Some Real Scottish Torture

I kept holding off posting again until the weekend passed. I had so much planned this weekend and knew that it would provide a series of adventures worth posting. And, I was absolutely right. I was able to spend lots of time with friends and travel around more of this beautiful country I am fortunate enough to call home for the year.

During international orientation week I met so many people. It was so exciting to meet people from all over the World. During the orientation week I also met a great number of people from the States. I've become very close with a group of women from the United States (And our token Canadian!). While we all are in different courses and have met different people and made different friends we are able to come together and share in the common experience that we are having. Friday was our first ever themed girl's night dinner party. Of course, Miss Tennessee or Queen of Southern Hospitality as I like to call her hosted our first dinner. The plan was to have chilli, cornbread, nachos and smores. But, like usual all good plans generally are changed. It's nearly impossible to find cornmeal or smore making material in Glasgow. The dinner was impressively delicious and very entertaining and was followed by a night of dancing at "Cheesy Pop."

After getting very little sleep on Friday it was off to Edinburgh in the morning. Edinburgh has the special privilege of being the very first international city I have ever returned to. I was excited to wander around the same city I had six years before and see how it compared. First and foremost I was struck by how beautiful Edinburgh is. I don't remember being that taken with the city the first time I visited. Nestled between the hills and the sea the city is just breathtaking. The city is also very hilly but the hills provide the most amazing views of the cityscape and beyond. The Edinburgh castle is situated on a hill above the rest of the city. Wandering through the rooms of the castle I was taken not only with the elaborate nature of each of the rooms but the awe inspiring views the rooms provide. I also was surprised at how a country with such massive fireplaces doesn't have smore making material. They are missing out on something truly special.

The touring of the castle took most of the morning and overall I was quite impressed. Although, my German friend Ann-Sophie and I were slightly disappointed at the lack of torture chambers and dungeons. This might make us terrible people but you have to admit those places are exciting. Exiting the castle led us to the royal mile. We met some Americans studying at the University of Edinburgh for lunch. It was lovely to see a friend again and meet with other students. While eating our lunch we saw a slight altercation take place. A man, appearing to be homeless and carrying a great number of shopping bags was confronted by a store owner. This confrontation happened right in front of us. While the waiter serving us shouted "Call the Police!" we had to pretend the menu was the most interesting piece of literature we had ever seen and affix our eyes to its pages rather than gawk at the unfolding drama. Fortunately, everything settled down fairly quickly and the Royal Mile turned back into the happy, stereotypical Scottish place it claims to be. However, may I just say that Glasgow is always criticized for being violent and this act of Edinburgh violence was the most shocking thing I've seen yet.

While I loved spending the day in Edinburgh (and am more than excited to go back throughout the year) I can't help but love Glasgow even more. Glasgow may not have the jaw dropping city scape Edinburgh does but it is completely beautiful in it's own separate way. It also lacks the eight hundred million tourists and all the shops blasting droning bagpipes with thousands of novelty gifts all containing some form of tartan, the loch ness monster, whisky and high land cattle.

As a sidenote, I will admit to having a bit of an affection for a few of these aforementioned materials. I received a highland cow calender as a gift.. best gift ever? I certainly think so!

What I loved the most about Edinburgh was how it reignited my love of Glasgow, not that the original fire had ever really gone out. It was a wonderful feeling coming back to Glasgow.

                 If you want to come to Scotland and see a man in a kilt... Edinburgh is the place to go!

We had to take a little detour in Edinburgh to see the birthplace of Harry Potter. I was not overly excited by this... but clearly Sophie was.

I will admit to being a person who enjoys planning and control. But, there is nothing I like more than a surprise. While surprises are at times difficult for me, feeling strangely like a horrible form of torture because I have absolutely no say in what I will be doing or how I will be going about it. I have a strange  love for this type of torture. Sunday was a surprise day for me. While I enjoy surprises I always pity the poor person that tries to surprise me. I never really want to figure out the surprise but that doesn't stop me from trying.. because who doesn't like a little bit of a challenge. The days leading up to the surprise consisted of a textual conversation in which I tried (very subtly, of course!) to figure out what is going on.

