of diversions and downtime

My first full week in Glasgow is already gone.  It's been a lovely and grand time thus far, filled with flatmate fun and sightseeing.

Last week brought with it all sorts of adventures:  classes, orientation, Burns Night, International Student pub night, exploring Glasgow, the Mackintosh Tower and Centre, shopping and more.

Last Tuesday was Burns Night.  Burns Night is a holiday in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns' birthday.  My flatmate, Andrea, and I decided to attend the formal three-course Burns Supper followed by a Gaelic dance at the Student Union with some girls we met the previous night.

On our way to Burns Supper, we went to the Barony Bar (also in the Union) which has a 12-hour Tuesday special.  I was rather excited when the first song played while we were there was Mumford & Sons' "Little Lion Man."  However, the music quickly turned to a rather strange mix of a lot of American songs.  Slightly disappointing.

The dinner started with traditional toasts of Scottish whisky to the haggis, laddies, and lassies.  Once the toasts were complete, the first course of potato and vegetable soup arrived.  The second course was, of course, the haggis.  We were told by Allie, who was here last semester too, that it wasn't served in the traditional way (haggis with neeps and tatties on the side) but in a layered dish of tatties, haggis, and neeps with whisky gravy on top.

Haggis, according to Wikipedia is:

a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours.  Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a casing rather than an actual stomach.

You may be rather surprised to learn that I did actually try the haggis.  It was okay, but I really didn't like the meaty texture.  The haggis was followed with a delicious strawberry cream dessert.

The Gaelic dance commenced following the supper.  It was entertaining to watch the Scots perform a few dances for the Burns' attendees and equally fun to watch my friends attempt the dances.  I did end up dancing a few highland dances with Chris, a Scottish boy from a neighbouring university.  It was a pretty fun night.

Wednesday involved some more registration activities.  I don't have class on Wednesdays, so they are pretty relaxing, free days to use for study or sightseeing.  I finally got my classes confirmed and sorted out on Wednesday:  History 1B (Britain 1900-present), Victorian Literature, and Adaptations of Literature to Cinema.

Wednesday night is apparently Strathclyde International Society pub night.  Every week, they choose a different pub in the city centre for us to go to and meet other international students.  Andrea, Jacquie, Ashley and I went to this week's pub, Maltman's Bar, and met some people from France and Germany.  We mostly spent the night chatting with Maxime and Mathieu from France.  It was a great night out with my flatmates.

Thursday I only had my lecture and tutorial for my Adaptations class.  On Thursday afternoon, Jacquie and I went exploring Glasgow.  We visited the Lighthouse, home of the Mackintosh Tower and Centre.  Charles Rennie Mackintosh is essentially Scotland's Frank Lloyd Wright.  He was an architect in the early twentieth century who designed a number of beautiful buildings in and around Glasgow.

We climbed this awesome spiral staircase to the top of the tower, where we had great views of the city.  It was definitely worth the visit (and long climb).
Since we were already there, we decided to head to the nearby Gallery of Modern Art.  Modern art is weird.  One piece on display was a pair of ventriloquist dummies accompanied with a creepy video called "New Meat" with the dummies quoting lines from horror films.

On Friday, I had my first history lecture.  That class was sooooo huge.  There was at least 70 people in that lecture.  Contrarily, when I went to my Victorian literature tutorial a few hours later, there were only four people in the tutorial.  This lecture and tutorial class system is strange, but I guess I can't complain about only seven hours of class per week.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday ended up being pretty chill nights.  We mostly stayed in, swapped music, and watched British TV, which is fantastic.  The shows are ridiculous.  Our new favorite, Come Dine With Me is absolutely absurd.  It involves four strangers (who truly are STRANGE) who take turns hosting dinner parties and rate one another.  The winner gets 10,000 pounds.

British TV is also not censored, like American TV, and there are fewer commercials.  Unfortunately, we only get five channels.

Saturday night, Andrea, Jacquie, Ashley, Anna and I went to The Ark to play Snookers (British pool?) with Maxime and Mathieu.  I am just as bad at Snookers as I am at American pool.  :S  It was still a fun, pretty low-key night.

Here are my reflections on the week.  Laundry is very expensive:  it costs two pounds to wash and one to dry (the equivalent of about $5 American).  Instead of saying "For Rent," buildings say "To Let."  There is not baking soda, but there is bicarbonate of soda.  "Cheers" is not a toast, it is what you say when leaving.

