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 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.

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 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.

                               

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!