Oh The Places We’ll Go

School is back in session and everyone is back in Glasgow once again.  From what I hear everyone’s Christmases went pretty well.  Lots of turkey, stuffing, ham, lighting real candles on Christmas trees instead of the electronic light ones that normal people use (that’s what they do in Germany I guess), family bonding and all that good stuff.  It all almost made me a little homesick.  Everyone’s parents buying their groceries for them when they came back to school, all the cool new stuff everyone got, stories about crazy New Year’s parties with all of their friends from home.  Nothing that I have from my Christmas was really tangible… in fact I didn’t buy a single souvenir when I was in Greece, but as corny as it sounds, I came away with good memories.

The first week of classes went really well except for the fact that my alarm clock never went off for the first day of my new classes!  I was so irritated… sometimes my phone tweaks out and forgets to change its inner clock until you touch it, so the alarm never goes off.  That morning, none of the THREE that I set decided to go off, so I missed class.  Woops.  I made it to the next day though, and from what I saw I didn’t miss much.  I’m taking two classes this semester and from what I’ve been sitting in on, they should be a LOT easier for me than the classes I took last semester.  The first class, GC 18, is Modern Literatures so we’re reading James Joyce, Orwell, T.S. Eliott, etc.  Sounds a lot better than Marlowe, Ben Jonson, things that were written 400 years ago that I don’t understand.  Then in my other class, Scottish Literature 3B, we’re reading Scottish Lit. all from post-WWII, including Trainspotting which if you haven’t seen it, see it.  Some of the stuff we’re reading is written in Scots, which when you’re reading it is almost like how Scottish people speak in written form.  Trainspotting is written that way, colloquially, so reading it is less of a challenge since I know the slang and the accent.  If I had tried reading it before, I don’t know if it would’ve made much sense, so at least I’m doing it all in the right order.

Other than class, life is going pretty good.  Still crunched as far as money goes, but that’s nothing new so I’m just having to be careful about going out, spending too much money, things like that.  I stayed in this weekend and jigsaw puzzled, so at least I’m not going out and wasting money.  I’ve been jigsawing a lot lately, since i’ve got quite the collection of puzzles going on.  Most of them are Disney ones, so that kind of makes me feel like a child… doing Disney puzzles, but I think they’re the best ones.  Familiar characters, lots of colors… it keeps it all interesting.  All of the ones that I have that aren’t Disney ones are always a lot less exciting.  What would you rather do- Winnie the Pooh or some house painting?  You’d pick Pooh too.  They’re always 1000 pieces- not too big, not too small.  Keep me occupied for a good number of hours, just listening to music and puzzling away.  Plus, they’re cheap, so I like that too.

Superbowl Sunday is this next Sunday and I can’t wait!  I’m going down to the Sports Cafe on Sauchiehall to watch, I think, since they’re open until 4 for the game.  Tickets are 5 pounds, so Liz, Liam, Gavin and I are all going to go drink and be merry watching the Cardinals and the Steelers battle it out.  I think they’re all more interested in the drinking than the game, but I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.  I still haven’t picked out who I’m going to cheer for, since the Cardinals and the 49ers are in the same division, but I don’t think I could feel good about myself cheering for the Steelers.  I’ll probably go for the Cardinals just because they’re in the NFC and I like Kurt Warner, but either way it goes I’ll be happy.  I just want a good game… last year’s will be hard to beat!

I keep thinking about all the food I’m going to eat when I get back to California, I have an entire plan of things that I need to eat when I get back.  I miss Mexican food, American breakfasts, movie theater popcorn with BUTTER on it and freshly popped, hamburgers with thousand island dressing on them, gallon jugs of milk, just the little things that make American food fantastic.  Baseball is also very very high on the list since I’ll be back right in the first half of the season and I need to get myself a good hot dog and garlic fries from ATT, SBC, Pac Bell whateverthehelltheycallitnow Park.  It’s not like I’m homesick or anything… I just miss the food.  Pathetic, yes, but if you had to eat sweet or salted popcorn with NO BUTTER on it anytime you went to see a movie, you’d miss food too.  That and real hashbrowns made fresh, not these blocky pre-packaged things they make here.

