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As I write this, I've been officially back in America for one week. (It's strange that I say "America" as if it was a foreign country.) It feels good being home, and I'm not yet experiencing any of the "reverse culture shock" I was expecting. Culturally, Scotland wasn't that much different than what I'm used to in Boston. They may have had accents, and ate some strange food, but if this experience has taught me anything, it turns out humans are a whole lot more alike than we'd like to think. Even in countries that I visited that were a lot different than the United States, I saw the similarities more than the differences.

My last week in Scotland was spent trying to do as much as possible before I left. I climbed Arthur's Seat to watch the sun set (pictured above), something I've been saving until the end. The first time I braved it, it was back in January when I first arrived in Edinburgh. I feel like I've come full circle. How much has changed since then. I feel part of me never really forgot about my life in Boston, that it was always in the back of my mind somehow, no matter what I was doing or who I was with. That makes me question whether I truly immersed myself in this culture, yet on the other hand, I realize that everyone experiences study abroad in different ways, and I shouldn't expect my feelings to be anywhere close to someone else's. If anything, I've valued this experience for what it was: the opportunity to live and study in a city that was different than what I'm used to, and to meet people with different life experiences. I've certainly accomplished that.