Traveling Tuesdays

Image Credit: Amanda Robinson

I love traveling and hope to go on many more adventures in my short life. "Traveling Tuesdays" is going to take place every Tuesday. I will talk about a different traveling experience, and I hope to hear about yours! Traveling may not always go as planned, there are delays, time issues, and unexpected occurrences just happen. That what makes it more fun though, and also better stories. 

I decided to start off by talking about my IUSB study abroad trip to England and Scotland that I took last summer while five months pregnant with my daughter.

I planned on going on this trip with my best friend who was also attending IUSB. It was going to be our last chance to do something fun while in college, so we turned in all the paperwork and got our passports. Of course, life happens and I found out I was pregnant. You think that would stop me from experiencing this once in a lifetime journey. Heck no!

I packed some extra snacks, kissed my two sons and boyfriend goodbye and headed out on a shuttle bus to catch a plane in Chicago. We learned fast that traveling does not always go as planned. We ended up being two days late getting to London, due to an accident on the toll road and we missed our original flight.

Quick tip #1: If traveling long distances while prego, then wear tight socks and shoes. If not, your ankles and feet might swell up like water balloons!

London was a blast. We saw all kinds of museums, the West Minister Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Kensington Palace, just to name a few.

Quick tip #2: Do not ask guards at Kensington Palace for directions. I am not sure if it was my American accent that turned this guard off, but, as I was walking towards him with a map he was getting his baton out of the holster and looked as if he was going to beat me with no mercy. The look on my face must have said it all, or it was my friend’s yells for me to stop walking towards him, but I turned around quickly and got out of that place. The guard did not follow me, thank god.

One thing that was really hard for me to deal with, besides my cankles, was that finding ice cold drinks, or anything for that matter, was hard to come by. I never realized how spoiled I was with having ice in my water, nor have I ever craved ice so bad in my life.

After our visit in London, we got on a train to head to Edinburgh in Scotland. We even saw the famous Platform 9 ¾, at the train station in London, where Harry Potter was filmed.

Once we were in Edinburgh, one of our daily adventures was to go on a bus and tour Scotland. The orange Hairy Coo bus pulled up with the words “Honk if your Horny” on the back and I knew instantly this would be a ride of a lifetime. The driver had a lot of personality to add, along with his Scottish accent. I felt like I was on an episode of The Magic School Bus.

I remember at one point we had been driving for a while and I started to see the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. We were entering the Highlands. The giant green hills mixed with the perfectly placed clouds made my heart melt. I’m not sure if it was because I was already extra hormonal, but tears just started rolling down my cheeks. I had this huge overwhelming feeling of emotions and apparently couldn’t contain it anymore. The beauty literally made me cry.

The picture above is me at a castle overlooking the Highlands. Basically on top of the world, at least it felt like it. It was quite a long hike to get up there.

Overall this trip was an amazing experience. If you are interested reading more stories about this fun expedition, then you can visit Blogs the class wrote while we were overseas at IUSB London Edinburgh 2015. 

Touring London and Scotland, feeding hairy coos bread, learning all the history, and being able to go inside the creepy castles were all worth all the discomforts of being pregnant and traveling. It really was not that bad. I paced myself as best as possible, and everyone understood if I needed to slow down.

Has anyone been on a study abroad trip or plan to in the future? I am so glad that I was able to go. I highly recommend it! I hear there are wonderful spring break study abroad trips to Costa Rica!