Time Is On Your Side

I was doing so well with updating this right after fun things happened for a little while, and now I'm getting a bit more lax about it! Jessie just reminded me that I hadn't written about last weekend yet. My apologies, because I know you've all been waiting with bated breath.

Last weekend I went to AMSTERDAM. It was a trip organized by my housing complex, so a lot of people who live near me went, as well as several of my friends who live around here and a few who live across town. Amsterdam isn't that far from the UK, unless you go by bus/ferry. Which is what we did. So, at 2pm last Thursday, 300 students climbed aboard 2 double decker buses, and off we went into the sunset (er, daytime?). Drive Drive Drive. 12 hours later, we arrive in Dover in the south of England. No that wasn't a typo. 12 hours. Unfortunately, the white cliffs of Dover are not so white at 2 am. Anyway, we got on a ferry--bus and all--headed for Calais, France. A few hours across the channel, and off we got. Still in our bus. Our bus from the UK, which is designed for UK roads, which are the exact opposite of cars in America and Europe. Do you get what I'm going for here? Our driver is on the right side of the GIGANTIC bus, but we are also driving on the right side of the road. Yeah. Terrifying.

Anyway, he seemed to do a pretty good job (well, they, since there were two drivers per bus). Through France we went, stopping in Belgium to refuel. So in the span of about 15 hours I had touched ground in Scotland, England, France, and Belgium. Insane. It's kind of like when people from the Mid West come to New England, and they're shocked that in 3 hours you can go from Vermont to New Hampshire to Massachusetts since they couldn't even get to the border of whatever massive state they live in by then. Except with countries.

Another EXTREME difference about this bus trip was that every single person on the bus was drunk. I'm talking hammered, trashed, wasted, etc. On the bus. A moving vehicle, with probably several hundred open containers on it and windows the size of, well, bus windows. My group of friends was the only group not drinking, because we had no idea that this was acceptable. And honestly, I'm pretty sure it's not legal. But no one even thought twice about it. We marveled about how they could even stand up on the ferry after drinking for a solid 12 hours without stopping. Then we saw the line of people outside of the bus, throwing up. Everything was clearer then, and we were pretty happy we weren't among them.

We arrived in Amsterdam at 8 or so the next morning, about 2 hours ahead of schedule. Our hostel wasn't anything special; large, with a particularly angry staff. Since we were early, only about half the rooms were ready. Fortunately, mine was among the half that was good to go, and I was able to go upstairs and change, wash my face, brush my teeth, lament my terrible hair, etc etc. Then it was out into the city!


I feel like I often go event by event in these posts, and it probably gets a little confusing. Since we did a lot of wandering around, looking at cute canals and tiny buildings, I'm going to format this post with the main places we hit first, and then comment a bit on the city itself:

