5 more days . . .

My time here in Glasgow is very sadly running out. This semester has been very much a teaser for me, I am in no way ready to leave this city. I can't wait to get home and see my family for the holidays, but I wish I were returning to Glasgow afterwards. It will be wonderful to be back in Portland, but there is something about this city and Scotland in general that just feels like home. I just have to be patient and wait til it is time to return for grad school here . . . I hope I don't lose my scottish accent, I have just been told recently that it is starting to appear (wahoo!). All that is left until I jump on a plane Saturday morning is an essay, a final, and a whole lot of goodbyes to all my favorite places and the wonderful people.

Some pics from the last week or so:

Frightened Rabbit at the iconic Glasgow venue, the Barrowlands

The outskirts of city center Christmas lights

More city center lights

This weekend we celebrated two birthdays. Both nights were spent at our hands down favorite pub, Lebowski's. They have amazing food, great music, pub quizzes, and some of the nicest bartenders. It has been our go-to pub for an afternoon pint, quality American style burgers, amazing chips, and crazy nights--definitely a place that we will all miss.

The ladies at Lebowski's

Christmas Jumper Season

The snow continues here in Glasgow and the glaswegians are officially killing me with how adorable they are--I live in the land of fairisle jumpers, kids running around with sledges, puffy hats and furry ear muffs. Plus the city is somehow even more beautiful than normal.

The typical view from my flat recently.

Walking home from Uni through the park.

The only problem is that the city doesn't take care of the sidewalks, so the walk through the park is basically a walk over a sheet of ice. Luckily it has been continually snowing so the fresh snow makes it a bit bearable, I look like quite the fool walking to Uni.

Yep, I'm pretty damn lucky to live in this city right now.

What else have I been up to, you ask? Well, Last week I went to an amazing concert at a venue that is in old train tunnels. The band consists of one small sprite of a man, but when he performs he certainly lives up to the name of his band: The Tallest Man on Earth. Tried to upload a vid, but my internet is janky so youtube him.

This Wednesday was also St. Andrews Day, so last weekend I jumped on a coach with two friends to Edinburgh where they had a Carnival, the opening of their Christmas Market, and free admission to the Castle. It was an amazing clear blue day, lots of snow on the ground and lots of families were out celebrating Scotland's patron saint at the carnival (which had some of the strangest things I have ever seen, it appears the Scots have a strange obsession with gerbil balls, there was a gerbil ball maze and one where the kids just floated around in a pool in the gerbil balls, very bizarre).

Some pics of the day:  

(strange gerbil ball amusement)

The carnival surrounding the Sir Walter Scott Memorial

St. Andrew's Square

Nearing the final countdown (sadness) of my Scotland affair, 16 days left. Had my last class today, now just an essay and an exam for school and lots of final Glasgow exploring. Must spend many hours at all the places I will miss so much!

Glasgae: A Winter Wonderland at Last.

As of Friday night Glasgow is officially blanketed in snow. This morning I woke up to even more heavy snowfall and it is still coming down pretty hard! I don't think snow will ever really lose it's magic for me. Friend's tease me for being the typical Californian amazed at the snow, but it is really much more than not being used to the snow. There is something so special about what snow does to a landscape and to people. When the snow started (and by that I mean when the almost blizzard started) friday night I was at a packed pub with friends, and by the time everyone was cheering and pointing out the windows we had made friends with about 5 Scotsmen, and just walking down the street in the snow means chatting with 70% of the people you pass. Glaswegians are the nicest people I have ever met, and they surpass their own nice-ness when it snows! Here are some pictures of the first minutes of the snow--

2 fellow Californians getting ready to pelt me with snowballs.

So excited for the snowstorm/blizzard! (and so not prepared!)

View from my flat Saturday morning.
(Add about 3-4 more inches and heavy snowstorm to imagine the current conditions)

Melrose: Land of Abbeys, Drinking in Class and Abbotsford

Last weekend I headed down to the borderlands for the last hurrah. Most of our time was spent crowded into a presentation room for everyone's final project, which, while informational and sometimes interesting was LONG, even some of the professors were falling asleep at parts. It was the first and likely the last time that we were encouraged to bring a pint to our evening lectures and the professors on both nights ended the lectures early so we could all head down to the pub for a dram. The Scottish know how to do things right is all I can say.

