Oh The Places We’ll Go

I felt pretty rough waking up on Friday, but thank god I didn’t feel nearly as rough as Brad did that morning.  He crawled out of his room looking like the night of the walking dead.  Eyes half open, hair all tussled about, clothes half on and shifted to one side.  He came out of the room for about five seconds, saw the light of day and just went, “I need to go back to bed” and disappeared again.  The champs of the night before, including two big Australian guys whose names I can’t even remember, were up bright and early in the morning with no problems at all.  Champ status right there.

Now, I always got made fun of at Carpe for never going to sightsee.  It happens when you stay in Budapest at Carpe.  They always tell you go and see what you’re going to see the first day you’re there.  Otherwise you’ll never see anything.  You may think, now that’s an exaggeration, but it’s completely true.  There are people who spend their entire trip inside during the day and out drinking until 5am, never seeing anything other than the insides of pubs.  Friday was my “I am determined to be productive day”, and a bunch of the Australians wanted to go and sightsee since they knew they were leaving at 5 the next morning after pulling an all-nighter off partying at the island with the rest of the hostel.  Of course, the one day I decided to actually go and see sunlight and be productive Budapest decided to go and get all hot on me.  I’m telling you, this ‘real weather’ thing has completely thrown me off.  Sunshine, actual HEAT.  Give me some rain and wind and I know exactly how to handle it.  I was overprepared for sightseeing on Friday, including wearing a sweatshirt I couldn’t take off.  The lot of us walked for ages and after showing up late for the free walking tour, a few of us branched off to climb the big hill on the Buda side with the big statue on top.

Climbing big hill with sweatshirt on in heat- not a good idea.  I had taken a shower that morning and by halfway up that stupid mountain I needed another one.  Sweat and I don’t mix well, so I was miserable AND looked like absolute ASS in all of my photos.  Brian, Australian James, French-Canadian Jeremy, Diego from Chile, and I made that hill our bitch.  Well, with lots of stopping and searching for a hair-tie for me (thank god I had that pen in my bag).  The view from the top is great since you can see all across Buda and Pest to the mountains around the city.  One thing I have to say though.  That damn statue- she’s holding a damn leaf?!  All that climbing for a chick with some fern in her hand.  What a let down.  On the top of the hill there’s an old German bunker with pictures of the Soviet/German invasions of Budapest.  The one touristy thing I did the whole time I was in Budapest.  The best part is a picture of the very bridge I had walked over the day before, completely destroyed from the bombings during the invasion.  Literally, the entire bridge minus the stone foundations went into the water.  Crazy.

A walk back to the hostel, another shower, and a change of clothes and I was ready for the island.  Well, technically it IS an island but not how I think of one.  No surfing or anything like that.  Beaches, yes, and surrounded by water, yes.  The lot of us headed out for the island ready to party it up with Suzi and Kes (his first night out with us by himself, I believe, as he had been entertaining a friend of the female persuasion up until that day).  4 of the guys whom I had known since Krakow and Vienna (Johnny, Tess, Brian and Kane) were headed for Croatia the next day at 5am so they were pulling an all-nighter on the island before splitting to Split and hanging out on the beach for the next week.

It was at on our way to the island that I met one of the most memorable characters from all my travels- Gaycob.  Commonly known as Jacob, yes, but I find that Gaycob is a more fitting nickname.  Jacob is a very tall and narrow, close-to-the-head-shave gay man from North Carolina originally but came to Budapest via New York City.  The boy has all different kinds of crazy stories and just oozes sass and attitude.  I love him from moment number 1.  I believe our first destination pre-island was Morrisons 2 (or is it Morrisons 1?  I can never remember), where I met Gaycob.  He’s got all different kinds of celebrity gossipy stories from working in retail in NYC (“Lady GaGa, bitch needs to get a new weave… hers is the worst I have ever seen!”), the flick of the hand and the sly grin on the face.  Not to mention the boy has the greatest sets of sunglasses I have ever seen in my life, and he’s incredibly funny.  All about the attitude… and I love it.

