Halfway there

So as the holidays came up, I became more and more thankful that I'm not going home.
I would hate for this adventure to be over already. I still have so many more things to learn and to see.
For instance, a few things that I have learned:
     -Pants are not like jeans.... it means underwear.... I know this because i was standing outside waiting with a group of my classmates for a couple of other people to start work on a project. It was windy. and cold. and I was wearing a skirt. So I said, "geeez it's so cold out here! and I'm not even wearing pants!" because of the skirt. they all looked at me really super confused and like I had just thrown up on my shoes.... Later I explained this strange phenomenon to my flatmate... Now I get it. If you want to talk about pants, say trousers. It feels uppity to say that... but it's not. And it will save some embarrassment.
     - chips are fries... for Brits.... crisps are chips... Australians chips can be either... a chippee is a guy/place that makes chips and puts all manner of unhealthy things on them... curry, chili, salt and vinegar, cheese, all of the above.... dont call them fries... despite the fact that your american accent is glaring them in the face, and they know we call them fries, they will look at you like you are stupid.
     -Cheers is cool, and not only for alcohol. Cheers is thanks, but more like for the small things. In America, we don't really differentiate... we always just say thanks, or nothing at all. But in the UK, and in Australia, they say cheers for the little thanks moments. Like if someone tosses you your keys, or someone holds the door open for you. Thank you is like for someone who bought you flowers because you were sick. Anyway, it's kind of a cool thing. And of course you say cheers for drinks. Because hey, thanks cider, Im glad you exist!

Holidays

So, I had my first Thanksgiving away from family this year. I missed them all, but I have to say, it all went over pretty well. Obviously they don't do Thanksgiving over here, but an american in the flat below and I set up a thanksgiving celebration between our two flats. We had two turkeys, casseroles, drank wine, played cluedo (That's what they call Clue over here... ?). The turkeys were really hard to locate. They are widely available around Christmas, but not really for thanksgiving.  It all went super well... For once, I had to cook the casseroles though, I finally understand why all of my aunts wake up early and start doing stuff. They don't just make themselves haha. After we all ate about three plates full more than we needed, and played some Cluedo, we went to the union (the bar/ club/ pub on campus) to watch some american football. Packers vs. Lions. Wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the football.
Things are finally picking up homework wise. Actually I guess it isn't speeding up or anything. The homework has been on the syllabus since the beginning, but the due dates are all here now. So it has been a stressful study-filled nightmare. Especially since the library is only open until ten and the coffee shop closes five hours before that. Why bother selling coffee? So not a lot new is happening. But only a couple of weeks until I get to see parents and alex in Italy!!!! Hurray!

Bones Across Europe

November and all of the assignments are finally piling up. In the next two weeks I have papers and projects that will count for over half of my overall grades in my classes. Been super stressful. Not to mention it has been hard to find a good place to study, as the library at Strathclyde closes at 10 ish every night. Luckily I found a lovely little coffe-shop used bookstore combo that has delicious soup and coffee.
I have also been travelling a lot this month, which hasn't always encouraged my studies. twice to London and once to Portugal. London was fun and I got to see the phantom of the opera at her majesty's theatre. It. was. wonderful. I want to go again and again. Portugal was also really nice because I had forgotten what real sunshine looked like. Thank goodness they still had some left in Portugal, because Scotland's sunshine is on permanent backorder. It was also nice to just get out of town and be in a strange culture again, and Faro Portugal was strange. They love bones there. I went to a church that had a chapel out behind it made entirely of the bones of monks. Supposed to make you stop and think about the fate of all men. Message recieved:

So it was really interesting and also really creepy. The weird thing was, it wasn't just this one chapel. another church had a wall shrine made of skulls and bones too. and some holy people's bones preserved inside. 

I also got to do some much needed beach time in Faro. It was too cold to swim, so I jumped around and splashed and pretty much swam anyway. 

Then back to Scotland. One week I got to do a tour of the City Chambers in George Square. It was beautiful! The leaders of the Labour Party gave us a short speech describing their role and then showed us the building. Apparently they have the largest municipal art collection in Europe. Also, they have the longest (or second longest) marble staircase in the world, competing with the Vatican. (one has two and a half stories and one has three...) 

