The inevitable change

... and how it happens without permission

One of the things I struggled with right after coming home from Glasgow was stillness. I felt like I had changed so much, and everything at home was still very much the same. I marveled at the speed with which I fell back into my old routines, even though I was no longer the same person.

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 #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 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 #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.

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.

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!

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!

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.