When I had first arrived in Budapest the hostel was, let’s just say, a sausage fest.  3 girls, the rest male.  The odds were in my favor.  Around Island Party day the scales started tipping more evenly with the arrival of Connie, my fellow Californian.  And from the Bay Area, which made her automatically awesome.  Connie is a 5’ nothing insanely tan and insanely petite girl from Santa Rosa studying in Italy.  She’s quiet at first but get her going and she’s a firecracker.  Really nice, really laid back.  I like her.  At Morrisons 2 we had missed out on the good drink specials so after a couple of beers we all up and headed to the island for some partying.  First stop, 2 for 1 tequila.  I love this island already.  Tequila, beer, tequila, beer.  I’m in it to win it.  Most of my night was spent chatting to some combination of Sam/Kurt/Connie/Gaycob, though I don’t remember half of what was said past a certain hour.

At one point Kurt tells us he’s leaving and I drunkenly forbid him.  Where does he think he’s going?  He’s not drinking anymore tonight, too many carbs.  Sam and I tell him we’ll grab a to-go beer from the bar and head back with him in a cab.  Beer in hand, we hop in the cab and get back to the hostel after nearly peeing ourselves from laughing up the stairs.  It was this night, I believe, that my adding the phrase “and shit” to the end of every sentence got out of hand.  I finish the beer from the island bar sitting on the counter in the kitchen and, what do I do?  Go to the fridge and open another can.  I am awesome.  It’s 3am and Kurt is making one of his workout drinks- raw egg whites.  I tell him he’s “like Rocky and shit” and we all burst into drunken laughter.  The rest of the night gets really spotty.  I don’t even remember being in the lounge until I wake up the next morning, jeans still on, and find myself with a picture on my camera- me in a furry Russian hat?  Where did this hat come from?  I have no idea.  It’s 10am and beer o’clock already.  Let’s do it.

My birthday is next Thursday and the preparations are already underway.  Most likely my birthday will be a bit of pub golfing (drinking games at 18 different pubs along the subway), which will inevitably bring hysterical drunkenness and dancing in the street.  I’ve started mapping out the 18 pubs we’re going to be stopping at on my birthday, thanks to the angels who created this website completely dedicated to pub crawling the underground here in Glasgow.  Nifty.

We went to Curlers the other night, which is the bar down the hill from my apartment building, and ran into a guy in a full on pig costume going around taking pictures with people.  And I got a picture, of course.  Wouldn’t you?  How often do you go into perfectly good bars seeing grown men dressed up as farm animals?  

My 2 essays are due next week and I have done absolutely nothing to prepare to write, research or anything for them.  I’ve got a few days to get those going and polished but I have to be pretty focused until next Wednesday in order to get them done and up to the standard that they need to be.  I think I’m especially nervous because I’ll be writing for British professors and I’m unsure as to whether or not my writing will be ‘up to snuff’ since I’ve never been judged on a level other than American writing, so it should be interesting.  Hopefully they don’t pick up my paper and laugh, calling me a stupid American and saying that I have no idea what I’m doing.  Let’s hope I’m not that terrible!

After I finish my next can of Coke, the last from a box that I purchased on Saturday, I’m going on a soft drink fast.  No soft drinks for as long as I can make it.  I’m going to try as hard as humanly possible, but I have a feeling it’s going to be terrible.  I don’t think I can emphasize to people enough how MUCH soda I drink.  It’s some ridiculous amount- at least 4 cans a day.  Pretty terrible when you think about it.  I mean, at least I’m addicted to something like soft drinks and not something worse (like cocaine or something), but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad for me.  Save my teeth while they’re still there, right?  And at least I don’t like alcoholic mixed drinks with any kind of soda in them.  Other than my Long Island Iced Teas, of course.  But even then, it’s 90% alcohol and a splash of Coke for coloring.  The good ones are made that way, at least.