I also toured a whisky distillery about an hour away from Glasgow with the Whisky Society. We toured the Auchentoshan Distillery. (pronounced ock in tosh in) Very nice. They made fun of Americans for throwing in the "e" in Whisky and also threatened to shoot anyone who asked for coke to mix with their sample at the tasting at the end. I don't think they were serious though. There was an awful american at the other end of the bar screaming about how "all you need to see to see Scotland is Nessie in a kilt" If they were going to shoot anyone, she would have been the one. They are also unique for distilling their Whisky thrice. 

I am finally getting used to the accents here. People can now talk to me like I'm a partially deaf five year old instead of having to play charades every time we have to pick somewhere to eat. 

I have also been to the East coast and the west coast of Scotland now. Both beautiful. pretty similar. On the East coast, I went to North Berwick. It was wonderful. There is a dormant volcano there that Kelly and I decided to climb. I already had blisters from my dedication to my awful shoes and halloween costume the nights before, but I wasn't going to miss out. I climbed a dormant volcano barefoot and in a dress. Felt like a real arkansanite. There was a replica of a whale jaw bone at the top, bones everywhere. 

Hello Home

So after Paris I went to Strasbourg and saw the famous clock then on to barcelona. There is apparently a lot of crime there. It's a thing. Like "oh is the crime in Somalia really bad?" "Well be careful, but it's not like it's Barcelona." So my second robbing happened here. A bit of a setback, but overall the city was still beautiful. I got to see some of the Gaudi architecture around the city. Reminds me of Hundertwasser so I really liked it. 

Then after Barcelona I went to Geneva. First time that I have been to the french speaking part of Switzerland. Holy moly it was expensive. I bought a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and it cost about $15. No drink. No chips. No complementary foot massage with your meal. So I mostly walked around the city and took pictures. It was pretty at least.

Then after a couple of nights in Switzerland, I went to Berlin. I stayed there for almost a week. I had a delicious kebab from Mustafa's. nom nom....noms. I got to walk around and see the Artsy part of the berlin wall. tons of fun. Then after Berlin I visited Amanda in Wien. I completely loved that city. Great public transportation, nightlife, and attitude. :) After Wien, I went to Rome. Beautiful City. One of the days I was there the city went on strike. All of the public workers etc. I went outside to do some sightseeing and this is what I saw.

It all seemed pretty peaceful though. And since all of the workers were on strike I couldn't have done any tours or anything anyway. So, hey, might as well join them. We just walked along around the colosseum and listened to the loud music they played. It was more like a concert with random blurbs of rallying italian than a strike.

Next I went to Florence. It was beautiful, but right about this time I was running out of money and energy to be on the road this long. I took a tour of Pitti palace, but ended up just finding an abandoned windowsill and read shakespeare. I just pretended that I lived there instead of touring the palace. 

Next I went to London. It was nice to be back on English speaking ground. 

I stayed with some Friends from Hendrix for a few days and rested up. I did a little bit of sightseeing but mostly just walked around and read in the park. 

Then on to Scotland. 

I. Love. It. Here. 

Everyone is so friendly here. It reminds me of how the south is supposed to be in America. Everyone is friendly and chatty. My first night here, a man at the bus station wanted to shake my hand because I was from Arkansas. The bus driver let me drive for free because I was confused and was supposed to have bought a ticket somewhere else.  He even asked which stop I needed and made sure that I didn't miss it. 

Since I have been here I have been trying to see as much as I can of the country. I went on a driving tour of the highlands and saw Loch Ness. I didn't see Nessie, but I imagine that she was asleep or on vacation. Beautiful Country though.

There is also a lot of rivalry between the two Glasgow football (soccer) teams: Celtics and Rangers. I was advised before I came to simply not choose a side. They take it pretty seriously here. Friendships are ruined over this stuff. I passed a pub that had this sign on the door. 

"No football colours please. We dont like stabbings"

It all comes from original rifts between Catholics (Celtics) and Protestant (Rangers). 

