A Scottish Thanksgiving

When I left Kansas for Glasgow I of course was worried about dealing with homesickness. I was assured by my family that the time would pass so quickly and I would have such a wonderful time I wouldn't be overly bothered by my longings for home. While they said this, my  mom told me that the hardest day would be Thanksgiving. While I did miss being home with my family for the holiday, Thanksgiving did not set off a massive spell of homesickness. I am fortunate enough to be going home for Christmas, I am greatly looking forward to this and in the meantime have made certain to make the most of the time I spend in Glasgow before journeying home. Thanksgiving was no exception to this and the day (well really the day following Thanksgiving) was one of the best Thanksgivings I've had.

Being in the American Studies program I am surrounded by a group of people who have a fascination with all things American. Because of this they knew a great deal about Thanksgiving and had always hoped to celebrate the holiday. In addition to my classmates, I have made other friends in Glasgow who I am exceptionally thankful for and whom I knew would be more than happy to partake in a free meal. It is for these reasons that a little over a week ago I sent out nine invitations (ten people is a perfect dinner party number!) to invite my friends to a Thanksgiving meal. Everyone was assigned a traditional Thanksgiving side dish to make and bring to the dinner.

In true Garrett holiday fashion a few things had to happen prior to the party. On Monday, my flatmate was struck by a terrible 24 hour virus. Two days later, I was lucky enough to be struck down as well. This lovely virus left its victim confined to bed being able to sit up only to take small sips of soup throughout the day. While laying in a flu fog I was traumatized by dreams of turkeys not properly defrosting and unbaked pumpkin pies. Fortunately, the virus lived up to its 24 hour promise and the flatmate and I were both up and recovered and ready to cook Friday morning.

But, of course illness is not the only misfortune that strikes on the holidays. The UK is not especially known for turkey. Recently, the bird has become very popular at Christmas time but is not widely sold throughout the year. The Christmas turkeys are currently available online but have not been placed in the stores. It is for this reason that I ordered a turkey online. ASDA was all set to deliver my turkey between the times of 10 AM and 12 PM on Friday. I was eagerly awaiting the turkey but as the time rolled by the turkey was not arriving. Finally, at exactly 12 I received a phone call saying the delivery was going to be late. I worked diligently to prepare any food I could while waiting for the bird. However, I had planned on going to the store while the turkey was defrosting. Finally, my flatmate burst into my room proclaiming, "The ASDA truck is here!" In true Glaswegian fashion the delivery man wanted to chat with me for hours. But, I needed to defrost the turkey! I managed to politely exit the conversation as soon as possible and rushed in to fill the sink.

As the sink was filling we placed the turkey in the basin only to hear the sound of rushing water. This sound caused both Richard and I to stop in our tracks look at eachother and then look at the source. What is that? I asked, while he assured me it was only the sounds of spillover from the sink. But this was not just the spillover sound of extra water trickling down the drain, this was more. As the cupboard under the sink was opened a massive waterfall spilled out. The spillover valve was not properly connected and water had been pooling in our lower cupboard for a couple months now. As I went about chopping onions my flatmate lay beneath the sink and as the sounds of "You call this bloody plumbing" filled the air I realized that it truly was Thanksgiving.

Due to ASDA's late delivery there was a bit of a time-crunch in the defrosting and cooking of the bird process. In fact the desperation to defrost the turkey was so great that at one point the turkey was being held up to the sun through the kitchen windows. However, the turkey not only cooked properly but survived transport across the city to land in yet another oven and finally upon the table in perfect time for dinner guests.

The Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. Everyone's food was delicious and the company was excellent. After eating plenty of food and drinking even more wine we sat around the table until after two in the morning before finally making it to the pub for one last drink.

I unfortunately did not get too many pictures of Thanksgiving. The pictures below are a combination of many of the different guests (this explains the difference in formatting!)

 I am so incredibly grateful that my classmate and wonderful friend Sanne was able to have our Thanksgiving dinner at her flat. It was simply not possible to fit everyone into my flat. And, I am also thankful that my mom was able to send so many decorations to Glasgow, including the coloring placemates which were a great success.

 My first turkey! And, amazingly enough it did not sizzle and explode (like the turkey in Christmas Vacation), I was convinced it would.

 Stuart did a wonderful job of carving the turkey! And, there is no way the turkey would have arrived at Sanne's without his services.

 As you can see from this picture, Richard was the best Thanksgiving Turkey Teammate anyone could ask for. There is no way the Thanksgiving meal would have been such a success without him. The meal also would not have been such a success without all the people in this picture. The company at dinner was perfect and there really was a lot to be thankful for.