I’ve been on a movie spree the last few days.  I’ve become a pro at finding any movie imaginable online to watch with everyone in the flat.  Illegal, it may be, but free… and for a poor college student that’s all I really care about.  I watched “Wanted” with Angelina Jolie yesterday and it blew me away, I thought it was absolutely fantastic.  That’s a buyer, right there.  Plus it doesn’t hurt that the wonderful James McAvoy is in the film, and he’s Scottish and beautiful so there’s TWO pretty people to look at the WHOLE time!  Haha.  Watched “The Notebook” today against my wishes.  I’m not good with sappy crying movies so the end was a little awkward, everyone else crying but me.  I guess I just have a heart of stone.  

Tomorrow I have to go to the library, force myself to read, and seriously research for my 2 papers due next week… or else I’m going to be in the weeds!  Procrastination will be the death of me one of these days, I’m sure of it.

-Catherine

I’ve been a very productive girl the last few days.  It’s quite the anomaly, actually, when I am being a productive person.  Most of the time I can’t really be bothered to do anything other than lift my arm, open a can of Coke, and click to watch the next Youtube video.  Productiveness comes in very small spurts, and when it happens… it happens all at once.

I’ve finally got my ticket to go to Greece for Christmas.  A lot of you may be wondering, “why the fuck are you going to Greece for Christmas?”, which my answer to is… why not?  What else am I going to do?  While everyone else is at home drinking and watching American Football (not that I won’t be missing that deep down inside), I’ll be drinking and eating in Athens at the Acropolis trying to pick up cute boys who I can’t understand.  I don’t know a lick of Greek so I’m thinking that may be a wee bit difficult but we’ll see how it goes.  Maybe they speak English there, yeah?  Or maybe I’m just fucked.

I’ve also got a ticket to go to a rugby match in Edinburgh next month, which should be a good time.  I don’t understand any of the rules or regulations regarding rugby so this “sporting event” will likely turn into beer after beer starting at 2 in the afternoon and ending when and where I pass out.  I’m pretty sure it’s going to be England vs. South Africa, so I’m assuming I’ll be cheering for England but I honestly couldn’t tell you a single person who plays for the team.  Is rugby really even that big out here anyway?  I think more people are into football, personally, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate good looking guys tackling each other for hours on end while I drunkenly watch.

In February I scored some tickets to see Russell Brand here in Glasgow.  He’s not really big out in the states yet, but he’s absolutely hilarious and legendary here in the UK.  I guess he’s pretty famous; he’s in all the tabloids and stuff like that.  Quite the womanizer, shagger of the year, etc.  It should be a good time.  I love stand up comedy and watch way too much of it, but haven’t ever seen a show in person so I’m excited about it.  Plus I’m going with the girls so that should be good too.

I haven’t been able to watch a lot of the American TV that I have been keeping up with since the late nights and 5am bedtimes are starting to take their toll.  I was able to watch the VP Debate on Youtube since MSNBC posts them on there after the debates are over.  I thought Obama did a great job, but the town hall setup?  Whoever came up with this one needs to be fired as soon as possible.  How awkward did that whole thing seem?  It was kind of like, normally I’d avoid the moderator’s questions… but now that you’re asking them I guess I’m just going to ignore you. 

Baseball baseball baseball.  Dodgers vs. Phillies in the NLCS.  My life is over as I know it.  I’m going with the Phillies on this one since obviously I can’t cheer for the Dodgers.  I’m going with the RAYS over the Sox for the ALCS.  If the Rays make it to the World Series I’m going Rays all the way.  If it’s the Sox vs. the Phillies, I’m all about the Phillies.  And if it’s the Dodgers vs. the Sox (an obvious worst case scenario), the Sox had better get their 2-peat since I don’t think I could stand watching Joe Torre and those damn Dodgers lifting up the trophy.  I think a little piece of me would die inside if that happened.