Surpriser: "Shall we meet at Central train station at 10?"

(This obviously mean that we were going somewhere outside of the city. Excellent, now I just have to pull out a map of Scotland and figure out exactly where this place might be)

Me: "Give me a hint as to what I should wear tomorrow"

Surpriser: "Clothes will be fine"

(Looking at map... clothes will work anywhere in Scotland! That trick didn't work)

Me: "More specifically what type of clothes"

Surpriser: "You should probably bring something in case it rains"

(It rains everywhere in Scotland! This is ridiculous)

The mystery remained intact and I arrived at Central Train station at 9:40 (The excitment was killing me)  and verbally attacked my surpriser with questions as he arrived at the train station at 10:15 (obviously not as excited).

We began our journey to the Isle of Bute on a bus, which took us to a train, which took us to a ferry. I felt slightly like I was part of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It was so refreshing and fun to be on the sea. I absolutely love the sea and being a Kansas native don't get to experience it as much as I would like. The ferry dropped us at the Isle of a Bute a smallish island on the west coast of Scotland. The first thing one notices about the small town is the massive amount of pubs it hosts. There is probably one pub for every five people. After wandering through the maze of pubs we stumbled upon an open restaurant (being Sunday a lot of places were closed). I had a wonderful lunch of scampi, chips and tea (I'm becoming more Scottish everyday..obviously) and a bite or two of haggis.

Following our Scottish lunch we explored the castle. The castle was a bit of a let down because they recently closed the dungeon (this seems to be a reoccuring theme throughout this blog posting). While in the castle it began to rain. I, personally, loved the rain, it made the whole experience much more atmospheric. After some more wandering about the castle, strolling through the visitor center and finally up and down the beach we took some time to visit one of the numerous local pubs for a drink before heading back on an epic journey through ports, trains and bus stops.

                                                           It was insanely windy on the ferry!

 Turns out we were not in Scotland but instead a tropical paradise filled with palm trees (the looming storm clouds probably tell the truth as to where we actually are)

One of the best things about the Isle of Bute is that it's situated on the dividing line between the Scottish highlands and the Scottish lowlands. Have no fear, I straddled this line making myself be in both places at one time!

Scotslish Lesson-- Kip= Sleep.... Now I just think of the dog Kipper as Sleeper.

Fajita Failure

This weekend I went to a Highland Cattle show. I love those "hairy coos." As many of you can imagine I was super excited to trek out to the park in the early hours of Saturday morning to watch a parade of cows... I'm not so sure my cow-companion was. It was decided that we wouldn't arrive at the cow show at the start, because some believe Saturday morning is for sleeping and in this instance I agreed. After parking the car and strolling through the entire park (There was a free tram for a reason! But, it was much nicer to walk) we discovered that we were the only people over the age of 12 without a child accompanying us. Our walk through the park led us by the Park's cows (featured in "Cows and Cathedrals") giving us a nice warm-up to the full-blown cattle show. The actual show grounds had been turned into a swamp from the previous night's rain and both mine and my cow-companion's footwear were not suitable for this type of extreme weather. After plodding through ankle high mud we made our way to the dog herding demonstration, appropriately titled "The Drakes of Hazard." While we came for the cattle show the duck show was absolutely the best event of the day. Once the duck show had come to a close we plodded our way back through the swamp and explored the craft tent, the information tent, the horse shoeing booth and took our seats for the main attraction. Having attended quite a few local and state fairs in my time I knew what to expect during a cattle show.However, my cow-companion was excessively underwhelmed by the show and I believe was relieved when it started pouring rain and we had to escape early to partake in Spanish tapas rather than more cattle viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T70jjEUr4c8&feature=related

This youtube link shows you a bit of the "Drakes of Hazard" show.

              In addition to the actual cows there were other animal displays including predatory birds.

The particular group of cattle that we witnessed were young enough that the time spent in the show was the first time spent away from their mothers. They were quite distraught.

                  If you look to the sky you will see the cloud of doom that ruined the cattle show.