I’m pretty up to date with all of my shows and TV watching.  I watched the Inauguration from start to finish and felt the most patriotic I think I have ever felt in my entire life.  What the hell was that hat that Aretha was wearing?  And why did she sound absolutely terrible?  The “Queen of Soul” was definitely not doing as well as she should have.  The poem that woman read was terrible, and the way she read it didn’t make it much better.  Let’s e-nun-ci-ate ev-er-y-th-i-ng so that I sound like a th-re-e yea-r o-ld.  Terrible.  I can’t believe Roberts botched the oath, and even worse that the Right was freaking out about how he ‘wasn’t president’ because they messed it up.  The TV coverage was pretty funny on CNN online since people were chatting about everything on Facebook and all of the statuses were hilarious.  Really liked Sasha and Malia’s coats, plus the First Lady’s inauguration suit, but the evening gown was BAD.  Good color, but I didn’t like all the embellishments on it.  Plus it was too long, they should have shortened it.  Overall though, I loved watching the inauguration.  Made me feel very proud to be American, to see everyone being so patriotic and supportive of Obama’s going into office.  In the UK when they get a new Prime Minister he literally just shows up at the house and takes a few photos.  We’re very ceremonious about it all, and I like that.  All of the “I love America” songs, so many people showing up, all the monuments and everything.  Makes you feel proud of where you come from… and I haven’t felt that way in, well, just about 8 years now.  Haha.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go and see Slumdog Millionaire.  I saw it the other day after finding it online, like I always do, and it was absolutely AMAZING.  I was blown away by how good it was.  I hope it wins Best Picture at the Oscars.  Either that or Milk, which if you haven’t seen it, go see it.  Sean Penn is fantastic in Milk.

I hope everyone drops me a line and lets me know how things are going back in the States.  What you thought of the Inauguration, movies you’ve seen, etc.  I feel like I haven’t heard from anyone in AGES!

-Catherine

This is probably going to be the longest post in the history of the world because I have so much to catch everyone up on, it’s not even funny.  I’m sorry it has taken so long to get around to posting, but there literally hasn’t been any opportunities to post since I’ve been going here there and everywhere lately and I’m only just having the time to sit down at my computer, look at the screen, and just go.

We left Greece on the 28th to head back to Scotland.  Athens overall was an amazing experience.  I wish we could’ve gone to the islands, and we never ended up doing that apple pie, but the rest of our stay in Greece was amazing.  Erica and I caught the EARLY bus out to Delphi on the 27th to go and see some of the ruins there.  An American from Virginia, Gideon, went with us… he’s an architect student in London and was good chat.  From what I understand Delphi was an important place in Ancient Greece because the most important oracle in all of Greece was there.  She’s the one who told you the future, things like that.  The theme of Greece was “you need to use your imagination” because everywhere you go, there are all of these amazingly old things but none of them are really left like they used to be other than the Parthenon.  Delphi was FREEZING.  It was snowing, there was lots of rain, and the bus ride THERE was hell.  I think I was still a wee bit hungover from the day before so I was not a happy camper on an almost 4 hour bus ride.  After we wandered around Delphi for a bit we headed out to grab some food, ending up with the worst lunch in the history of lunches for some ridiculous price.  We were not happy.  After we waited around for a bit, we grabbed the last 3 tickets back to Athens on this bus (THANK GOD) and headed back into town.  After we got back into Athens I got to wander around the city with one of the Greeks just to pass the time.  Went to sleep and then the next morning, we headed to the airport.  Flight to London, train from Gatwick into the city.  Erica and I met up with a friend who lives in London and just hung out at her flat after going to the movies to kill time before taking the long bus back up to Glasgow.  I managed to fall asleep on the bus, amazingly enough!  We were seated at this 4-person table thing, I was faced backwards, and I literally just smashed my head into the table and passed out the whole ride back into Glasgow.

