I Went To Scotland To See Taylor Swift
This week’s article is coming to you post my whirlwind five-day trip to Scotland,
WHERE I FINALLY SAW TAYLOR SWIFT LIVE IN CONCERT
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(Yes, I did take near back-to-back eight-hour flights to see her, and no, I do not have any regrets)
So, as a way to relive one of the best nights of my life,
I’m going to share some stories and pictures with y’all
(I promise I’ll be back to my normally scheduled content next week!)
Let’s get into it!
How I, a Canadian, ended up going to Scotland for a concert
For some context about me, my love of Taylor Swift, and getting the ever-elusive Eras Tour tickets:
My earliest memory of listening to Taylor Swift is in grade 10 when I listened to Speak Now on repeat in French class and pined after a boy who never liked me back
(Side note: Why is it always the ones that you never actually date that cause the most emotional damage? Truly a cultural phenomenon that needs to be studied for science lol)
Ever since, I have been a feral Taylor fan, listening to her music so often that Spotify sends me concerning stats like this
12,229 minutes is 203 hours or 8.5 days, in case you were wondering!!!!
So, when she announced her International tour and it didn’t immediately include Canadian dates, I took matters into my own hands. In July of last year, I was able to get codes for UK dates, woke up at 3 am to queue, and was able to squeak by getting tickets
(I survived The Great War by the skin of my teeth, and I have no regrets it was worth it)
To get ready for the day, it’s common for people to make and trade friendship bracelets because of a line in her song You’re On Your Own, Kid.
(We ended up making over 100, oops!)
We traded all of these with other Swifties at the concert, BTW
The actual event
So, flash forward to June this year, my sister, best friend and I flew out to Edinburgh to attend night one of the concerts at Murrayfield Stadium.
As we got onto our train to head into the city,
(We stayed in Glasgow which is about an hour outside of Edinburgh),
We had our bracelets, our era-specific outfits, about only a few hours of jet-lag disturbed sleep propelling us forward
(Truly, the entire day felt like a dream for more reasons than one lol)
Me, in my 1989 coded outfit, standing in the middle of a street in Edinburgh lol
Once at the stadium, we (unfortunately) had to wait about two hours to be let in through the VIP doors,
(Yes, we had VIP tickets, they were all that was left when I got through the queue, and I had to YOLO it)
Thankfully, we met some of the kindest people while we waited, giving us tons of time to trade bracelets, chat, and get excited
We met the funniest guy in line, he was going to the concert alone wearing CROCS lol
Once we got in, we somehow experienced real TAYLOR SWIFT MAGIC because we found a merch booth without a line??
(If you follow Taylor Swift reddit, then you know that merch lines can take HOURS to get through. We literally just walked up and bought our merch, and honestly that’s why I pray to the Latter Day Saint of Taylor Alison Swift)
Don’t ask me how much this cost
After getting our merch, we headed to our seats, which WERE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING
VIP sets were so worth it OMG
Like come on, LOOK AT THE VIEW
Before the show started, we spent some time trading bracelets with people,
Which was actually such a nice way to get me out of my comfort zone and to meet people from all over the world!
Some of these bracelets came from literal 10-year-olds lol
Then, finally, the show began, and I am not ashamed to say that I cried.
A real screaming, crying, throwing up moment tbh
From here, everything went at warp speed, despite the fact that the concert was 3.5 hour long.
I’ll spare you all the pain of listening to my horrible singing,
(Which is on FULL DISPLAY on all of my videos of the night)
But here are some pics of the show and my thoughts about each of the moments as they happened:
Seeing Taylor sing Cruel Summer live changed my brain chemistry forever no joke
This is a shot I took during All Too Well (10 Minute version), the best song in the entire concert imo
Be grateful you were not there to hear me scream sing Enchanted — I honestly was losing my mind
Taylor sang Cardigan as part of her Folklore/Evermore combined set and it was so beautiful and calming
The final picture, from Karma from her midnights set, taken by my sister
Honestly, after going back through the photos and videos of that night to write this, I can’t take the smile off of my face.
Not to end this very whimsical email with a freelancing takeaway,
But a big reason why this trip was possible,
(Both financially and scheduling-wise),
Was because I work for myself and make good money doing so.
Freelancing has given me a lot of things, but being able to have the time and resources to fly across the world to see my favourite artist live in concert might be the greatest gift yet.
(I’m so blessed and thankful!)
Hope you enjoyed this chaotic retelling of my epic trip — I promise I will be back to freelancing content next week.
P.S. For the die-hard Swifties, our secret songs were two mashups: Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve with I Know Placesand ’tis the damn season with Daylight!
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