1. The Anne Frank huis. This was one of the most interesting things I saw in Amsterdam. It's not just the annex where the Franks hid with their friends, but a museum filled with information about Anne and her life and things about the war. The whole thing led up to the annex, which is kept empty just like the SS left it after discovering the people hiding there. As you walk through, it's so strange to think that people could actually survive there without leaving. It's so dark and small. There are still clippings and photos on the wall in Anne's room, which she put up to make the place feel nicer. All through the museum, quotes from her diary are written on the walls where they fit with what you're seeng. Descriptions, information, etc. It makes the whole experience much more moving, and it reminds you that what you're seeing is the real thing. At the end, there's a display case with the original diary in it. I don't know why, but I really wasn't expecting to actually see it. It's easy to just think of it as a book that you read in middle school, and you forget that it's actually a little girl's diary. Very moving. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Amsterdam. We were lucky that we went there first, because when we left the line was wrapped around the building.
2. Dam Square. One of the main tourist spots in Amsterdam, we wandered off to Dam square by following a road of clothing stores. It's got your typical European tourist city attraction: human statues/people dressed up like movie characters (in this case, it was Darth Vader and the Mask). It's very pretty, but kind of overwhelming because of all the people. The royal palace is there (I think?) as well as Madame Toussauds, in case you need to look at wax people while you're in Amsterdam.
3. The flower market. This place has a name, but I lost my map with all the little tourist attractions labeled, so I can't remember what it is. I was super excited to go here, because I love flowers and I was hoping that there would be a good selection even though it's only March. At first, I was sorely disappointed. Everything we saw when we went in was silk! About to lose hope, I wandered towards the back of the first stall, only to find that THAT is where all the real flowers are kept. It was very very beautiful. They have all sorts of funny things there, like cactii (sp?) and cannabis "starter kits." Hilarious.
4. Rembrandtplein. This was another square, much smaller than Dam square and skirted by pubs and cafes instead of Madame Toussauds. There were artists set up, peddling their wares, as well as musicians (like an accordian player!) playing all around for the entertainment of the people sitting outside the cafes. There's also a lot of greenery which was nice. We sat in a cafe and had an Amstel Bock, which is a beer from Holland. Not my favorite, since I don't really care for beer, but it was pretty good and definitely better than Heineken.
5. I AMsterdam. This is a silly sign, but I really like it. Pretty self explanatory and I'm sure you've all seen it before in pictures.
6. Van Gogh Museum. I spent a really long time in here and everyone I was with had to wait. Oops. Van Gogh has never been my favorite artist, but I really enjoyed seeing his work from start to finish. It changed SO MUCH from the first painting to the last. There was also a special exhibit which had Starry Night, his most famous painting. We were lucky, because I think it usually belongs in New York City and it was on loan for awhile (which seems wrong but whatever). I actually missed it the first time around, because of the way I looked at the museum (first floor through third, then went down to the basement where the special exhibit was, and didn't realize it ALSO had three floors!). But my friends laughed and guided me back to the right place. People were not very nice in this museum. They were kind of pushy.
7. Red Light District. We started at the Sex Museum, which I thought would be fun and kitschy but by the end was a bit much for me. There were pornographic photos in there from 1890! Good God! Then we wandered around the streets of the district. Honestly, I had heard about the whole women standing in windows thing. It still didn't prepare me for the reality. We saw SO MANY women, and we saw a whole lot of rooms that were occupied (in the middle of the day, even!), and we saw money exchange hands a few times, too. It was a super intense experience. Obviously you aren't allowed to take photos, for privacy reasons. I heard that you shouldn't even have your camera out, because they'll just take it from you. And if you try to take a photo of one of the girls specifically, they'll honestly throw a cup of urine on you. Intense. But totally valid. Needless to say, I left my camera safely tucked away.
8. Vondelpark. A very pretty park near where our bus picked us up to go home. Didn't have much time to walk through but I saw the entrance and had a short walk around. It was very pretty, and made me feel like spring was coming.

So those were the main sights to see in Amsterdam. I'm sure we missed a bunch of things, because we honestly just wandered around. They made ME navigate for a lot of it, and fortunately I didn't get us terribly lost. Other than these sights, we had a good time hanging out with the people we traveled with, many of whom we didn't know beforehand. There was a pub night the first night we were there, but we were too exhausted to enjoy it much, so we went to bed pretty early. Saturday night there was a pub crawl, which ended up being a lot of fun. Unfortunately, because there were so many of us we rented out entire places at a time, so there were no local people to mingle with. Oh well. That's what you get for traveling in such a large group. We also experienced STROOPWAFELS which are these amazing cookie/waffle/maple syrup deliciousness that I don't really know how to explain. They sold them for very low prices pretty much everywhere. Chloe told me there was a guy who made them fresh, but we didn't get the chance to find him! Next time I'm in Amsterdam, though...

