I've been to Hogwarts!

So yeah, um... this is my school:

Better pictures to follow :-\  Have yet to be able to actually stop, when its daytime and I'm not rushing somewhere and get a good picture.  But its wayyy overdue so be on the lookout!  Its definitely worth the wait though, so beautiful! 

Yesterday, a group of us went to the Botanic Gardens, which is kind of on the other side of campus (like campus is the halfway point between Cairncross House and the Botanic Gardens).  It was a beautiful "fall" day, so it was very enjoyable.  I wasn't a huge fan of the inside of the gardens, just because I'm not extremely interested in random plants, but it was really nice on the outside.  Like a nice park.

   It definitely seems like it might be a nice place to go chill out - assuming the weather is nice... and/or you don't mind going inside the buildings.

Then last night (Thursday) was an International Social hosted by the University.  There was traditional Scottish dancing and music - the whole thing is called a ceilidh (pronounced like the name Kaley).  I didn't dance, myself, but it was sooo much fun watching everyone else do the dances.  And it was held in Bute Hall on campus, which is beautiful, too.

Bute Hall (its really hard to tell how pretty it is in there... I'll have to get a better picture if I can)

Its kind of a culture shock though because with the ticket to get into the social, you can get a free drink - either like a soda, or an alcoholic drink.  And thats definitely not something you'd find in a University sponsored event.  I don't even think they were checking to see if people were over 18.

Today we went on a bus tour of Glasgow, and I'm really glad that I did.  I got to see a lot of places that I had been looking forward to visiting when thinking about coming to Glasgow.  I mean, we just saw them briefly from the bus, but it was nice seeing them and thinking "yes, I do actually want to make a trip back here for this".  I'm looking forward to going to all of these places again.  That was the last of the 'International Orientation' trips/events, so now I think we're on our own.

I did join the International Society at the social last night.  It was 5 pounds to join, and they tell you about all these events and parties (I think they might host them?).  I'm not too interested in the parties, but they also do weekend trips, and I am interested in that.  The guy from the International Society said they had one coming up to Edinburgh, and I think I might go.  It costs like 50-60 pounds, but they organize everything, and the price includes travel and food and museum fees and all that.  Sounds like a good deal to me.

Well, the "freshers" have started moving in.  I think my hall is going to be a little less quiet from now on - not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing.  I guess I'll just have to find out :)

Missing everyone from home... It almost still doesn't feel like I'll be here for the next three months. 

I just HAD to...

Biggest candy bar in the world...

...That is all.

Inveraray

Today was the trip to Inveraray.  It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive.  I'm just going to post a bunch of pics from today, because the pictures are so much better than anything I could make up.  It'll probably be a bunch but I think its worth it.

The bus ride up:

                                                        Inveraray Castle

More Inveraray Castle

                                                              Inveraray

Okay I think I'm gonna stop there because I'm having a very hard time limiting the number of pictures to post.  I'm going to post the rest/more on my flickr account later (there are about 180 of them... eek!)  But this is just some of the best of the best that I wanted to share with everyone.  Let me know what you think!  :)

Busy Busy!

Today was Day 3 in Glasgow - and it was just as busy as every other day has been.  Monday was the beginning of International Orientation, and it was the traditional lecture-y orientation that you'd imagine.  It went from 9:30 to about 4 (with a couple small breaks and then an hour or so break around 1).  A lot of information I've heard before but it wasn't so bad sitting there the whole time.  There were a couple "getting to know you" activities that were fairly corny but not so bad when everyone is being forced to do it (if that makes sense).  Met some more new people, and people from other countries too.  After, I made a trip to the college store and bought a University of Glasgow hoodie (yay, hoodie).  I'm thinking it will be even more necessary with this weather! 

Then after a bit, a group of us went out to dinner at a pub (!) down the street from our hall called The Islay Inn.  It was really neat and I was able to eat my first real/hot food in awhile... Gluten-free chips (french fries :) )  Its a little more comforting asking people if a food is gluten free here because I feel like they know it a little bit better than back in the U.S.  But it was definitely a nice environment, I definitely recommend it.

