned and experienced so much, and I am definitely a different person than when I left. I love you so much, and as much as I'd love to stay in Scotland forever, it's great to be home.

 Until next time...