I found out the other day that I don’t have to take exams in May, so I’m done here in Scotland after I turn in my essays for second semester on March 10th.  I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself here in Scotland.  I’m obviously not going to go home since, honestly, I’d rather stab my eyes out with a No. 2 pencil than spend April until September in Rocklin.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I think I’ll probably do what I was going to do (backpack around Europe in countries I haven’t seen yet), and then work here in Glasgow for as much as my visa will permit before heading back to the states in June to see Alicia graduate from Rocklin High.  I figure if I end up staying until June (since I have to pay rent until then anyway) and get a little job, I’m most definitely going to go on a trip to Cairo like I want to so that I can see a damn pyramid!  That would cap this whole experience off for me.  Italy, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Greece, Germany, Estonia, The Netherlands, and EGYPT?  I’d be satisfied with that kind of a travel resume, wouldn’t you?

I’m unprepared, yet again, for my tutorial on Reformation literature, but at least I somewhat read Book 4 of Gulliver’s Travels by Swift and read “A Modest Proposal”.  He’s all about the satire, bla bla bla, Go Ireland.  I’ve got it.

Now all I need is a can of that delicious beverage they like to call Coca Cola and I’ll be satisfied….

-Catherine

I’m finally ready to get back into the game.  The traveling game, I mean.  I took a good amount of recovery time, a few weeks to give my brain a break before getting back into all of the old stuff that I need to do post-summer backpacking extravaganza, and now uploading pictures is in full force.  I’ve got all of them rotated and ready to go with a fresh, new website to go.  Now all I’ve got to do is get them all online!  I’m actually in the middle of uploading a lot of them, but it’ll take a while since there’s, well, hundreds of them and they each take time to get online.  However, I’ll let everyone know when they’re online as soon as they are since I want everyone to see everything that happened while we were backpacking.

Getting my party on with the Giants jersey

Now, on to Glasgow.  This weekend was my Beer Pong 101 class for the UK natives.  Now, to give a little background info, beer pong is a big deal back home.  9 red cups on each side of a table, throw a ping pong ball in the opposing team’s cups and get rid of their cups first.  Victory.  Easy enough, yes?  Apparently, English people don’t have the cool red cups over here, so I was stuck using crappy flimsy cups in my instructing.  They didn’t work out very well, so beer pong was kind of a bust, but the night turned from crappy beer pong to excellent Kings Cup playing!  Yes, King’s Cup.

... disgusting

Get a stack of cards, circle them around a big cup and make up a rule for every card.  2 is a bathroom pass, a 3 is everyone has to raise their hands in the air, 4 is touch your chin with your thumb.  The penalty for doing whatever the task is wrong, or last: drink all of your drink.  It’s called King’s cup since anytime someone gets a King, they have to fill up 1/4 of the BIG King’s Cup in the middle of the table with whatever they’re drinking.  Thus, if everyone is drinking something else, the cup in the middle can be…. a monstrous concoction.  After nearly all the cards were gone, it was time for me to pick my card and, of course, who got the 4th and final King?  Me.

I had the pleasure of drinking 1/2 a cup of beer mixed with rum and juice, and vodka and coke.  Yum?  I held my nose and took it all in.  King’s Cup and Beer Pong moved into the living room, which turned from King’s Cup round 2 to dance party, spin the bottle, and god knows what else.  I got to play DJ, which basically meant everyone got to make fun of my “weird American music” which is apparently “bollocks” since I don’t listen to strange electronic British indie music.  Think any kind of music you could possibly imagine with some kind of backbeat put on to it.  Terrible.  Everything sounds like it belongs in a disco and guess what folks.  I don’t disco.  After DJ’ing and trying (unsuccessfully) to get people to stop doing things they’d regret later (and did), I headed to bed.  The festivities ended at 5 in the morning, and everyone passed out in their beds.

I’ve finally gotten a hold of some of the photos from the debachery that I wrote about with the Pub Crawl with the University of Glasgow Tennis Club, since my roommate Laura was tagged in one of the photos on Facebook randomly.  There’s only three photos of the whole night that I’ve found, since none of us girls brought our cameras with us, but I think anyone who has read my story will see how the night got progressively drunker and drunker with every Underground stop.