I shall leave you with a happy picture, designed to induce happy thoughts until we meet again:

In Pieces

RIP Griffin iPod headphones. Thank you for making it through the 19 hour (EACH WAY) trip to Amsterdam before biting the dust. The lack of speaker on your right side makes it look like you've been decapitated. I always appreciated that you came with specially small sized ear thingies.

In other news, I'll post about Amsterdam at some point.

Trip to the Emerald Isle

Note: I wrote this post on either Monday or Tuesday, and just now realized that I hadn't posted it yet. So, my apologies, and here you go:

I spent this weekend in the beautiful (and expensive!) Irish city of Dublin with four of my lovely friends.


We flew out of Glasgow Prestwick airport on Thursday night. I've never encountered an airport that is MORE sad and derelict than Binghamton Regional, but Glasgow Prestwick might come close. It only does RyanAir flights, a budget airline that is incredibly cheap but involves riding in planes that were built circa the Paleolithic Era (ok, I don't really know when that is, it will be super embarrassing if THIS is the paleolithic era...whatever). Also, the flight attendants are forced to wear these absolutely awful outfits. They're bright blue and they come down to the mid-ankle. They look like bathrobes. The best thing about the flight to Dublin was that it was only a little over 30 minutes long. It actually took us longer to GET to Glasgow Prestwick from my flat (about 1.5 hours counting walking, the subway ride, and a busride!) than it took to get to Dublin. But arrive we did, and we were exhausted. We had wanted to go out for a bit after we put our stuff away in the hostel but it didn't really seem worth it, since we were getting up for sightseeing about 6 hours later.

The hostel was pretty nice, clean white sheets and a FULL IRISH BREAKFAST included in the price. So we got up and were fed eggs, toast, cereal, baked beans, hash browns, coffee, and some of us had sausage and bacon as well (when they realized I was vegetarian, they gave me an extra egg!). The coffee left something to be desired, but I'm cool with it so long as it has some caffeine.

Out we walked into Dublin. We were in a really good location, just off O'Connell street, so there was lots to see. It was a bright sunny day to start off with (though it got rainier as the day went on...but we're used to that!) and so we strolled down O'Connell, peaking into touristy shops and generally enjoying the city. Here are some photos taken on O'Connell street (you can see what a nice morning it was):


Above is a statue of O'Connell, with a bird on his head. Below is the Post Office (obviously).


And here's one from the bridge, from which you can see the Ha'Penny Bridge and the River Liffey:


Close by was Grafton street, the main shopping district in Dublin. We toured around, and saw all these beautiful flower stands (mind you, it was February!):


Then we met up with a family friend of Shauna's, who works for the Dublin Tourist Department. She took us out for coffee at an adorable French creperie, and then lavished us with Dublin-tourist treasures. We got passes to go on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour that took us all around the city whenever we wanted. The buses came about every 10 minutes, so whenever we were done with a sight, we could just hop on and off we went. It was extremely convenient and the trip would've cost LOADS more if she hadn't helped us out. She also gave us passes that got us in to many attractions (ie, the Guinness Factory, all the churches, etc) for free! So we had four of each of these passes, and five people traveling. Splitting the cost of one ticket to each attraction 5 ways meant we did a lot more than we would've otherwise.

After we said goodbye to Joan, the woman who'd helped us out (and planned to meet up for dinner!), we went walking around the city a bit more. We passed through St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park near Trinity College. Again, lots of flowers and general merriment.



From here, we walked towards the political buildings, which are all grouped together. The prime minister in Ireland is called the Teasioch, pronounced tea-shock. The National Art Gallery was just around the corner, and we popped in for a visit. Unfortunately, we didn't have all the time we wanted to tour the gallery--it's huge and we only had two days in Dublin! So on we moved to Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells. This is probably the oldest thing I've ever seen. They have a really cool museum there, where you learn all about how the book was made and what the symbols and pictures mean. It was incredible! At the end you go into a dark room where two of the books (it's a multivolume book, which we didn't quite get until just then...) are on display. They also display another book or two, and these books are rotated so that whenever you go it's a different one. Definitely one of my favorite things in Dublin.

