August: Home

It's months since I came home, and I've been holding out on doing this entry as I wasn't even sure I wanted to, but "Glasgow" hasn't ended for me yet, and I am sure it won't. I might be home in my own apartment, in my own bed (yay!), but I still miss Glasgow, a lot. Even more on days when it rains.

Week 15: "My heart's in the highlands..."

I have traveled Scotland far and wide, and I have managed to travel from one end of Great Britain to the other in just under a day.
I have experienced Scottish weather, and I have fallen in love with the country and lost my heart in the highlands.

Week 14 #3: 50 Shades of...

I was in Aberdeen this past Sunday. It rained. And it is probably the first time while being in Scotland that I have witnessed actual Scottish rain. And it doesn't rain vertically like it would anywhere else in the world. It rains horizontally. I'm not kidding you, and it feels like small bullets are thrown in our face. Also, umbrellas are not good for anything because they just get broken.

Week 14 #2: 101 to survival in Scotland

So, I've been in Scotland almost 14 weeks now, and while I have come to feel quite at home with Scottish society, it is also very, very different from Denmark where I come from. I thought I'd list those differences here:

Week 14 #1: Week of good-byes

This is a weird entry to write for me. Realizing that this is my last week in Glasgow, and with last comes a lot of see ya laters, and I don't like doing that. I don't like leaving friends, knowing it might be quite a while before I will be able to see them again, but they days are passing, and while I wish I had more numbers I just have to make the best of those left at my disposal.

   

Week 13 #3: Isle of dreams

I have had a friend visiting from Thursday until today, and we were exploring a bit of Glasgow and Scotland.
Friday we explored Glasgow Botanic Gardens, I will post an entry about that during the next week, and yesterday we went on a trip to Oban and Isle of Seil, aka isle of dreams. And sheep.

Week 13 #2: This thing called...

This post is going up a couple of days later than I'm happy with, but I returned to Glasgow, which means I returned to life. And returning to life means returning to school and this little thing called studying,  which I am no longer sure I even know how to do. Anyway...

Week 13 #1: Where there are no hippos

London, London, London. The city is beautiful, absolutely stunning in sunshine. Yes, it is noisy, and most probable also very dirty, but stunning.

               

Week 12 #3: London, darling

Busy week this week! So many places to see, so much traveling, but I love it. Last night, after coming back from Inverness (link) I went to London. I caught the bus at 11:40 pm, and slept all the way, curled up on two seats. Who knew sleeping on a bus was actually comfortable?

 

Week 12 #2: Inverness

I already stated after my trip to Dublin (link) that this week is going to particular busy. Today I was in Inverness with Gary and a couple of foreigners. I have gotten over my fear of going alone, and now the best thing about the trips is possibly all the new people I get to meet.
They're all really something, and scenery and sunshine aside, they might actually be one of the best things.

Week 12 #1: Dublin in my heart

So, this is the first entry of a very busy week. As some of you might know already I was in Dublin yesterday. It started very early with me getting up at 05:30, catching a train to meet up with Polina in West End (crossing that off my list) and getting to the airport.
We landed in Dublin around 10 am, and asked which bus would take us to the city center, and the man in the help desk was very nice, but he also managed to scare the life out of me by saying that if we took a certain bus, we would miss the flight. And I can't ever let that happen...
We found our way into city center and to our hotel, My Place, which is highly recommendable. Since we couldn't check in before 2 pm we decided to go get something to eat, and then explore until we could check in.
We hit O'Connell street after a little getting lost, and found something to eat. It decided to start raining while we were eating, but we were planning our day anyway, so it didn't matter. Spirits lifted and the rain gone, we set out for adventures.

Week 11 #2: Nessie hunting

You can't go to Scotland and not have seen  Loch Ness. Something about that is just wrong, so of course I had to go to Loch Ness, and even though my mom proclaimed that I would never find Nessie, I still had to go and try.
Loch Ness is far away from Glasgow, although not as far as Inverness and Aberdeen, but still far enough.
We had a coffee break at the Green Welly, which I already knew because of my trip to Glencoe and Glenfinnan (link). After that we headed basically the same way as I did when I went to Glencoe. Up through Rannach Moor, past the Three Sisters and through Fort William, there still is no fort.
Deeper into the highlands we went, and we even passed by Ben* Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland.