I’ve booked my first traveling plane ticket since traveling to Europe in the beginning of August.  Guess who’s going back to Barcelona?  Yes, that would be me.  I’m going with all of the California girls since none of them have ever been before, and it’s the kind of city that you need to experience with a bunch of females rather than your brother.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still fun with Thomas.  Hopefully it will be even more fun with the girls with me to oogle at Spanish boys!  I can’t wait.  We’re going to be there at the end of November, so I’m really excited about it.  The Ramblas had better be ready for me, because I’m coming back!  Erica is coming with me and I can’t be more excited.  I know Erica from back home at UCSB and her and I are really good friends, so I’m stoked we’re going to be partying in Barcelona together since she just turned 21 and was sick on her birthday, which is always no good.  Other people coming are Shaun, who is also from UCSB, Megan from UCLA and Jodie is from UCSD.  Molly is Molly, from Rocklin High School just like me, but she’s a genius and goes to Dartmouth and she’s never been to Barcelona either, so it’ll be a good time.  Here’s some pictures of the UC girls (plus Molly) from the first few weeks.

at the QMU with Jodie and Erica

at QMU Cheesy Pop night

erica and i with nicola's bunny ears in the background

Other than going places, I opened up my UK bank account today, so I’m feeling pretty accomplished.  I’m excited I can finally set up paying for my apartment and not have to worry about it anymore.  One more thing off the check list, that’s for sure.  I got my care package today from the states, with tons of goodies including BUTTERED popcorn (which they don’t do here in movie theatres!), hot chocolate stuff, RED CUPS for BEER PONG!, macaroni and cheese, and some boots that I didn’t have before.  I even have my trusty old alarm clock from the states here with me now, so that’s good too!  There’s nothing like waking up to the same old annoying sound from back home, eh?  Nicola, the Irish one, didn’t know what mac and cheese is, so I told her I’d make it for her soon.  I told her it’s an American college food staple.  Just like hot dogs, but no one gets that here either.  Whatever, I don’t care.  I still love them.

I also made guacamole the other day, so I have done a lot in the last few days.  I found avocados and practically died, so I made guac.  Pretty good, I must say for not having the same ingredients that I usually have.  The salsa here is a lot more ketchup-y so that was a bit of a downer.  That and the tortilla chips suck.  Mexicans need to move en masse to Scotland so they can teach these people about delicious food already!  Taco Night is tomorrow night, so I’m making dinner for all the people.  I’ve got ground beef ready, with taco shells and all the toppings.  Now all I need is some tequila to go along with all of my damn limes!  I’ve got like, 10 limes in the fridge and no clue what to do with them.

To finish, my Giants season may be over, but the best part of the year is here: playoffs!  For the next week or so (5 games if they go all 5), I am going to be a HUGE Cubs fan.  You know why?  The DAMN Dodgers are back in the playoffs and my adopted Cubbies had better kick their asses out!  I’m confident in the Cubs, so they’d better bring home the W’s and send Manny and company packing so I don’t have to worry about the Dodgers making it past the first round.  I like the Cubs and the Brewers this year in the NL, especially since I love Prince Fielder and JJ Hardy and I want them to come to my team!  For the AL, I love love the Rays and I hope they make it far in the playoffs.  I can’t in good conscience cheer for the Angels (i’m still bitter), and there’s no way I could stand watching the Red Sox win 3 titles in the last 6 years.  Not necessarily because I hate the team, but moreso because I hate their fans.

I hope everyone enjoys the pictures and gets a good laugh out of them.  I’ll be sure to take more this weekend and get some of my apartment and housemates for everyone to see.

I’m staying up tomorrow to watch the VP Debates with a few people so I can’t wait for that.  I’m going to get no sleep.  Crap.  Oh well, at least Biden vs. Palin should be an entertaining matchup!

Until later…

-Catherine

Sorry for the delay on this post (Debra, that’s for you… haha).  This week has been exhausting, confusing, and interesting all rolled into one.

