“Granny what is your favourite memory from when you were young?”
“My favourite memory? That’s an easy one. You know, your granny did live in Edinburgh for a little while when she was in her early 20’s. Can you imagine your old grandma being a student at university, going out at nights, and walking through the city all day to explore every tiny corner? It’s definitely been a while…
Your granny was always a very curious woman, who loved travelling. As a little girl she loved looking at world maps and at school foreign language classes were her favourites.
When she grew older, she started facing a big problem. Travelling wasn’t just this tempting, exciting urge to get to know the world. It comes with a heavy suitcase of consequences. Your granny got to learn about the irony of how travelling can leave negative impacts on the world she admires so much. This has caused some severe headaches for your young granny. She wondered, how can she fulfil her big dreams while protecting their very base – the big blue and green planet.
So, I can tell you, your grandma simply couldn’t turn down the opportunity to study abroad in Edinburgh. The programme seemed like the perfect opportunity to live in a foreign country, with new impressions and perspectives, challenges to face, things to learn and of course, many new friends to make. Granny swore to herself, she would make the most of that time to make the impact of travelling absolutely worth it. But I can assure you, she also pulled some all-nighters to research how to squeeze the environmental impact into the smallest carry-on bag possible.
Your granny quickly booked herself a discounted Interrail ticket, so she could take a train all the way to Scotland’s capital city and keep the CO2 emissions to a minimum while enjoying the views. When she looked for a place to stay, she made sure it was within walking distance from Uni, so she could romanticise her morning walks and avoid any extra emissions. As you know, granny likes cooking and having a kitchen in her student accommodation meant that she could make her own vegetarian meal plan and lower her waste of packaging and food. On the go she loved to pick up a sweat treat at a bakery, but she used the help of an app called TooGoodToGo to save some delicious pastries from going to waste. Edinburgh also was a dream destination for thrift shopping; your granny discovered many gems while avoiding fast fashion clothing.
Telling you about all this actually reminds me of a song I used to love when I was young, it goes something like ‘I did it all, I owned every second that this world could give, I saw so many places and things that I did, […] I swear I lived’; and I’m so glad I did do it all – just a little more sustainable.”
sources:
https://www.bccas.business-school.ed.ac.uk/research/encouraging-second-hand-consumption-over-take-make-waste
https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2014.925489
https://www.interrail.com/en/interrail-passes/erasmus
https://genius.com/Onerepublic-i-lived-lyrics
https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-gb/about-us
https://sdgs.un.org/goals
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15224723
