I guess I should start off by saying sorry for the delay on this post. The last few days have been absolutely insane. Lots of walking, shopping, getting things sorted out, sitting in absolute boredom. All that fun stuff.
Thomas and I split up from the Glasgow Youth Hostel on Monday after I got my keys to my apartment. We made the journey two days straight out to the airport, first to pick up Erica, my friend from UCSB, and then Molly, my friend from high school in Rocklin. We all made it to our apartments easily enough, and picking up our keys was just a matter of signing on a dotted line. Turns out I’m in the same building as Molly, who is on the floor above me, which is pretty cool. After we got in on Monday, I didn’t have much time to unpack so most of my stuff was just left in a huge pile on my bed. I’m not used to having a variety of shirts to choose from, so I was pretty excited about having more than one sweatshirt to wear. Yay! Mom and Grandma made it safe to Scotland too. They brought along my comforter among other things. Shoes, clothes, scarves. They’re staying in a hotel on the West End, so they aren’t too far from where my apartment is.
My roommate Laura, as it turns out, is from Estonia. She’s pretty petite, which I could automatically tell even before I met her since her flip flops were so teeny. She’s completely fluent in English, which I’m sure she credits her schooling last year for since she spent a year of college in England before she moved up to Scotland. She’s really nice, but pretty shy which will be nice since I talk a lot and living with someone who talks as much as I do would probably be really annoying after a while.
Orientation has been really boring. A lot of lecturing, a lot of confusion. The signing up for classes process here is really complex, no pressing buttons after looking at course descriptions. They’re pretty behind on the whole integrating schooling into their technological resources. You have to consult all kinds of people on classes, there is no set schedule on what time classes are, so it’s really hard to figure out what you can and can’t take. Arg. All of us are pretty frustrated and confused by it, so hopefully it all works out soon. I can’t stand not being able to look up things online and know what I’m doing, so Glasgow needs to get on the technological ball ASAP.
Thomas left this morning, but I’m not sure of all of the details of how or when he’s getting home. There was all kinds of chaos going on in the last 2 days as far as getting a hold of people, trying to reach people and being unable to, etc. Not having a cellphone hasn’t really been a problem up until the last few days since all of us (me, grandma, mom, thomas) are all in different places. We made plans to go out the night before Thomas left and everything got all messed up since Thomas showed up an hour after we told him to meet up, and we never saw him since we had left 15 minutes beforehand. Thomas left his Ipod here, so he’s having fun I’m sure suffering on a cross country flight with nothing but his PSP. Thomas’s flight passes got all messed up too, so I’m not exactly sure what happened but all I know is that he had a really hard time getting on a plane back to the states down at Heathrow in London.
In other words, things got all messed up, and I have no idea what’s going on.
Since there was nothing going on today for orientation, a group of us went out to the Sports Cafe to watch Scotland vs. Iceland, a World Cup Qualification game. Scotland scored early in the first half, great goal, and then scored again in the second half early before Sean McManus was ejected for using a hand inside the box. Penalty kick, Iceland scored. Scotland held them off for the last 10 minutes to win 2-1, so they survived the scare. Lots of singing “I would walk 500 miles” (even though they don’t use miles in the UK?) and “We’ll be coming down the road”. Drunk people singing, priceless.
Another thing- people here in Scotland really love their Braveheart. I’ve heard the Mel Gibson “they’ll never take our freedom” speech at least 4 times in pubs since I’ve been here. Pretty funny.
Tomorrow more orientation stuff, trying not to fall asleep when I should be paying attention, etc. As far as I know, I’ve only got stuff in the morning on Friday so Friday should be a good night. And this weekend, exploring Glasgow in the West End should be good. Did I mention my apartment is like, a 3 minute walk from the Uni main gate? Pretty sweet if I do say so myself.
Also, for my phone, I’ve got a Skypephone so if anyone has Skype they should add me to their buddies. If my phone is logged into Skype, if you call me it transfers the call to my phone so you can call my cellphone for REALLY cheap instead of trying to call from a landline. Pretty sweet deal. My Skype name is beach3bum, but you can search for me online. I’m pretty sure at least you can. As for pictures, I’ve got a lot to go through and have had NO time to do it so patience, please. Haha. I’ve got all of mine and Thomas’s to do so it may take a couple of days but when it’s done they will be all nice, pretty and organized.
I’ll be sure to post more often now that I have my COMPUTER!
-Catherine
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