On the way to Loch Ness Gary told us a couple of stories. First there was one with a couple of questionable details, but the moral of the story was to not be greedy. This was exemplified by a man stealing a golden egg from a golden dragon, who then punished the man by teaching him a very golden lesson. He was basically turned into gold and added to a collection of golden humans who had once been too greedy as well.
Another story was about the three lochs that run from Fort William to Loch Ness basically. These three lochs are connected so Nessie is free to roam around. These lochs are Loch Eil, Loch Lochy (very creative name) and Loch Oich. Loch Oich is then connected to Loch Ness via Oich River and the Caledonian Canal. Loch Ness is then connected to the sea, so Nessie could be somewhere in Australia by now for all we know.

Pictures

The pictures shown in each post are just a little glimpse of the many pictures I usually end up taking during a tour. There is so things that needs a picture, and there are so many beautiful moments that need to be made eternal. I have a feeling that you guys might want to actually watch the pictures, and as such I am now making them available to you.

St. Andrews & Dundee 2015 (link)

- Read about the trip here: Week 3: Towns and Cities (link)

Glencoe and Glenfinnan Viaduct 2015 (link)

- Read about the trip here: Week 8: Harry Potter and frogs (link)

Stirling 2015 (link)

- Read about the trip here: Week 9 + 10: Why we dislike Mel Gibson (link)

Edinburgh 2015 (link)

- Read about the trip here: Week 11 #1: Edinburgh (link)

Enjoy :)

Week 11 #1: Edinburgh

Wednesday was spent in Edinburgh, walking approximately 21 km all around town. Up and down, although it mostly felt like up most of the way. I wanted to post this yesterday, but I was so tired after walking around in the fresh air all day I decided to get some shut eye in instead.

Week 9 + 10: Why we dislike Mel Gibson

So, obviously as you guys has seen this is yet another compilation of two weeks. It is so because I during week 9 mostly struggled with motivating myself to write an essay, and also finishing it while still procrastinating. However, I handed it in this Monday, but I didn't feel like I had to make an entire blog post about that, and also there were not any adventures. However, today I had adventures, and I have the pictures to prove it:

The fantastic view

Week 8: Harry Potter and frogs

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone" - Neale Donald Walsch

It might be fair to assume that Neale Donald Walsch was a wise man, at least the above quote is spot on. There is a reason it's called a comfort zone.
I signed up for the trip to Glencoe and Glenfinnan two weeks ago, and I kept asking my friends if they had bought tickets to join up with me. They hadn't, and it occurred to me that I was actually going to go by myself. Now, arguably this is not that terrifying, but it felt like it was at the time.
Especially because I have run out of data on my phone, so there was no chance to spend too much time on Facebook and Instagram. However, instead of being scared I choose to the positive angle:
No excuse NOT to meet new people, and no distractions.
After my trip home, and regardless of how much Glasgow was just a quick-fix, I now have 6 weeks left here, and I have two choices. I can either wallow in how it didn't go as it should have and how I would rather be somewhere else, or I could start enjoying my time here and have fun. I decided to employ the latter tactic as I believe I have the power of change in my hands.

Week 6 + 7: What hurts the most

Another two weeks have passed, and as you can probably assume it has been two rather uneventful weeks as I have waited until I could compile them.
I had in another entry (link) promised myself to go explore Glasgow, and it didn't get to much exploring during the week of week 6. However, on Saturday that week I did go out with one of my flatmates, and Glasgow is definitely an interesting city to go clubbing in. We were walking around aimlessly, trying to find a place where we could sit down, get a drink and maybe talk. This seemed like an impossible quest, and we never succeeded. Instead we ended up in a nightclub, which was an interesting experience to put it in nice words.

                               

Week 4 + 5: The barber experience

I feel like I should probably make an update. I know I didn't get to update last week, but the past two weeks have been somewhat uneventful. I fell sick again after the trip to St. Andrews and Dundee and had to spend some days recovering from that.
Also, I did my first presentation for a class. I was rather nervous about that, but we did well regardless of nervousness.