I presented on Margaret and Frances MacDonald, the sister duo in the Glasgow Four. They both have been overshadowed by their husbands (the other two of the famous Four), Charles Renie MacKintosh and Herbert MacNair, in their posthumous acknowledgement. They are now two of my favorite artists, they were incredibly innovative and unlike anyone else of their time. I am somewhat obsessed with them now (primarily Frances, even though MacNair destroyed much of her work after her controversial death. Her work has such a bold social critic in it which I hugely admire.), so here are a few of their works:

Margaret MacDonald

Frances MacDonald

Frances MacDonald

Frances MacDonald

Frances MacDonald 

Margaret MacDonald

After presentations on Saturday we had the chance to walk around Melrose for a bit before we had a tour of Melrose Abbey, so naturally we went and got ice cream. There is really nothing quite like ice cream on a 40 degree day with snow on the surrounding hills. 

We then had a tour around the abbey, notice anything a bit off about that main arch? 

The Scottish Weather Gods blessed us with clear, beautiful skies. 

View from the top of the Abbey

Enjoying the sunshine despite the chilly temperature.

We then headed off to another Abbey, but stopped on the way to see Sir Walter Scott's favorite view of Scotland. Pretty gorgeous.

We finally ended in a town (clearly I was paying very close attention during this outing), but when we arrived at the abbey the gates were closed. So we were released to explore for an hour, and my friend Claire and I ventured into a pub and were 2 of 5 females there. Naturally a football game was on so we got a strong taste of the border accent (and a lot of confused glances). 

Continuing the sightseeing at dark theme of London.

 Sunday we spent the morning in more presentations (after a breakfast in which I tasted haggis and blood sausage for the first time. Haggis I would do again, the sausage--NEVER AGAIN!). After the last of the presentations we headed off to Abbotsford, otherwise known as Sir Walter Scott's house. It was incredible, I wish authors still had the status he had. A few of us also hatched a plan to take over the house as our own one day, the grounds are spectacular!

Oh, you know, just Scott's backyard.

It was a pretty good weekend (minus the hours upon hours of presentations), and especially nice to get out into the country for a change. As much as I love cities being raised in a more country setting definitely makes me itch for open spaces and fresh air every so often. 

In other news, my week should be pretty fun. Headed to a concert tonight (The Tallest Man on Earth, an absolute poet), a Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night (our kind trip leader specially arranged for a restaurant to cater a turkey dinner for us all), Saturday to Edinburgh for their St. Andrew's Day celebrations (free admission to the castle, carnival rides, Christmas Market!), and Sunday to lunch with the family friends of some folks at home. Should be a lovely week!

LONDON.

2 weekends ago I headed down to London with 2 girlfriends for my first visit to London. Two of us arrived friday afternoon and ended up spending about 4 hours just wandering around Hyde Park which was conveniently right across the street from our hostel. There were adorable school children playing games, lots of dogs running around, and tons of people enjoying the lack of rain. 

We wandered around the pond and saw two women foolishly feeding the birds which ended with them essentially getting mauled/attacked by the swans, it was hard not to laugh 

Do not feed the swans!!

Enjoying the beautiful day!

We also discovered that the squirrels in Hyde Park are VERY aggressive (Katie, this is NOT the place for you!). This little fellow was perfectly happy to hang out with us about a foot away. The result of this experience: I do not like squirrels!! 

We also discovered one of the most beautiful weeping willows I have ever seen. I was pretty enthusiastic: 

By the time we made it out of Hyde Park (after stopping for a pint in between the wandering, naturally Scotland has trained us well), it was dark. So, we continued our sightseeing by torch/street light. We saw this arch: 

This is me not getting run over by the millions of cyclists racing by!

 And Buckingham Palace! 

Friday night we had some delicious pasta and pizza and went to one of the most American pubs I have ever seen (more Am-uhr-i-kan than most bars in america!) called Belushi's. Naturally ESPN was on so we got a little dose of home when recaps of the trail blazers game came on (<3 pdx!)

Saturday morning we headed out early and found a blue sky! (our response: what is this thing called sunshine??!) We went to the National Galleries and saw some beautiful Van Gogh paintings, wandered around the square, and in the evening went to St. Paul's Cathedral then made our way across Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern. 