The Scottish, British, and English accents still sound way cool.  Most Scottish students have accents that are pretty easy to decipher.  Older Scottish people have accents more difficult to understand.

It has NOT rained in Glasgow yet.  Weirdly.  It's been partly cloudy, and, dare I say, sunny for the past eight days.

All in all, it's been a fantastic first week in Glasgow.

settling in Glasgow

Glasgow Love Theme currently describes my feeling of being in Glasgow (click to YouTube the song by Craig Armstrong featured in Love Actually.)  The city is, in my roughly 40 hour experience, amazing!


It took nearly 24 hours of travel/waits, but I finally arrived in Glasgow at 7:30 (Glasgow time) a.m. yesterday morning.  Conclusion?  Never take an overnight flight with a morning arrival again...


My travels began Friday night at 11:30 p.m. (U.S. central time) with a 300 mile drive to Minneapolis, MN.  Unfortunately, I realized after we had gone 45 miles that I forgot my six month supply of contacts at home and we had to go back for them.  Luckily, we had left early, but unfortunately that cut out my non-airport breakfast time.  I attempted to sleep most of the drive, but only managed about an hour of sleep.


Anyway, even with the delay, I checked my bag and was through security by 8:30 a.m. and boarding did not begin until 10:40 a.m.  The Minneapolis airport is rather large and I was able to kill a bit of time wandering around it.   $5 for a bagel and bottle of water is unnecessary and unfortunate for a hungry college student.  


After finally boarding my flight in Minneapolis, I arrived in Newark, New Jersey at 2:52 p.m. (U.S. eastern time).  The flight was an express jet, which I don't care much for.  There is only three seats across, with one seat on one side and two on the other.  I did get the one seat on its own, but it still felt so small.  The Newark airport was more of the same for the most part as the Minneapolis airport.  $6 for a big pretzel and bottle of milk.  


About an hour or two before the flight boarded, I met four girls from the University of Strathclyde:  Claire, Katy, Rebecca, and a Scottish girl whose name I did not catch.  I think Claire and Rebecca were East Coasters and Katy is from Iowa.  


The flight to Glasgow was not long--only six hours.  In our complimentary supper, I unpleasantly discovered that airline food is equivalent to TV dinners.  Blech.  But after sustaining myself on essentially bread all day, it was okay.  I spent most of the flight trying to sleep/watching TV  on the monitor.  One episode of 30 Rock, two of The Office and one of Romantically Challenged and a TV dinner later, I managed some (but not nearly enough sleep).


We arrived in Glasgow at 7 a.m. Sunday morning (Glasgow time).  For my followers in the Midwest, Glasgow is six hours ahead.  Katy, Rebecca and I shared a relatively inexpensive taxi to campus--just to discover that we could not get into our rooms until 11 a.m.  Also misinformed was Jenny, who had arrived the previous day also from the East Coast.  It wasn't so bad for Katy and I, but Rebecca had an extra suitcase.  She really struggled dragging it around the city as we sought a coffee shop to wait in.


When we returned to the Village Office to get our keys, my flat was unfortunately not yet clean so I had to wait.  But, just as the keys were ready, one of my flatmates, Jaquie from Michigan, showed up.  We went to our residence, Birkbeck Court, where we struggled with the weird key for getting into the flat.  It is literally a plastic strip with a hole in it that has to be inserted in a certain way to turn the knob.  WAY tricky.


We began settling into our rather tiny rooms and commenced unpacking.  Having packed lightly came in handy when it came to fitting everything into this small room.  When I opened my welcome packet from the Village Office, I discovered a few interesting things enclosed.  One:  a "Drinks I Drank" four-week calendar.  Two:  a postcard for a campus bar advertising "Freshers Fortnight," a week of inexpensive drinks.  You know, I wonder if Glasgow has a drinking culture... /sarcasm.


Something of note for my dear Interfaith Club back home.  Our kitchen came equipped with a hot water heater.  Hurray!  There were also these adorable mugs with hot chocolate packets inside waiting on our desks.  Unfortunately, as I was thinking about how hospitable and cute it was, the following quote came to mind.  

"Do you see this writing...? Do you know what it means...? Hospitality. And you can't piss on hospitality! I WON'T ALLOW IT!"  (The infamous Troll 2)

Anyway, having arranged to meet Katy, Jenny and Rebecca at the Village Office at 12:00 p.m., Jaquie and I left for Glasgow essentials shopping.