This week I went to visit the GP's office (doctor) with Seher as she had fallen sick, and I also went to experience the real barber's experience. I went to Rebel Rebel near Central Station, and let me tell you, it is quite different from Denmark. In Denmark I would usually find 3 chairs in a hairdresser (called barber over here), but at Rebel Rebel there were many, many more. The lady cutting my hair told me they had had a DJ in the night before, and I almost fell out of my very comfortable chair. The music was already louder than I would ever expect it to be in a Danish barber shop, and the fact that they had DJ's coming in here was amazing.
The atmosphere was completely amazing as well, and I would definitely come back there another time if I need my hair cut another time while in Glasgow.

Today I have been working on an essay I need to hand in a week and half, and I have been working out. I'll try to explore a bit in the coming week.

Week 3: Towns and cities

There are words in my head and stories in my hands:

The week has been as I guess it will be from now on. Modules on Tuesday, Bodyattack on Wednesday resulting in a broken body all through Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today. Thursday I had more modules and I could barely walk down stairs. Friday I did school work for a presentation on Tuesday and had dinner with a couple of girls. Yesterday I relaxed, and today, in honor of my three weeks in Glasgow I went on a tour to St. Andrews and Dundee.
It's Valentine's Weekend (yes, there is such a thing). I'm not going to dwell too much on Valentine's because it'll simply make me angry; instead I chose to go on a tour and have fun and be happy.
I ordered the trip as an impromptu decision Thursday - what else would I have done today? Honestly, I have no idea.

It was a day of tales, myths, a lot of walking, sunshine and beautiful, cute towns.

St. Andrews

 

Across the pond

It is poorly hidden on this blog that my first choice of exchange was not Glasgow, but rather Shippensburg University in USA. As I wrote in the Welcome page (link) I always considered staying in Europe as staying too close to home. I wanted to go far away, and I wanted to go to the States because that's where my dreams of exchange were. I wanted to go so desperately, and though I complained about all the insanely demanding and expensive preparations I did them anyhow, because I knew they were the ticket to my exchange.
As seen on the Preparation page (link) I was supposed to leave Denmark on January 15th. On January 8th my exchange fell through because of unforeseen events.
Did it hurt? Yes, it hurt. A lot. Months of preparing, months of looking forward was suddenly worth absolutely nothing, and not even considering the money lost here.

Instead of flying across an ocean I flew "across the pond" and landed safely in Glasgow, realizing in the process that I might just get more out of this stay than I would have in the States. I have never set foot in the UK before, and I have been to the States more times than I care to count, so this is new turf for me. This is unexplored turf, and culturally a lot different than what I would expect to find in the States.
Maybe selecting the States above all other destinations was a safety switch for me, because I have been there before, and I know my way around.

Sunday of 44 selfies

So, this is the entry with the many selfies we took on the treasure hunt last Sunday. I will not go into details here, as you can read about the treasure hunt and the pains and hurts therefore in this entry (link).
Instead I will just post some of the pictures here, because I didn't have them at the time when I wrote the entry. As we were allowed to have one member of the group taking the picture, not all of them are selfies, but the idea counts.

One of the entrances to Rottenrow Garden

There were some extra points to get, and we got four extra points.

1: For making a picture with the three monkeys, as shown below

2: Doing YMCA

3: Taking a picture with irn bru, some kind of orangey soda with caffeine in it and an undefinable taste

4: Taking a selfie with a yellow car. Ours proved to be a tad difficult as the car was moving while we took the picture.

A picture with a dog chasing a cat chasing a bird

See more selfies below!

Week 2: Hunting selfies

My week has been just as quiet as the blog has. I was at classes and then I was sick most of the week, so I mainly just slept and relaxed, not much of sightseeing nor much to tell, so I found it better once again to just collect more things and put it into one entry.
I succeeded in going to all my classes and ending up in the right ones as well. I was extremely proud of myself.

Yesterday Seher and I went for a walk around town. We ended up getting ourselves lost and in the process seeing more of the town than I had seen so far. We walked along Buchanan Street which is the high street where we saw these awesome guys. They just had a lot of fun.

A bit further down the street another guy was walking a tight rope and playing violin, and yet further down a guy was singing Ed Sheeran covers. Buchanan Street is definitely a busy street on Saturday evenings, and the shops close at 6:30 PM on Saturdays. 