Being a true Glaswegian Thanksgiving (there is now such a thing!) I did not climb into my bed until the wee hours of the morning. Normally, this wouldn't have been an issue, it was a Saturday, no school assignments had to be completed. But, this week I was going to St. Andrews on another student tour. That being said I had to be up and on my way to City Centre at 7am! When I signed up for the St. Andrew's trip I knew a few girls going. However, they ended up having to back out of the trip because of school work, end of term is always a drag on exciting adventures. Because of this I knew no one going on the trip. In fact, I was the only student from the University of Glasgow. The day ended up being really wonderful! I was able to met some great people and I really loved St. Andrews, I highly recommend visiting.

The most challenging part of the day was the excessively high winds Scotland was experiencing. Our poor tour guide was convinced at least one person would become casulty to the wind and blow off the steep cliffs of St. Andrews. Fortunately, this did not occur although the wind did knock at least one person completely over.

The University of St. Andrews, where Kate and William went to University!

Our tour guide Gary. At this point of the tour I won a highland cow postcard for answering the following question: Besides Scotland there are three countries that have St. Andrews as their patron saint. Which countries are these. Now, I only got one but it was enough!

Castle Ruins

St. Andrews was so beautiful and peaceful. It was wonderful to walk along the shore and take in all the gorgeous sites the city had to offer.

 So, so, so windy!

 A quick pitstop outside Kirkcaldy gave us the chance to explore more castle ruins and have more fantastic shoreline views.

As previously mentioned (a couple times) it was excessively windy. But, we were very fortunate and had no rain throughout the trip. Of course, as we drive back into Glasgow the rain begins to fall in sheets. My feet had managed to stay dry throughout the day, even with the climate control holes in the soles. The puddles in Glasgow though poured into my shoes, making my feet nice and soggy. I got off the bus and headed into the city where I went out for dinner and saw a movie.... very windblown and very wet. By the time we traveled back to the flat (it was after 11 at night and I had left at 7 in the morning) I was certainly ready to curl up in my warm bed and sleep off the travels of the day. On our walk home I made a tragic, tragic mistake. A mistake that you learn very quickly not to commit in Glasgow, I stood too close to the curb. And as I stood too close to the curb a massive vechicle drove by and drove right through a puddle. The water came flying towards me and I was completely drenched from head to foot, as if I weren't wet enough. The rest of the walk home I left small puddles in my wake and my shoes made a lovely squishing noise all the way back to the flat. This rain continued throughout the night, the next day and into today. In fact, it has rained so consistently and so much that the subways were closed today due to flooding.

Yesterday, was the final class of the term. The American Studies group met at our usual time and discussed the lectures and readings of the semester. Following the discussion our class went out for dinner which our department paid for! We of course, all had drinks, dinner and a dessert. I really enjoy how the University encourages programs to be close-knit and the professors work diligently to solidfy a bond between not only themselves and the class but between classmates as well. I have been very lucky with all the people in my American Studies course and I will miss them greatly as we head onto electives next term and are not together every Monday and Wednesday!

It is almost impossible to believe the semester has come to a close. I still have two weeks in Glasgow before heading home for the holidays and lots planned.

Scotslish Lesson: Dreich- Dull. Usually used to describe the weather.

And, of course the best part of Thanksgiving is leftovers! While we had no leftover turkey we had plenty of pumpkin and so Flat 3.1 is having plenty of pumpkin delicacies this week!

It's a Pleasure to Meet You, Mr. Goat

Fortunately, this blog has many supporters. Some of these supporters don't only read the blog but place in their valuable input each and every week. For example, this week my flatmate and I were discussing weekend plans. When asked what I was doing I responded with a "Oh, I don't know.. I really don't have much planned." This answer received a very, very serious look and the response "Think about the blog!" Now this was a lot of pressure! What was I going to do to "think about the blog!" I really didn't have much planned for the weekend, certainly no trips. The next day I met with Stuart and just to add to the pressure he asked me "So what are you going to write about this week in your blog?".... This was too much, I had nothing to write about, I hadn't gone anywhere and it was Saturday, time was running out!

As we sat in Stuart's car deciding where to go, I finally asked him to just take me "somewhere I could write about." After a short drive behind some achingly slow driving individuals we arrived in New Lanark. New Lanark is a restored 18th century cotton mill village. The village was created by David Dale, however, it is Dale's son-in-law, Robert Owen that made the village famous. Owen was a social reformer who put into action many social reforms within the village. Most noteably he provided the village workers with better living conditions, medical care, education, etc. The village is now one of five World Heritage Sites in Scotland and is beautifully situated along the river Clyde in a wooded area.