We started school on the 22nd, but as far as time is concerned my life is pretty easy.  I have lecture at 10, but not necessarily every day since the lecture theatre is allocated between 3 classes (two of which I am in).  In other words, anytime on my schedule it says it’s being used for GC 11 (Shakespeare), I don’t have to go since I’m not in that class.  Beautiful!  This week I didn’t have class on Wednesday or on Friday so I got to stay in and sleep, drink crack (otherwise known as Coke) and hang out with my friends in my apartment.

My two classes are both honors (or honours as they spell it here) English Literature classes, one on Reformation period writing and one on Renaissance period writing.  It’s a little differently done here since 75% of your overall grade is from your exam at the end of the year (even though lectures for the class only run through first semester, the exam is still in May).  Your reading is very selective, you can turn in one or two essays, and your selections of material to read are completely up to you.  I’m used to walking in, getting a list, and being told “read act 1 before Friday”.  Yeah, they don’t do that here.  It’s almost nice because you get to learn the material as you want to learn it.  If you hate Milton, you can focus less on him and go more for Dryden.  On the other hand, it almost sucks more because you aren’t being forced to read on pace, so you can get caught behind pretty easily.  Hopefully I don’t fall into that category, but then again I’m pretty good about staying focused and besides that I have Molly here to kick my ass along the way!

The biggest event of the week so far was going on a pub crawl with the Glasgow University Tennis Club (which mind you, I don’t play tennis at all, I was there for moral support for Molly).  We all got split into teams and Elizabeth (my flatmate from England), Molly and I were all split into the same team with a few Scots and a German.  We got an unlimited pass on the Underground, and basically the idea is to go to as many metro stops as you can, and get a drink at every one at the closest bar.  The rule is, however, that one person in your group gets to choose the drink for everyone in the group.  Oh, and you can’t sit on the metro.  You have to stand and not lean against anything- think “surfing” the subway.  At first it was all good- vodka and coke, tequila, whiskey, rum and coke.  And then, of course, Elizabeth being the English girl that she is… chooses for us to drink red wine at one pub.  Red wine.  We had to chug all of our drinks, so chugging the red wine definitely was the one that did me in.  Molly, being smaller than me, was a goner already.  More pints of beer, Guinness.  Then somehow getting to a dance club downtown with everyone else.  Getting a taxi back, falling out of it (literally), spilling chips everywhere (french fries), falling over again.  It was a pretty hilarious night, but such a bad bad bad morning.  I’m never drinking again (or at least not for a couple days.  Haha)

Other than that, most of the last few days have just been ‘bonding time’.  I’ve got a good crew of people here with me, so Glasgow has been amazingly awesome so far.  I’m having a good time making fun of how the English (and Scottish, Irish) say things, trying to let them know we Americans pronounce things correctly.  Haha.  I got a chance to stay up and watch the debates last night, so that was fun.  I won’t bore anyone with who I support (*cough* Obama *cough*), but it was fun watching it with everyone, non-Americans and all.  Makes me feel all patriotic inside.  

I think most likely I’m going to stay up on Sunday and watch the last Giants game of the season.  Let’s hope Tim Lincecum pitches well at gets the W so he’ll be 18-5 and get the Cy Young Award.  Woot!  I wore my Giants jersey around the other day, and no one had any idea what it meant but I just keep telling everyone “If anyone asks, this is the greatest team that ever was.  Period.”  Haha.  They’ll all soon be converts, I swear.

Oh, and through my GENIUS I got to watch the 49ers game via Skype, so I basically got to watch the 49ers beat the Lions on my brother’s TV.  Basically Thomas turned on my mom’s webcam on her laptop and faced it towards his TV so I could watch the 49ers game.  We won, I was excited… and none of my flatmates understand American football, but I don’t care.  I still love it.  

I’m going to try and get tickets to a Celtic game soon, so hopefully I can see a real, live football game in person!  Yay!  I can wear my green and white scarf and learn words to songs that I don’t know.  Sounds fun, right?  I have to learn them before the middle of October so I can cheer for Celtic against Manchester United (don’t judge me, Thomas) and sing the songs and everything.