Back on the tour bus, we traveled to Christ Church. On the way, we met a group of French tourists. They wanted us to be in their video of Dublin, so they filmed us each separately. When the guy with the camera got to me, he said "Oh! You must be the real Irish one!" because of my hair. Since English was (clearly) not his first language, he didn't notice my American accent. I played along, telling him that I was just showing some friends around the city (in the most American accent I could possibly muster, of course). Christ Church was beautiful, even though the clouds were gathering at this point and it had started to sprinkle a bit. We wandered around the grounds, but decided against going in:


Next, we went to St. Patrick's. Briana and Alyssa went in, but Crystal, Shauna, and I decided to explore the area around it. We took a peek inside first, of course. While we were outside, we stumbled upon the oldest library in the UK! When people went there to look at books in the old days, they had to sit in little cages and the books were chained to the wall so no one could steal them. Very intense. I probably would not have done much reading...

But I may have done this:


Yum, flowers.

Next up was the obligatory visit to the Guinness Factory. Pretty much the only reason for going is the "free" beer, and the fact that the bar at the very top has some of the best views in Dublin. This just in: I really don't like Guinness...

We rushed off to the Temple Bar district to have dinner with Joan and her 22 year old son Simon. It was a pretty fancy place with tons of gourmet pizzas (ok, so it wasn't THAT fancy) and Shauna and I split one with artichoke hearts, asparagus, and black olives. DELISH. Wandering around Temple Bar district was fun afterwards, but it was just so crowded that we decided not to go in to the actual Temple Bar. Oh well, I think I can live without that one. But it was a cute area:


The fun continued on Saturday, when we went to Kilmainham Gaol. We had to wait about an hour for the guided tour to start, so we snooped around the museum connected to the gaol. It was a really cool place, filled with all sorts of memorabilia, particularly from the 1916 Easter Rebellion leaders who were kept and executed at the Gaol. I don't know a lot about Irish history, so it was very educational. The Gaol itself is terrifying. They kept men, women, and children there! Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Dublin.


Outside was a really nice memorial to the 14 leaders of the Easter Rebellion who were executed at Kilmainham:


We needed something a bit lighter afterwards, so we headed to Phoenix Park. It's the biggest enclosed park in all of Europe! Very beautiful, and again shocking because it was so green and the flowers were already out. Crystal spent most of the time there searching for clover, but she never found any. Alas, we didn't have enough time to visit the zoo that's part of the park. Someday...


Back to the city, we split up to do a little shopping. Shauna and I wandered around the windy streets of Dublin, looking in all the fun boutiques. Very kitschy. But we didn't stop for long because it was almost time for the Six Nations Rugby game! Ireland was playing England, and Dublin was CRAZY because of it. We finally found a pub about 45 minutes before kick off, and the game was excellent. Ireland won 14-13. Everyone laughed at me because I knew the words to the Irish rugby song, "Ireland's Call" (thank you, MCWRC).

At 7:30, the game was finished, so we headed to Subway for some "cheap" dinner. Shauna had never been to Subway before. At first she didn't really get how it worked, but then she got the hang of things. She loved it. I was a little disappointed that we didn't do something less American, but honestly ever Irishman I've ever met LOVES SUBWAY and Simon was in charge of finding us somewhere to eat. So I guess it was a real Irish experience? Simon and his friend Neil took us to a pub where lots of Trinity students hang out afterwards. It was fun, but crowded and expensive. We're always complaining about spending money in Glasgow--if I were in Dublin this semester I'd be broke already!

Phew, this has been an incredibly long and potentially boring post. Oh well. Check back again for more adventures, same bat time, same bat place.

Braveheart

This post is complete with educational links to wikipedia, in case you want to edumacate yourself about Scottish history. You're welcome.

Out of the blue, some friends asked me if I wanted to take a trip to Stirling on Saturday. It's only about 30 minutes by train from Glasgow, so I figured why not?