This was one of the food stations. They were serving Highland Cattle burgers... too close to the actual food source for my taste. I love to live in the delusional world in which all meat comes from the meat section at the grocery store not from cute little hairy coos.

Sunday was a big day for Glasgow. It was the first Old Firm match of the year. As you may have guessed the Glaswegians love their football (yes, soccer). In fact, they love it so much that the city has two teams, the Celtic and the Rangers. Remember, the Rangers has an "s" the Celtic do not... don't ever say Celtics. Ever! I overheard a girl say that once and was practically killed. As you can imagine there is a fierce rivalry between Glasgow's teams but it goes beyond just kicking a ball around and scoring goals. The Celtic represents the large Irish Catholic population prevalent in Glasgow. Whereas, the Rangers are representative of the Scottish Protestant population. Now obviously, you have fans for the Celtic who aren't Catholic and fans of the Rangers who aren't  Protestant. But, it's the principle of the thing, family and country pride you might say. The Rangers and Celtic play eachother four times a year in the Old Firm. This day brings about lots of beer, football chants and intense police security.

Even though I had been warned I forgot it was Old Firm day and wandered down to the City Centre. Of course the city centre was packed.. although it usually is. If you ever want to see men in kilts, hear bagpipes playing or see any other Scottish stereotypes in action head down to the city centre on an Old Firm Day (just so you aren't disappointed I will tell you now the Loch Ness Monster isn't there... but every other Scottish stereotype will be represented).

I'm slowly working my way through all the free Glasgow museums. Again, let me state how much I love these free museums! On Sunday, I went to Glasgow Green. Glasgow Green is a large park minutes from the city centre. Within the park you have the People's Palace, a museum dedicated to the people of Glasgow. Attached to the museum there's a wonderful indoor garden with a cafe. And, outside the People's Palace is my new favorite part of Glasgow, The Doulton Fountain. The fountain is the largest terracotta fountain in the World and is an artistic representation of British Imperialism (How helpful would this have been during the unit I taught on imperialism in my world studies class!). Queen Victoria stands at the top of the fountain and surrounding her are dipictions of a man and woman from four of Britains colonies: India, Canada, Australia and South Africa. After falling in love with this fountain and the garden cafe I realized that fountains and cafes are always my favorite parts of cities, especially when they are right next to one another!

After wandering through the palace and the gardens I made my way over to the Barras. The Barras is a historic trading district that has a huge flea market every weekend. Now, remember that I went over there on Old Firm Day, mistake. The flea markets were closing and there were loads of people sporting their team colors filled with fried food and beer. Fortunately, I was in a neutral zebra print sweater and was not sucked into the craziness that is celebrating or mourning the results of the match (Rangers won). I quickly made my way back to the safety of the busy city centre.. but absolutely want to return to see the flea market in action. 

I somehow have a great talent at living in places with disasters for kitchens. Both my house in Emporia and the flat here have extreme oven issues. The first night I tried to cook in the flat was a disaster with the oven. But, it seemed as though my flatmates and I had gotten the issue under control and could safely and efficiently cook in our kitchen once again. It was my intention to have a fajita dinner last night. I had run around town picking up all the different ingredients (Mexican food materials certainly aren't as easy to find here as they are in the states) and had chopped up all the peppers, onions and chillies to make cooking a breeze. But, when my dinner date arrived the wrath of the horrible oven decided to strike again. After sitting for hours (probably minutes) waiting for the burners to warm up nothing was happening. After laying our hands on the burners, flipping every probable switch in the kitchen, opening and closing lots of doors it was decided the food would be microwaved. This brillant idea was cut short when the microwave wouldn't start. It was at this moment the flatmates were called in for backup. It was figured out that the oven switch for some reason was shorting out all the sockets in the kitchen. If the oven was kept in the off position the rest of the appliances would work. A work order report was filled out and barbeque chicken microwave wraps were made instead of fajitas. It was a total fajita failure, maybe this is why the Scots don't make Mexican food.

Scotlish Lesson- A Glasgow Kiss= A headbutt... you may or may not want a Glasgow kiss.

