Cheers from Edinburgh

When I walked through Edinburgh for the first time, I was inevitably serenaded with bagpipes. But these weren't bagpipes played by any old man in a kilt (although there are plenty of those too), but by a rock band. As if this wasn't paradoxical enough, I found myself bobbing along to the music like I would at any other show. How did one of the world's most cringe worthy instruments turn into something not only publicly acceptable, but cool?

Because I'm in Scotland of course, the birthplace of the bagpipe. When a cultural staple is put in its own environment it goes from garish to glorious and ceases to be just a quirky piece of culture, but a symbol. Edinburgh, like the bagpipe, may not be pretty in the traditional sense, but once you see past its off kilter nature or come to love it, you realize a hidden beauty. If you're on the right streets or hearing the right notes, what once seemed worn down, now looks well worn, like a city that's broken in for you already.

However I'm having no problem falling in love with this city. Edinburgh has been through a lot: black plagues, monarchy shifts, Sean Connery. Basically it’s a city covered in history, literally since some of the dirt is still on the buildings (during the Industrial Revolution, Edinburgh earned the nickname “Auld Reekie” or old smoky). This is a place that has been lived in, even though today the castle makes a nice backdrop for the weekend farmer's market and not a fortress against invasion. That's the awesome (in all true sense of the word) thing about Scotland, you cannot even go to the pub without getting some story, sinister or sensational, with your stout. Sometimes the pub itself is the story, like the Last Drop Pub where they used to execute people back in the day, but today makes for a low key place to enjoy your cider on a Saturday night like I did.

And if everyone stone you step on doesn't have a story then someone will write one about it. This city is wallpapered in words figuratively speaking. With monuments to poets, not presidents you can see who Edinburgh really values. Whether its reading up on Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, or Robert Louis Stevenson at the charming little Writer's Museum or stopping in one of the many secondhand bookshops, this is the ideal place to get lost in a fictional world. Finally a city and a university that not only appreciates my English literature degree, but raves about it.

Of course there's plenty of pubs to drink at, museums to wander through, societies to join, people to meet, and stores to avoid if I don't want to go broke still. However after only a week, I can tell I am meant to be in this city and that study abroad will be one of the highlights of my twenties.