The Day Before

Hello, my name is Cameron, and welcome to my blog.  The World Between Edinburgh and Me is my attempt to do something that can be passed on from myself to my friends, family, and perhaps even my progeny.  But I garner that my explanation for why I am doing this is not why you chose to read this post in the first place.  No, you are likely reading this out of simple curiosity, or perhaps you know me personally and want to check in, or even because you don’t care for me and wish me harm and substantial amounts of trials.  Well, regardless of who you are or why you have chosen to read my words, I thank you.  It will make the process that much more enjoyable to see that others are getting a sense of gratification from my journey.  In any case though, let us get down to business.

Tomorrow, I board a plane that will take me away from my home in Vermont for five months.  The 5-6 hour flight will take me to London’s Heathrow airport, where I will then switch planes and fly another hour north to Edinburgh, Scotland.  I decided to leave the watery stock photo below as the visual for this post, as I feel it represents that I have a long way to go and the large distance that will separate what I know from what I am about to learn.  And yes, I intend to learn.  While I am taking three courses at the University of Edinburgh, my primary goal in this trip is to learn about the world around me and my relationship to it.  I think of it like this:  This trip is like a book, and I have yet to begin reading its pages.  There are many of them, and many chapters that separate myself from the conclusion, which is to say how far my level of understanding will change on this trip.  Thus, there is a world of new truth and knowledge that separates myself from who I will become by this journey’s end.  Hence the title of this blog.

The posts will vary in length.  The photos may not be as high of a resolution as I hope they will be.  Some nights I may even come home from the pub and I, in my pleasantly inebriated state, will  rant and ramble on whatever happens to tickle my fancy at the time.  But that’s the point.  I am not writing to be politically correct, and I am not writing to necessarily please anyone.  I am writing because I think I should, and hopefully a person or two will gain some insight from whatever it is that I happen to say.  But I digress, for now is not the time to discuss the semantics of how I want to structure this experiment of mine.  After all, I do leave tomorrow.  It is surprising just how little I am bringing with me.  One backpack, my carry on, filled with my laptop, tablet, camera, various chargers, and a spare set of clothes.  The last item(s) are just in case my luggage happens to be lost along the way, which frankly would really f-ing suck.  Speaking of which, I have to give props to my mom and sister-in-law for suggesting that I pack my full suitcase into a larger one, so that I can bring home much more than I take with me.  But what did I pack in that suitcase?  Here’s my list:

• 8-9 pairs of underwear and socks each (+1 pair of each for my backpack and that I wear)
• 1 pair of heavy duty hiking socks
• 1 set of workout gear (gym shorts, cut off tee, compression shorts, athletic socks)
• 4 short sleeve shirts
• 4 long sleeve shirts (+2, one that I wear tomorrow and one that I pack in my backpack)
• 1 collared shirt (Always gotta be ready to look sexy after all)
• 1 pair of jeans, one pair of kuhl revolver pants (awesome all around, highly recommend) and one pair of carhartt’s that I will wear on the flight.
• 1 rain jacket
• 1 pair of hiking/nicer looking boot shoes  (Merrell mid berner lace)
• 1 heavier jacket.
• toiletry bag (travel size items until I find a market)
• 1 folding hamper

Reading that list back I am surprised that I fit as much as I did into a medium sized suitcase (rolling items really does save space).  My backpack will mainly have my electronics as I mentioned, which I may go into detail on at a later date.

That’s about all I have to say for this first post though.  There isn’t much to say yet, and I hope you will stick with me as I seek out one hidden truth or another.  Sitting here now, it still doesn’t feel real that tomorrow is actually happening.  The process has been challenging to get to this point, and now that it is on my doorstep it still feels miles away.  I cannot say how tomorrow will go, but I am excited.  I am sure that saying goodbye to my family will be difficult, and I am sure that I won’t be able to sleep on the plane even though it is a night flight.  Hopefully reading On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin will help me fall asleep for a moment or so.  I was going to bring a book with me, but I settled for finding free ones on my tablet instead as physical ones take up a good chunk of space.  I recon that books will be a good analogy for my journey.  For I have many pages to turn and many chapters to pass through.  Hopefully, when I turn the back cover over I will have learned more about the world and myself than I ever will have dreamed about.  But that I save for tomorrow, for today is today and I still have some time left to blare some Chance and Kendrick and drown my apprehensions in a sea of 2k and SMITE.  I would raise a glass, but I can’t legally do that until tomorrow.  In any case, here’s to the world that is in front of me, and the world that I leave behind.  May they turn me into who I was meant to be.  Cheers.