We also went to The 78, a vegan bar restaurant place thats literally right next to our hall (probably would never happen in the U.S.).  I had a pint of some type of hard cider (only finished half of it though), and it was pretty good.

Today there was more shopping, we went back to the shopping place we went to before, for more household-y goods.  It rained for the first time today so I was forced into buying more substantial shoes, and ended up with men's sneakers.  But they're better than my thin slip on shoes, so yay!  Picked up a few odds and ends in various places.  Went to Poundland (the UK version of the Dollar Store), and actually only bought dish soap and small tupperware containers. 

Okay, two surprising cultural (maybe?) differences I experienced today:

1.  Pizza is INCREDIBLY expensive here.  We decided to order pizza, and after looking around and comparing prices, ended up with Papa John's (yes they have that here).  One (ONE) pizza, is £16.99... about $27!!!!! For one pizza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And every place was like this!  All expensive!!  We only followed through with pizza because Papa John's had a deal for Tuesdays of buy one pizza get one free, so it didn't seem as bad.  But if we hadn't gotten a deal, for two pizzas, we would have paid close to $50.  Its crazy!!

2.  We went to a liquor store while we were waiting for the pizza to be delivered.  First of all, I was able to buy one single bottle of Smirnoff Ice.  Not sure if this is weird to anyone but me, but it is.  Second of all, we were not carded.  At all.  Yes, the drinking age here is 18, but technically they say that they card if you look under 25!  I just thought that was so crazy.  Had to share.

Alright thats all for now.  I've noticed that I start a blog post only intending to write a paragraph or two and wind up rambling on and on, so sorry about that, but its just how I am :)   Tomorrow I'm going on a bus trip to Inveraray (I think its like an hour or so north of Glasgow), so there will most likely be a post soon about that, and pics of course!  I'll end this post with a couple of cooler pics that I've taken lately  :)

 My first glimpse of the University!

View of the Kelvingrove Museum from the Park

Bridge on the way through the park

Statue-y thing on the bridge.

I'm here! Part Two!

Ok so now that the day is officially over, I have time to kinda go through whats been happening the last day or so. 

Flights... regional flight from Albany to Philadelphia was horrendous but mainly just for me.  Possibly because it was such a small plane, I was kinda freaked out and was getting really scared.  Thankfully the flight was about 45 minutes, and then navigating around the airport in Philadelphia was not really difficult.  From Philadelphia to Glasgow, the flight was somewhat better.  It was a bigger plane so I wasn't really scared like I'd been in the other one.  I even got served a somewhat decent gluten free meal so hurrah for that!  (Although I would like to say that I've never heard of a rice cake with strawberry jam and butter as a type of breakfast snack... Gluten free or not).

   We arrived in Glasgow around 6:30 in the morning local time (1:30 back home).  After some walking and talking we got through immigration and got our bags and went through customs and we were out!  Waited awhile for the University of Glasgow Welcome Team to pick us up but when we finally spotted them (they were wearing fairly obvious yellow University of Glasgow hoodies), we got our free shuttle and were dropped off at the halls.

I'm staying in Cairncross House...

                                                 (part of the view from my window)


... which I'm told is anywhere from a 5 to 15 minute walk (it depends on who you ask).  I've yet to actually see the University so I'm looking forward to that.

My room is a large single, and I'll post a picture of it once I'm fully unpacked and my pots and pans arrive (hopefully tomorrow). 

So as for today, post-arrival...

Had to lug my 50 pound, perfectly not "overweight" suitcase up four flights of stairs.  Yay, top floor... 

Took a possibly 2, possibly 3 hour nap (I really don't know what time it was when I fell asleep or woke up).  Then I met up with two other girls who had been on the shuttle and were staying at Cairncross House too.  We decided to go out to try and get cellphones, cause none of us had any that could be used here.  We walked down some streets...