Week 1: Glasgow on my mind

It has been quiet on the blog over the last couple of days. I didn't want to start every entry with "it has been a slow day..." so I decided I wanted to post something when I had more to write about.
My first week in Glasgow has now come and gone, and my oh my, it has happened so fast.
The week has been strange, stressful, frustrating, fun, not nearly as demanding as I thought it would be, relaxing and a little bit of everything.
I have been homesick and Friday I woke up feeling a bit under the weather. Thursday I had my first module, although I ended up sitting in on the wrong one.
There has been parties every night, and I have met so many nice people. My bathroom and shower is surprisingly clean, so the fears I might have had about sharing it... well, lets just say they don't apply anymore.

The cinema experience

Today has been slow. Woke up around 9 AM after a horrid night where I hadn't really slept at all.
Not long after one of my friends wrote me, because we had agreed last night that we would eat breakfast together.
She came over around 10:30 AM and we had a late breakfast. After that I went shopping, again. My main goal this time was Forever21, and I found it.

Three stories, yes, three stories full of everything your heart and credit card would ever desire. Three stories so stuffed I actually lost sight of what I came for more than just once. I think I spent only an hour in there before I decided I had to head home.
During the afternoon I spoke to people back in Denmark, completely confusing my dad's dog who thought I was in the computer, poor thing.
After that I decided to put my newly bought workout clothes to good use, and I spent an hour or so in the Arc trying to make myself as tired as possible for tonight.
Now I'm just tired and hungry.

Wild the movie was surprisingly good, and the cinema experience over here interesting as well. The tickets on Tuesdays are only £5.90 which is very cheap compared to Denmark. There are all these interesting kinds of candy. Different kinds of popcorn, nachos, yes, nachos, and of course chips and chocolate. The cinema was extremely big, and Wild was running on screen 10, so we had to go up five or six stories. What surprised me the most, though, was no subtitles. They have become such an ingrained part of my cinema experiences in Denmark is was almost frustrating to watch a movie without, even though I never refer to them anymore.
Tomorrow me and some other exchange students are going to watch the Theory of Everything.

Getting lost

Of all the things I am here I think the thing I am the most is lost. Lost on campus, lost in buildings and oh so lost in the translation that is so missing between Scottish and English sometimes. It's not because I want to be insincere, but it's a completely different language! And then, 5 minutes after it dawns on me what the conversation was about and I spend the next 50 minutes cursing myself for being an idiot.
I still have the hope that I'll learn to catch onto the accent at some point.

Last night we went to the Erasmus party at Walkabout. It was a fun night, and parties over here always start at 5 PM. We played pool, and when the upstairs floor closed we went downstairs where people sang karaoke, which is something I have never seen before.
I walked back to the dorm with two other exchange students, and we were back around 10 PM.
Today has been slow so far. I went to visit the International Office, getting lost a couple of times. After that I went to shop for some necessities and groceries, not getting lost, at all. I then had lunch and a nice nap.

I managed to check my schedule, or timetable as it is called here. I don't have any classes, I have modules, and it seems my modules are only on Tuesday and Thursday. I think I'll just double check tomorrow to make sure, though.

Tonight the girls and I are going to watch Wild the movie at Cineworld. It's a very big cinema, only 8 stories tall, and with escalators in it. Needless to say I'm ecstatic to see this gigantic and beautiful building inside!

Running errands

My room is nice, and then again it's not so nice. It's nice during the daytime, but at nighttime. Ugh. The curtains are too short to properly close off the light from the street, and the street is too big to be quiet, so I didn't sleep much last night.
Just woke up from my nap, not feeling entirely well rested at all.

I have not started classes today, sadly. I spent the morning going from the accommodation office to the registry to the accommodation office again. Inquiring first about the possibility of an en suite bedroom, then getting registered, only to find out that it will take up to 24 hours for my registration to go through completely, and then going back to the accommodation office to  ask if I could please get my kitchen pack.
They haven't got any at the moment, so I went back to my dorm to steal a pot and make myself some lunch. I got tired of instant noodles after the first box, and I still have three left...

Tonight there an Erasmus welcome party at a bar called Walkabout, so I'll go there to meet some new people. There's also free food, which, obviously, is a ginormous plus!

Dorm life

Nope, not going to share any pictures of my room with you. Its condition is neither better nor worse after yesterdays halfhearted unpacking attempt.
I did venture out into the kitchen and hallway this morning. I did so too last night, after very careful deliberation is I really needed to pee that much. Barely had I set foot outside my door before I was offered my first drink in Scotland. I respectfully declined.
Having no cup to drink from also proved an issue, and I had to figure out how to do it without emptying something that should be emptied.
I am now attaching pictures of anything but my room. Enjoy!