I think we’re still trying to plan our trip to Barcelona that we’re taking with all the California girls, so I have to get on that.  Other than that, I’m making a turkey for Thanksgiving (YESSSS) and I’m going to try and make it out to Amsterdam sometime this semester.  I will find a way.  Oh, and I have to figure out what I’m going to do for Christmas.  That should be interesting.

I’ll be better about posting, I promise.  And I’ll get ALL the pictures organized one of these days! 

-Catherine

P.S. Oh, and if anyone has a microphone on their computer or a webcam and you want to call me for super super cheap, call me on Skype.  My skype name is beach3bum.  Costs you NOTHING.  And if you call internationally, I can give you my cell number so anyone can call me out here.

P.P.S. My birthday is October 30th.  Just putting it out there.

Baseball… addict?

It’s 4 in the morning, and I’m no, not drunk.  I’m watching baseball.  Giants vs. Dodgers.  Maddux vs. Zito.  I’m half delirious, half insanely excited because I’m watching real, actual baseball live from California.  Yay!

Off to watch the game.  Go Giants.  Oh, and if anyone wants to send some caffeine my way, it’d be much appreciated.

-Catherine

I’ve been all alone in Scotland for a few days now and things are going fine so far.  All of the summer people have moved out of the apartment and all of the year-long people are finally here in my apartment.  There’s plenty of locals; people from all parts of Scotland, some English people, an Irish girl, and then the random internationals from Poland, Sweden and my roommate, the Estonian.

I went on my first grocery store adventure here since moving into my apartment.  It’s a lot harder to find things here since everything is so much smaller, the stores and everything, but food itself is pretty cheap.  I’m having a hard time finding hot dogs, but I won’t give up on my search since I know they must be around here SOMEWHERE.  I need to get more hangers, too, but I have no idea where to find those either.  I’m sure eventually I’ll figure everything out, but for now it’s all pretty confusing.  Getting back from the store is going to be such a drag by the end of this year.  I have to walk up a big hill from the grocery store to my apartment, so with bags and everything I’m sure I’m going to hate it after a while.  For now it’s not so bad, but I know it’s going to wear on me soon.

School doesn’t actually start until the 22nd, so I’m working on figuring out classes and planning on going to talk to people to get pre-registered for everything.  I need to get faculty approval for courses I want to take, so that’s going to be a pain in the ass going to talk to everyone to figure everything out.  Why can’t they just do everything online like Americans do?  Why do I have to go and like, TALK to people and stuff?  Haha.  I want to be in my sweats reading course descriptions and click buttons to join classes.  None of this doing actual, real work stuff.  I can’t be bothered, of course.

I’m going to get to watch some American Football before going out tonight, which I’m pretty excited about.  I miss my San Francisco 49ers and people who understand what 2nd and 10 means.  Here, it’s either football (as in soccer) or Gaelic foobtall, which I have no idea what that is but I’m pretty sure only Irish people do it.  Football (American Football) is going to be a lot easier to catch here since the games are on in the afternoons so I don’t have to stay up super late to watch them.  Baseball and Basketball are going to be a lot harder unless the Giants or the Warriors are on an East Coast road trip.  

I’ve had my first British dish since being here- beans and toast.  I guess it’s a big deal out here- just toast with butter on it and then baked beans, but everyone eats it.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I mean, it’s nothing too exciting, tastes fine, so I don’t get what the big deal is but then again they don’t understand peanut butter and jelly at all.  Peanut butter here is like this foreign weird tasting thing that no one normal would ever eat, but MARMITE, on the other hand, is perfectly normal.  Make sense?  I don’t think so.  

I’m still working on picture uploads, but it’s going to take a few good, solid days just to get everything organized, let alone flipped and cropped.  I’ve got something like 600 to 700 photos to go through, so I think you’ll all forgive me.  I’m going to wait on sending out the address where you can see them all on photobucket since I want them all to be good before I send it out, so hopefully within the next couple of days I’ll have it all sorted out.