The classes here are also really strange. Back home you have a syllabus that tells you what to read before each class. You discuss those readings in class. You take notes in lectures. Here, they like to be a bit more vague about things. They have lectures and tutorials (seminars) ,and you don't exactly have assigned reading. They give you four pages of suggested reading and tell you to be able to discuss things in your tutorials. It's all a mess. 

The lectures also seem a lot more elementary. Maybe because you have gallons of extra reading to do to fill in the blanks they leave. 

At long last

So I have been meaning to start this blog for a while now... Not sure how useful or interesting any of my information will be but here goes. Started my trip in Malaga, by far my favourite place so far. As soon as I got to the Hostel I found some other English speaking people that I hung out with for pretty well the rest of the time. Picasso was from Malaga. So there was a neat museum there for him, which I didn't visit. I meant to but ended up being waaaay to busy laying on the beach. The night life was also perfect there. The spanish start drinking pretty late though, the clubs are all pretty empty before 1 am. So this was my Malaga trip

                                           Dana at night

                                           Dana during the day

I also went to a bull fight. I knew it would be a little rough, but I had no idea. I watched six bulls meet their doom. It was an experience, but I won't be doing that again. Dark stuff.

Malaga was beautiful though, we went to the top of a huge mountain there and took pictures (it was a hill I guess, but i was hungover so it may as well have been everest)

Next, I went to Lisbon to meet weezy and her brother. So as soon as I arrive I decide that it would be easier to just have a taxi take me to the Hotel and not have to worry about it... So I show the Taxi driver the address of the hotel and ask him to go. He rolls his eyes a bit the way all taxi drivers seem to do and agrees to go. I haven't yet met a taxi driver who doesn't act inconvenienced to drive you somewhere. Anyway, 15 minutes later we arrive in Amadora, which isn't actually in Lisboa, its the ghetto outside of it. Great. So the driver stops at a park and tells me that the hotel is just around the corner but he couldn't drive his car there. Fine, which way? He points a bit more and speaks some spanish to me that I clearly haven't understood the whole time. I walk around and see no hotels at all, but find several places to get a massage or have your nails did. I call louise. They are headed to the hotel now, they'll meet me there. They can't really give me directions because I have no idea where I am. I call the hotel, again, no help. So I ask a random bystander who looks friendly. FALSE. Not friendly, he assured me that he knew where the hotel was, started walking to it, asked to see the address again, snagged my phone and took off. I chased him as far as I could with my huge backpack and purse. Jerk. A nice old couple took me to their house and let me use their internet and ended up actually driving me to the hotel. Bless them. I would have wandered around for hours if it weren't for them. I didn't do much else while I was in Lisbon. Weezy, Manuel, and I went to the beach the next day, but other than that I slept, and that's it. By the third day I was just ready to get out of there.

Next I went to London. It was a huge relief to speak English again. This was mostly just a refuel stop. I got conditioner and things of that nature and bought a new phone that I can use in Scotland next year. I also did bicycle rental and rode around Hyde park. There are these really neat proms in Albert hall in London for this month where there are classical music concerts every night. Might have been fun to go to one, but as usual my desire for food outweighed any other. Then I rode around the park some more and made friends with the swans.

Next was Paris. I met another english speaker in the Hostel and decided to go see sights with him. I am starting to feel like a bum following people around haha. we decided to walk to Notre Dame and then from there to the Eiffel tower. We were going to take the Metro, but all of the lines along the way were under construction or something, so we just walked. It was nice, I got to see a lot of things I have missed other times. There were a bunch of vendors selling really old books along the Seine. I am such a sucker for old books. I had to keep reminding myself that I don't speak french and couldn't afford them. Then we decided to just buy a bottle of wine and sit in the grass by the eiffel tower. There is always someone selling something there. We got suckered into buying a 2 Euro rose, but I quite liked it afterward.

Artsy, no?

So we stayed and drank our wine and then some champagne and met some people from new zealand to hang out with... That was pretty much it for paris, the next night I went to sleep at like ten o'clock.

That's all for now and I suppose I'll write more when there's more to tell.