                                                and got to a train station

where we took the train a few stops up the road to a big shopping area.  After searching and going from store to store and back to stores, we all wound up buying the same pay as you go phone.  Hey, it'll do for 4 months. 

I then went to Primark (haven't decided on what I think a US equivalent might be) that was right up the road to get blankets of some sort, cause the one in my room wasn't gonna cut it.  And apparently they don't sell blankets, so I had to buy a duvet and duvet cover, but hey, I'm warm.  (Btw, its really cold here). 

Then on the way back to our hall, we stopped at a Tesco Express, which appears to be a mix between a Stewarts and a regular grocery store.  It had a lot more than a Stewarts would have, but it clearly wasn't as big as a regular store.  It was handy anyway, and isn't very far from our hall, which is nice. 

Anyway, I know theres a lot here, and I won't be doing this for everyday, but as it was my first day here, I thought it might be nice to share it.  :)  More pictures coming tomorrow, I'm sure.  Yay, orientation!

In the meantime, a few little random British-y pics that didn't have a true place in the blog:

Cobblestones!

Walkers??? Don't you mean Lay's??  And shouldn't they already be salted??

Litter!

 

I'm here!!

This is just a quick update to say that I've arrived in Glasgow, have been let in my room and everything is fine.  I've been here (in Glasgow itself) for about 12 hours I think, but it feels like 10 years already with how long (and painful on my shoulder) its been.  I think things are gonna settle down a bit soon and then that'll be good.  Alright, in my next blog I'll go into detail about my trip here and what my hall and room are like and all that fun stuff.  Even had a little mini adventure to talk about!  And orientation starts tomorrow, too! 


  (Btw, apparently there is only a 5 hour time difference... who knew?!)

Holy Cow!

I leave tomorrow!  Crazy!!

I'm all packed, and guess what - I was actually able to pack everything in just the one suitcase!  I was kinda surprised by that.  Once I had all the clothes that I wanted to bring laid out, and had opened up the suitcase, both me and my mom were not quite sure that it was gonna work out.  But thanks to three large space bags (which, if anyone is curious, fit perfectly in a 28-inch suitcase), we were able to fit everything.  It wound up being about 1.5 pounds over, which considering what was in there, was really good.  If anyone is debating whether or not to get a luggage scale, I highly recommend it.

My bag with the first space bag in it.  Fits perfectly!  And there are a ton of shirts/sweaters in just that one bag.

The suitcase all packed... yes, that is an abnormally large boot sticking out on the top, upside down.

And then after packing was done, my dad and I ran out to go pick up some British pounds (Pounds?) last minute.

I had a very difficult time figuring out where to go to get pounds so I'd have some when I first arrived, so incase anyone is also trying to find them, here's what we did.  Apparently all of the banks in the area either do not have pounds available, or you have to be a member of their bank to get it.  My bank said that I could call the headquarters and get some from there but I wasn't really sure where "headquarters" was and I assumed there would be an easier way to do it.  Silly me...

We wound up having to make an appointment with the foreign currency exchange office at Albany Airport.  And you have to call to make the appointment, go to some weird security door/desk thing that doesn't look like you're allowed there.  They take your ID, give you a weird pass, and then you have to go through security!  So I had a little preview of what tomorrow will be like.  Then once you're behind security you can go to the office and get the foreign currency. 

OMG! British money!  And the Queen!!

So yeah, now I have money. 

And my family threw me a little surprise going away party tonight.  It was so, so nice to see all my friends and family and even though I wasn't expecting to get to see everyone before I left, it was really nice to be able to.

Ok so as far as my travels tomorrow, I'm going to post my flight information/times for anyone who may be interested (??) 

I leave Albany Airport at 3:10 PM (on US Airways flight 3780)

Arrive in Philadelphia around 4:13, then hang around there for 2 1/2 hours

Then my flight from Philadelphia to Glasgow (!) leaves at 6:45 (US Airways flight 768)

and arrive in Glasgow at 6:55 AM, their time (I think its like 1 or 2 am EST... )

And there it is... Leaving in like 16 hours (?  Apparently I'm not good at counting)