The shopping district in Glasgow is HUGE.  There are so many shops.  I also discovered a number of American chains present in the city.  Some examples of what I have seen include:  McDonald's, Burger King, K.F.C., Starbucks, T.G.I. Fridays and Perkins.  There were also UK versions of American businesses, such as T.K.Maxx instead of T.J.Maxx and Walker's instead of Lay's chips.  To Beloiters, there is no Moodle.  Instead we have Myplace, which sounds like Myspace and looks exactly like Moodle.  It is unavoidable.


Last night, in an effort to stay awake to best combat jetlag, Jaquie and I ventured out for a coffee shop with wireless since we had not been able to access the internet without our usernames and passwords that we got today.  We found a Starbucks and also saw some neat architecture along the way, specifically George Square which is filled with statues and monuments.


Also, over the course of yesterday, I met  the rest of my flatmates.  Besides Jaquie, there is Andrea and Anna from the U.S., Ashley from Canada, and Sherry from Singapore.  They all seem pretty nice/fun and it seems like it will be a great semester!  By 9 p.m., however, I was so exhausted that I had to go to bed.  Note to self:  don't take an overnight flight with early morning arrival ever again.


Today, we had a registration thing this morning:  the basic welcome to the university, get your ID and get your internet.  Finally!  Classes at the University of Strathclyde are so strange.  I'm taking three classes (each worth 1.25 Beloit units) that only meet once a week for lecture and once a week for tutorial (essentially, a tutor explaining the material for a small section of the class).  This will be quite a different experience from Beloit.


After getting my internet set up, I went to my first class at Strathclyde:  Victorian Literature.  The entire hour was an introductory lecture.  I met Lesley from California in this class, and, to our dismay, the professor kept referencing page numbers of books and did not have a syllabus for us.  While the prof. said it was on myplace, I have been unable to enroll in the class.  :S


After class, I decide it was time for a gad about Glasgow.  I just started walking down Cathedral Street and ended up in Cathedral Square.  I found the Glasgow Cathedral, dating back to the twelfth century.  It was a beautiful building but in the process of being partially restored.  I hope it is before I return to the States.  

Inside, there was beautiful stained glass windows, architecture and St. Mungo's tomb.  Across from the Cathedral was St. Mungo's Museum of Religious and Art History.  Though I did not go today, the museum is nearby (and free), so I will likely go there on another gad about Glasgow.

Tonight, Andrea and I went to a meet and greet at the Union.  It was set up speed-dating style and was basically a flurry of international students asking questions/dispensing the usual answers of where they're from and what they're studying.  After the meet and greet, Andrea, three girls we met (whose names I do not recall), and I headed to The Ark for an inexpensive meal.  Tonight ended up being flatmate-bonding time with Andrea, Ashley, Jaquie and Anna.  


Here's a few interesting things that I have learned about Glasgow thus far.  For one, change is actually worth something, unlike in America, because the £1 and £2 are coins.  For instance, £2 got me an ethernet cord for my room today.  And, there's a nearby pub with £1 drink specials.  There is also no recycling to be seen.  The streets are also rather littered with trash and half-eaten food.  But, the architecture is absolutely gorgeous!



Until my next gad about...

the deep breath before the plunge

"The board is set.  The pieces are moving.  We come to it at last..." (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings the Return of the King)

Welcome to my study abroad and travel blog.  From Sunday, January 23 until Saturday June 4, I will be overseas at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.  While there, I will be traveling to other parts of Europe and the UK.  This blog will be all about my adventures gadding about Glasgow.


In roughly three days, I will depart for the first stage of my study abroad journey--the 300 mile drive to the airport in Minneapolis and my flight (via Newark) to Glasgow.  It's hard to believe that it is already almost time.  After the nearly yearlong wait between my first study abroad application and receiving my official acceptance to the University of Strathclyde, it is both finally and already time to go.


I went into my five week winter break thinking that I would have time to accomplish all sorts of things.  This list changed as I've realized how short five weeks really can be.  In its feasible at this late in the game edition, the list entails:

• Finish and send off internship applications.
• pack, Pack, PACK.
• Work (one more day) at Dairy Queen.
• Bake cookies.
• Finish 30 Rock Season 4.
• Attempt to beat (but most likely just progress in) The Legend of Zelda:  Wind Waker.
• Visit family.

More entries to come upon my arrival in Glasgow!