I started a little, big adventure. Together with a friend we will spend 4 months in Scotland as an exchange semester. An experience that I hope makes me grow as a person and allow me to explore a lot of those mystical places in Scotland.

When we arrived in Scotland, someone from my home country was already there. My sister wanted to seize the opportunity and came to Edinburgh a few days before us. It was just lovely seeing her at the bus stop, it made the whole thing seem less distant from everything.
Together we then drove to Dundee, which will be our place of residence and study during our stay. To me, Dundee is a two-faced city. On the one hand there seems to be a lot of poverty here, on the other hand the city's organizations do a lot to make this place livable and lovable. Something that you could also sum up our apartment with. It's shit but we will make it nice!
We couldn't check our new home before leaving Germany. We just had to rent something from the photos  we saw. So there was a bit of a bad awakening when we arrived. The place was really rundown, in a bad part of town and dirty when we arrived, even with some dried blood drops in the bathroom. You can imagine we weren't so excited! But eventually we got some really aggressive stuff and cleaned the apartment together with my sister to make our place more livable (a big thanks in case you read this). We didn't really want to touch anything when we arrived!
But the cheap Tesco supermarket was our "life"-saver. We  got some air mattresses and other important stuff so we didn't need to sleep on the floor at this temperature.
As we talked to natives about our problems, many said that the housing situation in UK is generally bad. It's common practice of a landlord to never visit the apartment. Places are badly insulated (in fact our windows don't keep any heat in) and the repairman that visited us, told us that mold is a very common problem, due to the high humidity.
It really gave me another perspective on the housing situation in Germany and how good it is!
But enough talk about our apartment, we will make it work. Let's get to our first adventure to a mystical castle ruin!

Dunnottar Castle was on the "bucketlist" of both my sister and me as it looks just so magical. It's a castle ruin situated on a peninsula made from red sandstone, next to the town of Stonehaven. It was built between the 13th and 17th century and did see several wars and owners during it's lifetime. During the civil war in 1651, the famous crown-juwels of Great Britain were hidden here. But word got around and soon the castle was under siege. After the attacking Oliver Cromwell got cannons, Dunnottar surrendered. But the jewels we're gone!
There a several stories to how it happened. Some say they smuggled them out between bags of goods, other said that they dropped a container covered in sea plants into the sea. Eventually the crown jewels were hidden under the planks of a nearby church and they remained there until they could be given back to the king.

Beside the castle we also checked out the nearby wild beach, which was just beautiful! I've been to the North Sea and Baltic sea before, but this really was my first time ever where I really felt like I was on the ocean.

We found a little cave and explored the rocky beach and it's tide-pools. Those little water basins where brimming with life. Beside the beautiful water plants I spotted little snails, mussels and also some fishes, which quickly hid as soon as they noticed me. I also touched, what I think is something like an anemone in one of the pools. It stung a bit, but I think I'm alright haha.

Before we left, I built this little stone tower. I was surprised not seeing them, hence there being so many fitting rocks around. I hope someone sees it and will imitate it :) Then it started to rain quiet heavily (heck it's Scotland) and we sought refuge under the roof of a nearby food truck and got some British chips!

P.S.: I stole this plant from the castle's compost! :D Someone just threw it away, but it's so lovely c: It got a new home in my kitchen now, I think it's a nice memory to this wonderful place c:

If you want to keep updated on my adventures in Scotland, be sure to subscribe using the form below! :) There's gonna be a lot of nature and mystical places in the next months I hope :)