We were lucky enough to cross with this beautiful sunset.

For those of you who know me well you know how much I like industrial spaces (and scaffolding), well, the Tate Modern is possibly one of the most breathtaking spaces I have been in. My friends had to drag me along from just standing and looking around, and I have about 20 pictures just of the building.

Oh yeah, those are ceramic sunflower seeds, just a few million of them

Sunday morning we headed out to Camden for the Camden Market, and honestly, Saturday Market in PDX has nothing on this market. There were endless rows of stalls all with interesting and actually buy-able things! And, the food carts were delish and reminded us all of our dear portland. I had some nommy noodles with teriyaki beef and cashew chicken and mulled wine for dessert. It was so delicious! There were endless carts to choose our lunch from, I would have been happy to go from cart to cart all day!

Also, we were drinking our mulled wine and admiring the canal when from across the way we witnessed something very bizarre. We at first thought two people had lost some kind of bet at a pub because they were getting ready to get in the water. But they were gently dipped under and helped up and everyone sang and hugged and took photos and we realized it was a baptism. Not something we were expecting to happen in the lock!

 In the evening we made our way back to the city proper and saw the London Eye:

And on our way to Westminster Abbey saw this gorgeous view of Big Ben, the Eye and some classic red buses--talk about seeing everything that is iconic London all at once! 

We got to Westminster and it was closed for visiting but they were having an organ recital so we went ahead in for it and it was so peaceful and relaxing--a nice break from the hectic tube journeys and market of earlier in the day and a nice way to end the weekend!

The travelers!

It was great to see London, I can see why people love it so much. But, as I have (luckily) felt after all my travels I still love Glasgow the most and am so happy I chose it! It was a great weekend, though, and I anticipate lots of journeys back to London in my future.

Brussels and Halloween in Glenelg.

Last weekend I went to Belgium with three other girls, just a quick trip but our first time heading out of the UK since we arrived in September. We stayed in Brussels at a great hostel right near the Grand Platz and the second we arrived in the city we made our way to a waffle stand and had delicious Belgium waffles with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate--YUM! Our first full day there we took the train to Bruges which turned out to be a very cold, rainy and windy city. Because it was so dreary we had to skip a canal tour and headed to the last brewery in the city for a tour. Bruges is very strict in maintaining it's classic medieval feel, so there are only 4-5 buildings that actually reach beyond 3 floors. Luckily, the brewery is one of the taller ones so we got a great view of the city (and the beer at the end was pretty good too!)

View of Bruges from the Brewery

Grand Platz as a flower market Sunday morning

And, of course we all bought some chocolate and had frites before leaving Bruges (right as the thunder and lightning started!).

Cafe outside our hostel

In Bruges

Cathedral in Brussels

A little bit of beer tasting (though I do not share the Belgian's enthusiasm for cherry beer!)

This weekend six of us headed back up to the highlands to go to a Halloween party and see all our friends in Glenelg. We were hosted by the very kind Eddie Stiven (our guide from the first highlands trip) and his wife, and were lucky enough to get lots of time with their adorable dogs Aoife and Bess. We ate wonderful food and rediscovered just how crazy the residents of Glenelg are. The party was great, everyone at the pub really went all out and the costumes were crazy. We were a herd of highlands coos (cows for all those non highland savy) and we had our very own shepherdess. The horns were a bit annoying (I can't imagine how many people we poked), so we made a competition to see who could keep them on the longest. I won (though I think that is mostly because people kept re shaping them and my horn-span got smaller and smaller), which means the other ladies owe me a drink! All in all it was great fun and great to see everyone, we even inspired a group to come down and visit us in a few weeks. Hopefully we will make it up there one more time before we leave Scotland! 

Oh, and did I mention that when we were waiting for the bus back to Glasgow we hung out with Bill Bryson, travel author? He had just finished baggin' all the munros (climbing all the mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet) and was getting ready for a trip to New Zealand in a few weeks. Leave it to Glenelg to give you an extra dose of excitement at the end of your trip!

Heading to London next weekend, the borderlands the following weekend, and will hopefully have visitors from Glenelg the weekend after that . . . busy busy busy!