We left Saturday morning and arrived in Stirling to relatively sunny skies and pretty warm temperatures. Stirling is a lot smaller than Glasgow, and is a lot less crowded. This is one of the first things we saw upon arrival:


There are two main tourist attractions in Stirling: the William Wallace monument and Stirling Castle (on top of the hill in the photo above). Unfortunately, they are on opposite ends of Stirling. Fortunately, Stirling is small so this means they're only about a 20 minute walk from each other.

Since the William Wallace monument was pretty much the reason we had decided to go to Stirling, we chose to visit that one first. For those of you who don't know who William Wallace was, he's the guy Mel Gibson plays in Braveheart. Very cool guy, did lots of fighting and stuff.


The William Wallace monument is on a hill overlooking the city of Stirling. In order to get there from the train station, you have to cross the River Forth (I think that's the one, I could be wrong...), walk through a residential area, and then climb a HUGE hill. Upon reaching the top of said hill, you arrive at the parking lot for the monument. There's a bus service from here to the monument itself, but being healthy women we decided to go up on foot. The climb from here isn't too terrible, though it's pretty steep and the trail snakes back and forth around the back of the mountain. Looking at it as we were still in the residential area, it seemed like we would never make it up. But honestly it wasn't so bad. A bit out of breath, we made it to the top. Up here, we could see the whole city of Stirling and its surroundings. The Scottish countryside is fully evident from a point this high, and there are a series of majestic hills in view, too. Directly across the city, you can see Stirling castle sitting on its own little hill.

It is very, very windy on the top of the William Wallace monument. We didn't actually go IN the monument itself. It's kind of like the Washington Monument or Bunker Hill in Boston, tall and lots of stairs inside, but there's no real reason to go in when it costs £5. The point really is the view:


We ate our sandwiches atop the hill, and then headed back down toward the castle. On the way, we crossed over the old footbridge where the Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought (William Wallace took part, which you can see immortalized in Braveheart). It's a really pretty bridge, so we stopped to take some photos (obv).


Stirling Castle is a hop skip and a jump from Stirling Bridge, and of course is upon another pretty steep hill. We climbed up, met a kitty on the way (feral? ew), and then arrived outside the castle. There's a pretty nice monument there to Robert the Bruce which I particularly liked because they carved him a curly beard.


We DID pay to go inside Stirling Castle, because from the outside you can't really see much. Plus Stirling Castle is kind of a big deal. Fortunately, though there was no student price, there WAS a free tour that started just as we entered the castle gates. Our lovely tourguide, Brian, was a cheerful Scotsman who took us around, telling us all about the castle, those who lived in it, and why it's haunted (which is a pretty cool story, about the king murdering some earl that he thought was gaining too much power and plotting to overthrow him. He invited him over for dinner, then stabbed him like 26 times, and pushed him off the roof. BAMF). I'm always impressed at how knowledgeable tour guides are.


One of the coolest things I learned while at Stirling Castle was that the whole thing used to be painted a sort of yellow-creme color, and all the little figures carved into the stone were painted blues and greens and reds and golds. It's funny to think about, because the castle seems so dreary (and fitting to the Scottish countryside!) in its gray stone. I honestly never thought about how magnificent the castles must've been in their heydays, but apparently Stirling looked something like this:


Anyway, we traveled around Stirling castle, and saw lots of castle-y sights. The castle is famous because it was the Stuart's favorite one in Scotland. Pretty cool.

Here's a view of the William Wallace monument from Stirling Castle (it's the very small, slightly phallic brown-gray structure in the distance):


By this point, the lovely weather had faded considerably, and it was getting pretty cold. We stopped into a pub where some local guy was playing acoustic guitar and singing, surrounded by an audience of adoring girls wearing bright colors and ridiculous makeup (but who am I to judge, eh?). We sat here for a little while, warming up, and then two girls decided they wanted to get some dinner. We traveled from this pub to a restaurant place that was obviously supposed to be American-style. It came off as much less friendly than the pubs we've gotten used to. Stirling is a touristy town because of the castle and the monument, so prices are rather higher than they are in Glasgow. After they ate, we decided to catch the train home. All in all, it was a really fun day trip.

