It's a Beautiful Day in Glasgow...

Did you know that every time you call the Pinehurst Hotel they will answer the phone, "It's a beautiful day in Pinehurst..."? Well for the last two days I have wanted to greet everyone I have met with "It's a beautiful day in Glasgow!" If you cannot tell from my excitement, we have had sunshine!!! I truly believe that I could love this city in the rain, but the sunny days have really made such a difference!


Yesterday was a day that matched the weather: amazing! A large group of us went to Culzean Castle (pronounced 'Cullane") for the day, which was about an hour and a half drive west of Glasgow. The castle was so impressive, it has very "romantic" architecture (as it was inspired by the Italian's) but it was this beautiful place etched into the cliffs off of the North Atlantic. What was even more impressive were the gardens surrounding it. The castle was surrounded by huge yards expertly landscaped with flowers of every color! And all of the grass is so green (which probably doesnt surprise me considering how much it rains!) While exploring the paths leading down to the ocean, i found this Amazing tree... so of course I climbed it and took pictures :) The second half of our day was supposed to be a visit to a town called Ayr, which is about 30 min on the way back to Glasgow. However, when everyone was meeting back at the bus, we discovered that we were missing a person. We waited for and hour while our coordinators looked for this lost kid, and it turned out that he had gotten on an earlier bus! I think if he had walked onto the bus, he might have died for the evil glares and angry words (in multiple languages) directed toward him. So we missed a good part of our time in Ayr and were and hour late getting back to Glasgow.

Last night the city was charged with excitement for the football match, for Scotland was playing the Netherlands in the World Cup qualifiers. A bunch of international kids met up at a pub and watched the game together...people were everywhere!! I learned that I really like soccer players ;) and it was so much fun watching the game with that many people (and I can see the appeal of watching UNC games in a bar). Unfortunately, Scotland lost 0-1 with a lucky shot with about 10 minutes left. So it turned out to be a sad day for Scotland fans...one friend told me to cheer him up by saying that "life doesn't end when Scotland Football is over." My friend Kate and I told him that he could look forward to Carolina Basketball season. As he is from Scotland, I dont think he appreciated it much...

After a while, Kate and I went to my friend Brady's flat because Iain, another friend of mine from Oban, had come to the city for the game, and he was at Brady's. Brady, Iain, and Brady's flatmates Matt and Andy had all been to the game showing their Scottish pride by wearing Kilts!! I definitely took a picture of them (it was happiness!) But I had a good visit with Iain and the other people who were there; it just makes me even more excited for the rest of my friends from Oban to move back.

Today was equally sunny and equally as amazing! After a rather intriguing (sarcasm) orientation session about health insurance, safety, and other things a group of us walked to the city centre for some shopping; it was so nice to be outside :) After the afternoon session about traveling and the international student organization, I had coffee with a group of students who were from Germany and Denmark and we had a nice chat about the differences in our systems of higher education. Did you know that students in Denmark typically take a year off between high school and college, and they only go to undergrad for 3 years? I really love learning about all of the different places that people are from.

So if you look at my entry from the other day I talked about the amazing view from my run. Well Tyson and I needed to move some of our stuff to Queen Margaret (our permanent residence for the semester) and we decided to talk to the spot to take a picture of the city while the sun was shining. This was a fabulous idea except that is is about 1/2 mile in the OTHER direction from QMR (which is already 30 minutes away). So that was our hiking adventure for the day!!

When I returned to Murano to pack, I walked into my flat to find like 15 people in our common room having a tea party! The table was covered with amazing desserts and surrounded by people I had never met (except for two of my flatmates). SO I joined them and met a few people from the Czech Republic and Australia. One of the girls had made smores in the microwave, and only the Americans had ever heard of them. I am glad that they have now been enlightened.

Anyhoo, I'm sorry that I have just written a short novel. I now need to pack because I move tomorrow to my new room for the rest of the semester!! Yay! And I am sorry I have not been posting pictures because I definitely left my camera cord at home, so it is en route and I will add pictures as soon as I can!!

Until my next adventure,
xox
Rach :)