Recovery time was non existant after Greece.  The 29th and 30th I was catching up on sleep and vegging out to myself, and the 31st was New Year’s Eve.  Erin, Andy, and all of their pals came up from Kilmarnock to hit the town for New Year’s.  We headed out to Curlers and I was already in complete and utter PAIN because of the high shoes I was wearing.  Never again.  I couldn’t even manage to enjoy my new pants that actually fit because my feet hurt so badly.  After Curlers we caught a cab downtown to near Sauchiehall Street and we ended up in this pub called the Butterfly and the Pig and stayed there for the rest of the night.  They were doing ceildh dancing and there was a bagpiper and everything going on.  It was pretty amazing, even if I was in a foul mood.  I guess some places watch the chimes of Big Ben, but apparently not in Scotland.  Oh well, I would rather see a bagpiper play Auld Lyne Sang or whatever it’s called instead.  Who wants to hear some stupid clock chime when you can watch a bagpiper?  I still miss Times Square and the ball and everything, there’s nothing that compares to Dick Clark’s Rockin New Year’s.  I heard they’ve even got a new ball and everything?  And why in the world did they get the Clintons to light it or whatever?  Because when I think joyous New Year… I think the Clintons.  We wandered back to the flat with our fish and chips in hand and ended up passing out in the flat.  The next day was all about JIGSAW PUZZLING because I bought a 1000 piece one before I left for Greece.  Erin, Andy and I did the puzzle pretty much all day… we are puzzle obsessed.

Erin and I headed down to Newmilns to her house on the 2nd because we were leaving for Ireland on the 3rd.  Liz met up with us after she headed up from Leeds and we all had a mini-reunion party session in Kilmarnock that night.  We all are sticking to the story that we got “accidentally” drunk that night, since we had planned on coming back at midnight.  That didn’t happen, obviously.  We went to a couple different bars, some funky club that was playing Dirty Dancing music, and Liz managed to break my Corona bottle’s neck.  It was… hilarious, needless to say.  We were absolutely pissing ourselves laughing.  Got free food from Erin’s prom date in town.  I have no idea how I ended up with that food.

I was still drunk the next morning when we were getting ready to go to Ireland.  Liz, Erin and I flew out from Prestwick Airport on the SHORTEST FLIGHT EVER out to Derry Airport.  I swear, the flight itself took about 20 minutes take off to landing.  It was insanity.  We got into Derry, Nicola picked us up, and we went over to County Tyrone to see the lovely town called Omagh where Nicola lives.  She lives on this cow farm on the outskirts of the town near this Loch called Lochmacroy.  I think that’s how you spell it at least.  Our first night in Ireland we went down to the south on a bus they had rented out for Nicola’s birthday.  We went to this town called Monaghan?  I think?  Anyways, it was absolute insanity.  The Irish can drink more alcohol than I ever imagined would be humanly possible.  I was blown away.  4 am bus back to Omagh and people were still drinking on the bus.  Piss.  Heads.  Haha.  The rest of Ireland was a lot of napping, sleeping, hanging out in town, going to Sally’s and meeting all of Nicola’s friends, and my favorite part- HOME COOKED MEALS.  Her family is absolutely amazing, really friendly and welcoming.  It was nice meeting all of the people she’s always talking about and putting a face to their names.  Ireland itself is really beautiful- loads of rolling hills and green everywhere.  Lots of farms.  Sheep.  Cows.

After coming back from Ireland on the 7th I’ve been vegging out and being lazy since I have no more traveling to do.  I’m down at Erin’s house to have actual humans around since no one is back in Glasgow until the 11th.  I can’t wait to get back and see everyone, but I’m not looking forward to all of the reading, studying, or avoiding it really.  I have to avoid the hell I put myself through the last week of classes and things.  That week was brutal, and I don’t want another one to come anytime soon.

I’ll be putting pictures up when Erica gets around to uploading them up in California, and when Nicola adds hers to Bebo or Facebook.  I can’t wait for everyone to see our misadventures walking around Omagh and being piss heads in Kilmarnock!

Will be sure to do that as soon as possible… and until then-

-Catherine