Two weeks to go... again

It is officially now two weeks until I leave to go home.  Technically, I'm pretty sure I'll already be home by then.  My flight leaves Glasgow at 8:15 (local time)... then I fly to Amsterdam, and then to Philadelphia (getting there at 3:30 or so, EST).  I would then fly to Albany but my wonderful parents have decided to spare me the panicky horribleness of the tiny regional jet from Philadelphia to Albany, and are picking me up in Philadelphia.  Yay parents! 

Right, so, feelings about leaving.  I think by now I've made it clear (or perhaps I haven't, who knows), that I am ready to go home.  I definitely don't want anyone to think that I dislike it here or that I hate Scotland or anything like that.  Its just, you get to a certain point, and as nice as it is here, and as much as I'll miss a ton of things about being here...  I just want to be back.  It doesn't help that everything around is Christmas-y, so I'm not only excited to be back home, but I'm excited for Christmas, too.

Part of me is a little bit apprehensive that once I'm back (or maybe after Christmas is over), I'll be super sad that I'm not here anymore.  I mean, thats normal, I suppose, but its making it very hard to want to be home right now.  All part of the "trying not to wish away my time here" thing.  I feel bad for wanting to be home when its quite possible that in a few weeks time, I'm going to seriously miss Glasgow/the UK.  Its a very strange feeling to try and balance.

I wanted to do a post about culture shock (and then one about reverse culture shock), but I'm not 100% sure that I ever experienced culture shock, so I don't know how I'd blog about either one of those things.  I never got to a point - even now - where toothpaste made me really angry.  Just incase you're wondering, thats how they explained one level of culture shock to us.  Where you get so mad at the country you're staying in that even THEIR toothpaste not being YOUR toothpaste would make you super super angry.  Maybe I'll look up the actual levels and try and see if MAYBE I did have some of that...

I'm not really looking forward to the actual week that everyone is leaving.  Everyone is leaving on different days so its going to be A) very long and B) very confusing, with the possibility of accidently missing someone and not getting a chance to say goodbye because they left at a different time than you thought they were.  Hopefully it'll go smoothly, though.

I've already "started" packing.  By which I mean that my suitcase is open on the couch and there are a couple of things sitting in it.  I'm not really looking forward to this process, partially because I think I'm going to do very very badly at it.

I had to purchase a second suitcase - which I figured I would have to.  My suitcase here weighed exactly 50 pounds (50.5 when they put the tag on it)... so obviously, even if I threw out some toiletries or a shirt, thats not gonna be much room at all for souvenirs or gifts.  Even still, with this second suitcase, I'm leaving with less than some people came with.  Crazy.  Super big study abroad tip... seriously, one suitcase.  You can make it the biggest one there is and pack it with 50 pounds, but... try your hardest to only have one suitcase.  MAYBE 2, if you HAVE to.  But I saw people with 3 or 4 actual huge suitcases, coming for only one semester.  And its totally not necessary.  (*Side note:  Either right before I leave here, or when I get back, I will be doing a 'Packing List' blog post... showing exactly what I brought with me, and saying if I needed it, if I shouldn't have brought it, what I should have brought, etc.)

Anywho, back to leaving...

I'm feeling a little... pressed for time in terms of things that I wanted to do before I left Glasgow that I'm afraid I will never get the chance to do.  I still haven't been to the Kelvingrove Museum or the Transport Museum.  And they're up the street from me.  I still want to do a video of my walk to school, of getting up to my room.  Still want to do a video (or at least pictures) in the grocery store.  And then I still want to take pictures of all the stores/restaurants that I go to and like.  Jeez, so much to do.  AND theres still finals (ugh, finals).  Well, I'll leave it at that, for now.  :)