Each time I go to a new city in Scotland, a part of me is worried that I'll fall in love with it even more than I have with Glasgow, and wish I'd gone there instead. Luckily, that hasn't really happened yet! Glasgow may be a little rougher around the edges than these more tourist-based towns, but it's certainly got a lot more character, too.

Left Side/Right Side

I've gotten the hang of which side of the road the cars drive on. Nonetheless, when I'm crossing I always look the UK direction and then glance in the US direction (just in case there are any crazy foreigners lurking about).

Also, I can't accept that they drive on the right side of the car. I can't tell you how many times I've looked up and thought a baby/dog/sleeping person was in the driver's seat.

I'll be in Scotland afore ye

This weekend, I got to go to the Highlands with the International Student Society. On the way, we stopped in Luss, a small town that sits on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond! It was quite cold, but really beautiful. This photo shows a view from said bonnie bonnie banks. The snow capped monstrosity in the background is Ben Lomond. And that tugboat is precious, no?


After spending some time on the banks, we headed around to see what Luss had to offer. The answer is not much. The houses are all tiny and made of stone. Very cute. There was a stream and the water was so clear. It was insane. Most of the water in the Highlands comes from streams like this, I've heard. I felt a lot better drinking from the tap once I saw that clear stream (though I suppose the water in Glasgow is probably really really nasty because it's such an industrial city. Don't burst my bubble!). Anyway, there was a bridge over the stream, which lead us into a large field. There was pretty much nothing in the field except an enormous celtic cross covered in various symbols for peace...


...and a large petrified tree. I really liked the cross. It had all these pieces of colored glass in it that caught the sunlight just right.

From Loch Lomond, we got back on the bus and traveled to the infamous Loch Ness, specifically a town called Fort Augustus. Here's a view of Loch Ness (sans Nessie, unfortunately):


And another:


Loch Ness is 22 miles long and only about a mile wide at its largest, so it's no surprise that they dropped us off where Nessie vacations in the summer, rather than where she lives for the rest of the year. Oh well, means I'll have to go back someday. Preferably at dusk, because that seems conducive to seeing water monsters.

A view of the Loch from a bridge in Fort Augustus:


Anyway, Fort Augustus was cute, but not in the same way as Luss. It was a little more touristy, and a lot colder and snowier. We were getting higher into the Highlands, so I suppose that was to be expected. But I felt like I was in Okemo or some other skiing town in Vermont rather than truly at THE Loch Ness. I think I prefered Loch Lomond. It was great fun teaching my Australian friend the Loch Lomond song on the bus. People kept debating what the true words were. That song is one of the only things I can say with a Scottish (man) accent. No clue why.

But all that aside, we climbed back onto the bus and drove for a bazillion hours up into the Highlands. We stayed at a youth hostel in Carbisdale castle. They had promised us a 3 course gourmet dinner and a ceilidh, so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, aforementioned dinner was more like a cafeteria-style meal (I had mac & cheese--at least they had a veggie option!) and the ceilidh band was super late because they got stuck in bad weather on the way up, and then had to leave in less than an hour because they were all SO YOUNG. We're talking fetuses here, people. Very strange.

We lucked out in rooms, because we had a group of 10 and there was one room for 10 people. So we had a room all to ourselves, in a beautiful castle, and very little else mattered. Since it was all international students, I knew a lot of people on the trip already and got to meet more. It's nice to be in a group of people who are all kind of feeling the same excitement about being in Scotland and doing things like visiting Lochs and castles.

