Editor’s Note: This is an installment of the weekly column Foreign Correspondents, which will chronicle Middlebury students’ experiences studying abroad. Here, Hope Allison ’19.5 shows snapshots of her life in Edinburgh.
I feel I’m at a delicate moment during my life here; three months in, I feel I’ve finally settled in, but there are still moments of newness. I try to savor this feeling, this balance between the foreign and the familiar, the strange and the routine. It’s been a wonderful time to photograph, because everything seems beautiful to me — either because of its novelty or because of its everyday simplicity. I hope this feeling lasts.
I’m struck by the light — by its variety and richness, and now, almost December, by its brevity. There are times it is soft and diffuse, times where the day never really seems to get bright, the days I light candles at lunchtime. And then there are times it is blinding, harsh golden beams striking out from dark gray clouds. The light is in constant flux, making everything seem at once unreal and hyper-real, where even the familiar sights are rendered anew. In the words of Alexander McCall Smith, “This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas, a city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.”
It’s hard to believe how quickly this semester went, and I feel lucky to have another one ahead of me. If nothing else, these photos are a love letter to Edinburgh and its dwindling autumn light.
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An especially gloomy day, as seen from one of the bridges that connects the New Town to the Old.[/caption]
