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While the plan of not planning can take you to the more unexpected corners of a country, it can teach you a lesson in just how much to plan further on in the future with, say, other trips. Studying abroad in the UK has yet been my biggest adventure and I have yet to regret the decision of leaving a comfortable life behind to settle for a month in an unfamiliar place with so many unfamiliar faces. The residents of Dundee and all cities surrounding have been welcoming and comforting to myself and the Purdue Study Abroad group attending. Some more welcoming and excited than others, such as Ronnie at the Ninewells Hospital.

After about a long roaming tour of the Ninewells Hospital here in Dundee, I trust that I know the ins and outs of the hospital. From Frank Gehry’s “Maggie’s Centre” out back above the landscape to the hospitalization learning center for students underground, the Ninewells hospital is equipped with many features I was seeing for the first time. The atmosphere gathered an entirely new focus and theme regarding the student’s performance skills. Hands on activity is emphasized in an entirely different fashion with microphones about the ceiling and mirrored windows for supervision purposes.

Aside from the post-industrial aspects of Dundee’s newer technologies, we went back a few years or so to the Dunnottar Castle dating back to the late 16th early 17th century in Stonehaven, Scotland. Cliffs as high as 5 story buildings held the ruins of a castle so old, only sea gulls and pigeons dared to live in the dark fireplaces and cracks of its remains. Dunnottar Castle inhabited some of the most beautiful sights I had ever witnessed in life with shores similar to that of what you would find in a Pirate of the Caribbean film, large rocks where the sea meets to the shore for daring adults like ourselves to hop across for a simple look into the life under its waters. And the waters of Scotland, let me tell you about the waters of Scotland.

Our next big adventure as a group consisted of fish, bridges, and airplanes just meters overhead. On our trip to the Pitlochry Dam, streams lined the streets and cottage houses along the way. The dam was quiet and content on one side while it’s process created stirring and blundering water over the rocks on the other side. Myself and two other group members walked into town after learning about the dam, discovering a bridge not so still with pedestrians walking across, and not to mention my first fish and chips since arriving in Scotland.

 Next up was the Edradour Distillery in Pitlochry which was my first experience at a distillery. This trip gathered a many first for me as it was my first hiking experience, my first tall waterfall (which was not man-made as I was expecting the entire time), and my first beverage tasting experience.  Above the treelines we stood on our hike to to the distillery taking in the range of green fields like nothing I had ever experienced. At 800 feet we continued to the distillery where we learned of casks worth a quarter of a million pounds alongside 3,000 other casks all stacked in one warehouse for the next several years.

Having not planned any of the trips thus far, Scotland has been an incredible exploitation of many firsts for me. There is much more to look forward to being only two weeks, or a third of the way into the study abroad trip here in Scotland.