The next morning we got up and took some photos of the castle, then ate a HUGE breakfast (mostly because we kept going back for more, not because it was all that delicious) and then packed back into the bus for a VERY VERY long busride home.



They promised us a lunchtime stop in Inverness, the biggest city in the Highlands. I was really looking forward to having an hour or so to explore, but they only gave us 45 minutes and dropped us off in the parking lot of a supermarket. Excellent. Guess Inverness is still on my list of places to visit. By the time we got back to Glasgow, it was very snowy, so I suppose they were smart to beat the weather. All in all it was a good couple of days and I feel like I've seen a ton of the countryside now. It's funny to drive through Scotland, because it's such a small country but it has a LOT of different types of landscape. We honestly drove through about four different climates on our way up there. Parts of it look just like Vermont in the winter, except bigger (which is funny, because I doubt Scotland is bigger than many things OTHER than Vermont!), and parts looked like some springtime lakeside place in Pennsylvania or something. Very strange.

Tomorrow I will be 5 weeks in to my stay in Glasgow, leaving only 15 weeks left. I can't believe the time is going so quickly! There's a lot left for me to do, and I've got to start thinking about my classwork, too. I've got an essay due every week from now until mid March, it appears. Oh well. I just hope I can remember to spell things correctly (i.e. labour; industrialisation; centre)!

Also, a very happy birthday to my lovely mother. Hope everyone back home made it great!

Empty Orchestra

I can't get over the weather here. It's been really quite warm, considering how cold it is in the US these days, and I think I'm getting soft! One of the security guards at the complex where I live told us on one of our first days here that February is the coldest month in Glasgow. And wouldn't you know it, it started snowing last night and hasn't stopped yet! First 'real' snow we've had, other than the occasional flurry (a very wet flurry, because it's so humid!). I must say, if this is as cold as it gets...HAHA to everyone freezing their bums off back in the Northeast US!

Maybe Glaswegian weather is nice because it's so predictably awful. In fact, the only few days it's been sunny so far are those days that we've gone out and taken photos of the city! So we've been pretty lucky.

This is an interesting time to be gone, because so many distinctly American things have happened while I've been here: the inauguration and the Super Bowl, I mean (I guess that doesn't count as SO many, but whatever). I suppose going in the fall and experiencing Halloween and Thanksgiving in a non-American country would've been similarly strange (or at least, waking up on those days and realizing it's not a holiday would be). However, both the inauguration and the Super Bowl have gotten a bit of hype around here. I've spoken a little about the inauguration, which was fun; but the Super Bowl was even more of an experience. First of all, as I make more local friends it gets more apparent how different the cultures actually are! Last night, we all went to a pub/bar/nightclub place to watch the game. It was probably the first time I've watched a football game and been one of the most knowledgeable about what was happening! Not that I really had any clue, but it was less embarrassing not to know and more gratifying when I did know the answers to questions posed by people seeing American Football for the first time. The only downside was that we don't get American commercials, so I didn't get that particular bit of enjoyment. Also, commercials in the UK don't last as long, so there were several instances where we were watching them mill around on the field while the commercials in America played. It was interesting to see the illusion of "continuous play" shattered like that. I knew that they suspended play during commercials in the Super Bowl, I just never really thought about it much. (Note: I typed this paragraph and then re-read it, and I spelled commercials wrong EVERY TIME. Oops.)

One of the best parts about last night was that my friends convinced me it would be a good idea to sing karaoke while we were waiting for kick off (which happened at just after 11 pm--needless to say I did not stay for the whole game, especially since my flat was a 50 minute walk away!). Now, I've never been a shy performer, but karaoke has never really been something I thought about doing. So, we made a deal: I would sing if they would come up on stage and dance. It was a really fun time. Two of my friends took a video, so maybe I'll put that up here (once I've watched it myself, to make sure it's not TOO embarrassing). You'll just have to keep checking back to see!

Alright, time to walk to class in the snow. It makes campus feel oddly familiar, somehow...