***** 95% of the photographs in this blog post (not the entire blog!) are productions of the amazing, talented and highly underrated photographer Mr. Stuart Forsyth. (I was told if attribution wasn't given I would be sued.. this little blog can't afford such legal action so early on)

A Game of Wordplay

I've been meaning to do a new post for a few days now and have had many moments of inspiration but simply haven't gotten around to it. I could post my million and eight excuses but instead I will simply take the blame for being a bit of a blog slacker and move forward with a new post.

The University is currently in Week Zero or "Freshers Week" meaning classes have still not started. Freshers Week is a time for all new students to come together in a myriad of social events. Most consist of music, socializing, dancing, introductions to the University and all consist of drinking. Okay, not all, but a great deal. I decided not to purchase a Freshers Pass.. there are so many social events to take part in outside of the actual Fresher's week events that it simply wasn't worth the money. However, Fresher's Week has introduced me to the Glasgow University Unions.

Coming from the US the idea of a Union was completely foreign to me. We, of course, have student unions. But, when I think of these unions I generally think of some building in the middle of campus labeled "student union" that you can have lunch in or purchase your textbooks. Here in Glasgow we do have a building like that, we call it the Fraser building. But, the student unions are entirely different entities. If you were equate the student unions to anything in the states it would most likely be a fraternity or sorority. Now imagine a fraternity or sorority that accepts the entire student body population, is free and sits directly on campus and there you have the Glasgow Student Unions. As previously mentioned, there are two Unions the GUU (Glasgow University Union) and the QMU (The Queen Margaret Union). Both unions have their fair share of social events including cheesy pop, salsa dancing classes, movie nights, both also have amazing drink specials. After a week of consideration, I have finally decided which union to join... But, I'm not telling! It just wouldn't be fair to publicize (I just spelled that the British way with an "s"! oh no they are converting me.) one union over the other..Clearly, this blog would sway people's decisions!

This past weekend I spent a little scrabble playing time with my favorite Glaswegian. It was decided we would play the game in our assumed native tongue, English. It became the most debated game of Scrabble ever played. That might be a slight exaggeration but a dictionary did take up permanent residence next to the board and was used at least every other turn. I had a marvelous turn with the word "taffied." My scrabble partner insisted this was not a word and I clearly meant toffee.. no I meant taffy and yes taffy is a word, the dictionary proved that. The word Ax can be spelled with or without an "e" depending on which continent you are from. Without an "e" if you are from North America with an "e" if you are from Europe. Yakel, however, is not a word... on any continent. In the scrabble war it is currently Glasgow- One Kansas-Zero.. (Only by eight measly points!).

I've spent this last week wandering around the free museums of Glasgow, meeting more people from around the World and sampling a bit of the Glaswegian food. No haggis yet! I did partake in Glasgow's most famous dish, curry. Glasgow was named curry captial of Europe. And, I can officially say it was well deserved. Although, in a tragic turn of events my delicious leftovers did not make it back to my own flat. I have enjoyed discovering little local places. The best discovery I have had to date is the Hidden Lane Tea Room.

I am very fortunate to live just blocks away from the Kelvingrove Museum. The Kelvingroove is in a beautiful building and sits just below the University. The museum is one of Scotland's most visited free attractions! I really enjoy the museum because it's a mashup of many different museums in one. There's exhibits on art, science, animals, human rights, etc.

                                                A view of the Kelvingrove from the University

                   For some reason the pictures I took in the Kelvingrove turned out horribly, I apologize!

                                       The River Kelvin.. which of course runs by the museum!

In addition to the Kelvingrove I spent some time exploring Glasgow's Modern Museum of Art and the Riverside Museum. The Riverside Museum was formerly known as the Museum of Transport and this title is still appropriate. If you love cars, boats and trains you would love this museum. For those of us that aren't transportation fanatics there is a replica of Glasgow's main street which was really fun to see.

The Riverside Museum is located on the Clyde River. I loved being down by the river and getting another perspective of the city.

And, finally some pictures of my very first Ceilidh (Mentioned in the previous blog post!)

Scotslish Lesson-- Brollies=Umbrella... always make sure to leave your "Brollie" in the "Brollie Stand" so you don't drip water all over the floor!