A year ago when I was looking into Universities in the UK I began talking to Stuart. Because he worked at the University of Glasgow it was, of course, his hope to convince me that Glasgow was the most appealing location for my studies. Knowing that I have a strange affection for goats (yes, they are my favorite animal) he sent me a video documenting a goat on a farm here in Scotland. Amazingly enough, we stopped at a small farm on our way back into Glasgow.. a farm that has one goat, the goat and I recognized it!

This goat has to be the friendliest goat ever. It liked us even after it figured out we had no food to give him.

In addition to visiting New Lanark this weekend, I attended another play at Tramway. Some of you may recall the first production I saw at Tramway.. the play with the astronaunts and monkeys? Well, have no fear this tramway production also lived up to the bizarre nature of the first. This time talking vegetables, dance numbers with parts of the digestive tract and characters eating one another were involved. And, of course, this will be the first play that I review for The Journal. After the review is published I will be certain to provide a link on the blog and you can read what I thought about "Pass the Spoon." Let's just say my flatmate was lucky enough to read it pre-publication and stated.. "Well, reading between the lines you can pretty much gather you were not a fan of this play... at all"

I have been asked by numerous people about the pubs, restaurants and coffee/tea shops in Glasgow. Because of these questions I had toyed with the idea of doing a blog post just about all the various places around the city that I've been. Instead, I've decided to divide it into sections and combine it with a few weekly blog posts. This week's section is the West End:

Oran Mor- This is one of my very favorite, if not favorite, places to go in Glasgow. The church has been converted into a pub, restaurant and club.  In addition  to a great pub Oran Mor has a program called "A Pint, A Pie and A Play" over the lunch hour each day. I have yet to go but am hoping to review one of their plays sometime soon.

Ashton Lane- Is a small hidden lane behind the University and Byres Road that is absolutely packed with places to eat and drink. The cobblestone streets and small white lights hanging above the street make for a very picturesque evening out.

Brel- On Ashton Lane is a Belgian restaurant. This is where I had my very first mussel! Situated right behind the University there are plenty of great lunch specials and the beer garden is absolutely packed on a sunny day. I've also heard that the live music is fantastic.

Grosvenors- On Ashton Lane is a cinema. I have not been to the cinema but heard it's really very nice. The Loft is above the Cinema and is a nice restaurant and pub. The loft is great for parties ( my birthday party will be there!) because it has really nice drink specials and is a wonderful venue for gathering with groups of people. They also have board games on the tables!

Hillhead Book Club- This place quickly wins over any visitors. In addition to a witty menu and a beautiful venue, the food is delicious! And, just so you don't have to embarrass yourself like myself and my flatmate a Hillhead Book Club sandwich is really just a club sandwich... seems to be a question they get often!

Green Chilli- Glasgow has been named the Curry Captial of Britain multiple times and there are many reasons why. One of those reasons is Green Chili cafe. Their curry is absolutely delicious! However, don't be fooled by the sign proclaiming 1 pound Indian tapas. They do have one pound tapas but you have to buy a set amount and it is so much food and of course ends up being much more expensive than a couple pounds!

The Goat and Grill- More than anything this restaurant has served as a great meeting place. But, after meeting at here over and over to head off to other places, a few friends and I finally have started going here for drinks. The atmosphere is very nice and the loation is absolutely unbeatable!

The Hidden Lane Tearoom- This has been featured in my blog before! I love this place. As the name states it's located in a hidden lane. It's extremely charming and reasonably priced. I had my first high tea here this weekend and it was a lot of fun.

Beanscene- There are an abundance of these coffeehouses throughout Glasgow. I personally, love the one located right across from the Kelvingrove. The views from this particular shop are fantastic and the coffee delicious. This is a common meeting place in Glasgow, I've had to meet here for quite a few meetings myself!

Montgomery's - This place is so hidden it's difficult to find a picture! Tucked away across from the Goat and Grill and down the street from the Kelvingrove, Montgomery's is a really nice place for a Saturday morning cup of coffee... my flatmate and I can certainly attest to that statement, seeing we go every Saturday morning. Although, fairly well hidden it's becoming relatively well known and the small restaurant fills up fast!

Ben Nevis- Is a great little pub. The warm stove, traditional music and pub dogs make Ben Nevis extremely inviting. The pub is small but very cozy and is a nice place to grab a quick drink with friends.

These are just a few of the numerous places to eat and drink in the West End. Most of the restaurants have something for everyone. There is only one place I would advise avoiding at all costs... and that place is Barbeque Kings.. red onion rings just are not very appealing!

The upcoming weeks have much instore and the blog will be thought of often! There are many, many exciting travel opportunities in the upcoming weeks and I look forward to sharing!

Scotslish Lesson: Firth- Estuary..... The Firth of Forth for example!