I’m off to catch my 49ers game and go out tonight with the Scots, so wish me luck!  

Go ‘9ers

-Catherine

Group's First World Cup Qualifier

Oh, and a photo from the football game.  There you go!

We left Manchester on the 1st of September and headed to Glasgow to check out where I’m going to be going to school for the next year!  Very exciting.  Our bus journey was much more pleasant than our last one.  A double decker bus and a lot fewer people, likely because it was a Tuesday (?) afternoon and less people were out and traveling than on a Sunday before school starts from London!  Gee, imagine that.

Scotland is absolutely beautiful.  Just seeing the countryside from the bus window heading up here, there is so much green, so many animals and farms, just rolling hill to rolling hill of green as far as the eye can see.  It’s pretty amazing, nothing like in California.  The weather here is a little bizarre too.  Sunshine, and then rain, and then pouring rain, and then sunshine.  All in one day.  Very bizzare, nothing like it is in California and it’s like that here all the time.  The accents are pretty fantastic too.  So far we haven’t had any problems understanding people since most of them are pretty easy to understand, Scottish accents aren’t THAT insanely different from anything else we’ve heard, but I’m guessing sometime along the next year I’m going to run into someone that I don’t understand at all.

My friends, Erica and Molly, get here on the 7th and the 8th so by that time I’ll be officially done backpacking and more in the mode of getting prepared for school.  I get to pick up my key on the 8th, which is very exciting since I’ll finally have a bed and my own ROOM to put all of my crap in (yay!), and then on the 9th I get my computer!  Thank GOD!  After that, Thomas’s travels back to the States are pretty wide open as far as when he goes and everything since he’s just leaving straight from Glasgow to Vegas. 

I’m definitely going to keep the blog up and running, especially since I know I’ll be going around Scotland a lot exploring everything around here, and there will definitely be a lot more pictures posted on a regular basis with my computer coming and all.  I definitely want to make it up to the highland parts of Scotland to explore and look around, and of course I’ll make it over to Edinburgh at least once while I’m here.  I think the plans as far as out of Scotland goes includes a journey back to Barcelona with my friends from California, and then Christmas is wide open.  Right now the idea is maybe Greece?  Who knows.

We haven’t been doing much here in Glasgow since we’re just relaxing and waiting until football (World Cup Qualifiers) start in the next few days.  There’s a lot to do I guess if you want museums and exhibits and things, but Thomas and I are all touristed-out so we’re just hanging out and relaxing.  We definitely want to see Celtic Park where Celtic FC plays, but other than that I’m guessing we’re going to hermit until the 6th when Scotland plays Macedonia, I believe, and the 7th when Erica gets in from California.  We’ll see what happens.

The hostel we’re staying at was IMPOSSIBLE to find after we got into Glasgow, by the way.  The only directions on our reservation confirmation were to follow the signs after a certain bus stop.  There was 1 sign.  1.  In an entire neighborhood.  Didn’t really help all that much, let me tell you.  We ended up asking a local, and then 30 minutes later finally found the damn hostel.  Jesus, you’d think they’d give better directions to people who have never been in their country before, don’t you think?

Also, people in my room (separate womens and mens dorms, urg) are REALLY LOUD.  These two German girls woke me up at the ass crack of dawn this morning after squeezing every imaginable kind of plastic bag into their suitcases.  So annoying.  Very rude, really.  The other girls in my room are pretty easy going and nice.  2 of them are from Canada, so that’s cool.  They’re from Alberta, so they say ‘eh’ which I think is pretty funny, and definitely have the Canada accent going on.  Love it.

I’ll post more when I have more to say… it’s been pretty laid back for the last few days and will likely stay that way until my friends get here and my Mom and Grandma do too! 

I’ll try and get Thomas on here again, also.  He can tell everyone all about Old Trafford (which was awesome, btw).  I promise. 

-Catherine