Less than 4 weeks to go

This post is not really about Japan in any way, but more a bucket list or a reminder to myself why I need to come back to Europe sometime. Because I know for sure I'm going to miss Europe.

Things I want to do in Edinburgh before I leave:

• Climb up Arthur Seat again. This bad boy right here.

• Climb up the Pentlands, because believe it or not I've never done it before, apart from one drunken trip a few years ago. And quite frankly I couldn't see anything because it was pitch black. I even sat on a stranger's used condom... So I need to undo that experience.
• Lazy afternoon in the Botanic Gardens. 
• Take a tour bus round Edinburgh, acting like an overly keen tourist and taking far too many pictures.
• Camera Obscura... What even is it? Everyone talks about it, I'm an Edinburgh native and I don't even get it.
• That art gallery thing where one person looks huge and the other person looks tiny. Yeah, I'm making so much sense right now...
• Actually learn the words to Flower of Scotland. 
• Drink whisky and like it. Okay, I fail at being a Scot. Don't ever ask me to drink Irn Bru and like it because it will never happen.
• And the dream of every Scottish girl... take a cheeky wee peek up a laddie's kilt ;)

Things I need to do in Europe at some point:

• Viene a ballare in Puglia Puglia Puglia! Finally get round to visiting Puglia after I was robbed of that experience last year. *Grumble grumble Italians and ridiculous heating bills grumble grumble* Home to these lovely little cone houses!

• And while I'm there in the South, go and visit Salerno, home to the one and only Ema, the cult figure of 2013, who moved to Scotland to yell "Porco Dio" every 10 seconds and lecture us all about our bad cooking habits. 
• Visit Genoa again, a truly underrated northern Italian city, that I once spent one lovely afternoon wandering around by myself. They even have Willy Wonka style lifts in the streets that go side to side as well as up and down!  Genoa is a port city, that is built upwards, eventually disappearing into the mountains behind it. Strangely enough, very similar to Yawatahama where I'll be staying in Japan! Let's hope this is fate then, since I think I fell slightly in love with Genoa that one afternoon wandering around. Unfortunately I have no pictures of my own due to my tendency to lose cameras, but Google can provide for us.

• Visit Scandinavia, because they're just so damn cool.
• Closely followed by... FINLAND!  One word that sums up my time with Finnish people has to be "Kippis"", meaning cheers. I think that says it all...
• Visit Eastern Europe, because I don't want to neglect a whole side of the continent. 

So, it's fairly obvious that I love travelling. And I hear Japan has many awesome places to travel to, so I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot from me over the next year ;)

In the meantime, I'm going to be heading down to London for my Japan orientation, along with all the other UK JETs. The fear is beginning to set in now... and I think the fear will really begin to hit me after the orientation.