Oh The Places We’ll Go

So I’ve been stealing a lot of stuff lately.  Everything’s very innocent, of course.  It’s not like I’m out there busting a cap on someone and stealing their car.  Just harmless stuff.  So far the tally is 2 drink menus, one from Curlers and one from Buddha, and an entire jug that was left outside of Curlers the other night.  It’s a pretty good sized jug and probably fits a good number of beers inside of it, but I have to clean it before I use it.  The girls are convinced it has been peed in and thus, is unacceptable to drink out of until it is thoroughly rinsed.  Agreed.

Classes are going fine.  Lectures are for the most part boring, but they aren’t really supposed to be exciting when you’re hearing someone drone on about the different types of satire that existed when Swift was writing Gulliver’s Travels over 300 years ago.  Tutorials are even worse since I hate being put on the spot and I feel like I don’t know nearly as much as everyone else does since they’ve been studying the same books for years and years, whereas I’ve never read half of the books that people here have read.  For being an English major I really haven’t read all that many books.  More than the average American, sure, but not to the extent that people out here do.  They read a lot more of the classic novels; we tend to stick to the traditional American novel.  Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, etc.  

There’s a concert out here this Saturday for Jenny Lewis, who is the lead singer for this band I really like back home, Rilo Kiley.  They’re an indie band that no one has ever heard of, but I still love them.  Molly, Erica and I are all going to see her so that’s the only really big plan for this weekend.  Drinking, surely but other than that nothing too exciting.  

I’ve got to get writing my 2 papers due on the 31st for my 2 classes this semester since I have a feeling they are going to take a lot of reading, research and effort to get going and get through before they’re at the level that I’m going to want them to be at.  I definitely can’t put them off until the last minute since they’re worth so much of my grade and I don’t think I could bear with the idea of turning in something I didn’t feel confident with.  I haven’t written an actual essay in a while either, so it’s going to be interesting getting back into the writing groove but it has to be done.

Phillies need 1 more win to get to the World Series and the Rays are up on the Sox in the AL.  Life is good in baseball.  49ers lost this weekend, but Sharks are starting off the season well.  Warriors are in China right now, will be watching them tomorrow afternoon live from Beijing!

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