My door!

Arriving in Glasgow

As the title suggests I have now arrived in Glasgow. I arrived 21:55 local time, and not even an hour after I was in my own room at Caledonian Court. At this moment there are some people just outside my door having a lot of fun.
I won't share any pictures of my room with you just yet, because it is absolutely and completely devoid of any personality, and also my suitcases and unpacking messes are not that flattering.
Sadly, I haven't been able to see much of Glasgow just yet because it's dark, and I think I'm too tired to actually care about the fact that they drive in the wrong side of the road.
I was dropped off at the main entrance of Glasgow Caledonian University, and this is the sight that met me. I swear, I almost dropped dead right then and there.
Surprisingly I got the damn suitcases up the even more damned stairs.

Up the stairs I went, and the nicest security man asked me if I was lost. Was I lost? Yes, so very lost, but did I want to admit it? No way. Must have been that Scottish accent that made me admit it, and he took my 23.4 kg heavy suitcase and carried it for me to the Caledonian Court security office. There I got my key, and another super nice man took the annoyingly heavy suitcase and carried it into my room.
Gosh, they are so hard to understand, but I already like them because of their friendliness. Now I'll try to unpack the heavy suitcase, and then I will definitely hit the sheets!

Destination no longer unknown

This is the headline of a mail that popped into my mailbox this morning. And was I happy? YES! This was probably the most fantastic mail I have received in quite a while. The past week has been so stressful not knowing if I was going or when I was going. Receiving the mail was a relief and a solution to many problems that would arise in the wake of me not going abroad at all. 

So finally, it seems that I am going to Glasgow, tomorrow already. We're right now in the middle of booking plane tickets, but it seems that I will fly out tomorrow afternoon and land in Glasgow around 9 PM.
I can finish repacking my suitcase, a project that has been going on for quite a while by now, so I am definitely looking forward to that.

Where I was supposed to go...

As some of you may know I was supposed to leave for Shippensburg tomorrow morning. I was supposed to fly out of Billund very early in the morning, but with only a week to go my trip to Shippensburg got cancelled, sadly because I was unable to attend, breaking my dreams and wasting months of preparation.
Needless to say that I was heartbroken and thrown for a loop. Suddenly I had nowhere to live, and my dreams were literally breaking in my hands.
For two days I looked like something the cat had dragged in, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I was trying to get a hold of where I was going now and slowly accepting that me going abroad was not part of that path.
On Friday last week I received a call from the study abroad office telling me that they would try to get me into Surrey, London.
I told them to do it, because I didn't want to give up this dream of going abroad unless all options had been exhausted.
They told me that they would know definitively Monday or Tuesday.

Monday I received a mail saying that Surrey didn't accept more students. I had been trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but at that point it was evident to me that I actually really wanted to go with all of my heart, so I was saddened again, but the office had told me they were still trying.
Tuesday morning I received a mail with the headline "URGENT". Curious as I am I opened the mail, containing an application form!!!
Naturally I filled out the application form, and this is written on the assumption that I have already been accepted into Glasgow Caledonian. I don't know for sure, but I hope with all of my heart, and every piece of my being.

It has been a hectic week, and words can only begin to describe how awful it actually was. I don't know if I'm accepted yet,  I just assume I am. I don't have any plane tickets yet, because I don't want to buy them before I am accepted, and I have no place to live in Glasgow, but I am assuming knowingly that things will be all right in the end.
The time I spent preparing for Shippensburg is obviously wasted, but I am going to leave the list on the blog anyhow, because some exchange student might want to check it out one day, and most importantly, I don't want to forget, because I think it is important not to forget the excessive preparation-work load on exchange student.

Packing

I feel like time is sand between my fingers, and no matter what I do it just keeps slipping. This is how fast time moves right now, and I desperately try to salvage every moment and enjoy.
I have started packing down my apartment, which is a very emotional journey for me. I have never been good at throwing things out, but this time I have decided to be critical.
Yesterday I packed down most of my bedroom, astounded to see that everything fit in almost 5 boxes, 3 of them being books.
I decided to help the packing along with a little wine, which I believe made it a tad more fun than it would have been otherwise.

This week I need to find storage room for my bed, I need to get an international driver's license and I need to finish packing.