Pictures of Dartmoor

This is part of the rubble that is left of the settlement.

There are also wild ponies that roam the moor along with the sheep. They did not mind at all that we were there unlike the sheep.

Mike, Justin, and James on top of the tor.

We found this sheep skeleton on top of the tor. It was picked clean and a pile of white fluff was off to the side of it... Sheep roam along the moor and many a time we came up to one trying to cross the road.

Thursday, November 9th

We woke up at the horrid hour of 4:30am so that we could make it to the airport in time. I hate waking up this early and apparently so do other since a walk that would normally take up 20 minutes took us 10. But, we got into London Standsted airport at 10am and waited for our friend, Justin, to fly in from Dublin before heading into London. It took us a little over an hour to travel what felt like 40 miles. It seemed like everyone was driving, even though people actually have to pay a fine for driving in the city. Cameras take pictures of people's license plates as they enter the city and are charged £10 and if its not paid until midnight, it goes up to £50 (to try to cut down on congestion and pollution.)
We took the subway over to Westminster, and walked out of the station to Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings. We were able to have a 'picinic' lunch right outside Big Ben and Westminster Abbey too! I unfortunately do not have any great pictures of the entire Abbey, but the building was beautiful. The windows and facade are very ornate and you could probably spend a good portion of the day just looking at all the statues, windows, and general exterior of the building. We would have liked to go into the church, but there was a charge of £10. Since we only had a limited amount of time we could spend poking around, we decided to come back a different day when we could spend more time wandering through the church. We went to see London right before Rememberance Sunday, so the yard in front of the church was covered with crosses. A lot of veterans were walking through the square and through the city in suits adorned with their medals. It was beautiful. We then headed down Parliment Street. We walked past 10 Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives. Of course it was heavily gaurded, but apparently not that long ago you could walk right up Downing Street. Not anymore.
Then we went to the Horse Guards. I was excited because I wanted a picture with one of the guards that could not move at all (very touristy -- but I was okay with it.) There were 2 guards that we could see. One out front and one tucked away in the pedestrian area. Well, the guy out front was getting his picture taken by hoards of people and we would have had to wait forever for me to get a picture with him, so we ventured over to guard number 2. BIG mistake. He was tucked underneath some arches, (which did not indicate that you could not walk under.) Justin grabbed the camera, I walked under the arches, and chaos ensued. The guard stomped his foot, wielded his sword thing and yelled 'Be warned, you have entered through her Majesty's Arches.' We had no idea what it meant he meant (as again there were no signs), but we left him alone with no pictures taken. At one point in time this was the official entrance to Buckingham Palace... maybe that is why... We headed to Trafalgar Square next. You walk down the end of Parliment Street to a view of a Nelson's Column with two gorgeous fountains and the National Gallery in the background. We walked down to Buckingham Palace, which was beautiful but the gates were more impressive. After seeing all the castles and palaces around here, Buckingham seemed rather bland. But the gates were incredibly oppulent. I was disappointed that no formal guards were outside the huge baricades, so again I could not get a picture. I didn't think that walking through the gates would be a good idea since all the security guards had uzis.
We walked over to Piccadilly Circus which is a little like Time's Square with the wall of TV advertisments, but much less neon. Piccadilly Circus has also thankfully retained much of the original facades of the buildings and is quite eleganat. After all the hiking over London, we were ready for the bus ride down to Exeter, England. Again, it took us about an hour and a half to get out of London. I cannot image ever driving in that city. Blogger stopped letting me upload pictures... so the rest are on Flickr.

More Pictures of London

This is the entrance to the Horse Guards. Under these arches is the pedestrian way where the guard stomped his feet and yelled at me.

Piccadilly Circus

This is Buckingham Palace. Like I said below, its not all that impressive from the outside. I am sure that if you were able to walk around the building, or walk up to it, the Palace would be stunning. But those security officers with the uzis really deter that.

The church in the background is St. Martin's in the Field. It was really pretty and we were able to walk in and look around (free of charge.) In the basement is a gift shop and restuarant. Its a little odd to walk into church basements and see this, but the original architecture is still in tact.

The Menacing Blimp

As I mentioned before, Mike and I were visiting friends in Devon County, England. We flew into London first, met a friend of ours there and walked around for a few hours to see the sites before we caught a bus down to Modbury. As we were walking down The Mall next to St James Park we noticed this blimp flying through the air. The blimp itself wasn't that interesting other than it was fairly large. The interesting bit was the camouflaged helicopters complete with HUGE guns were surrounding it and maneuvering around it. We just thought it was funny at first until we got up to Buckingham Palace and noticed that more military helicopters with more HUGE guns had surrounded the outside parimeter of the palace. All of sudden the Blimp very quickly flew out of the air space and miraculously the helicopters flew away. We are sure the pilot was just not paying attention and all of a sudden found himself in serious trouble.
More of our adventures in England and photos will follow...

Hoodies

Mike was reading the Metro, a popular newspaper, the other day and stumbled across a 'Top Ten Offensive Things to do in Public' survey that was done. It had all the usual complaints, but number three really surprised us. How in the world could hoodies ever be offensive! I love the comfort of hoodies, and was kinda bummed that my wearing them out could be seen as offensive to a vast number of people. I haven't worn them frequently out in public yet because my favorite is a bright green one and that is the main color of one of the football clubs here. In most places they will not let you in with football colors and I didn't want to be denied access to anywhere. Also, if I was on the wrong side of town with these colors on, I could face bodily harm. I don't know the city well enough to risk this either. I went into work and asked the ladies there about the hoodies. Apparently all the hooligans wear them. Because of this it is seen as a sign of aggression or of being in a gang. But tell me, how could a pink hoodie ever be seen as a sign of aggression!?

Bonfire Night

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot

Guy Fawkes teas this intent
to blow up king and parliament
three score barrels were laid below
To prove old England's overthrow.

By God's mercy he was catched
with a dark lantern and lighted match.
Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the King
Today is Bonfire Night. Its celebrated throughout the UK due to the fact that Guy Fawkes was not successful in his attempt to bomb the Parliment Building all those years ago. It is called Bonfire Night because that is how he died -- burning by the stake. So, according to the ladies that I work with, children will make up scarecrows, called effigies, to represent Guy Fawkes and go around collecting money for the fireworks. Then these scarecrows will be tossed into the bonfire later on that night. Its a little morbid, but great fun too. Fireworks are set off throughout the UK to represent the gunpowder Guy Fawkes had hidden in the cellar of Parliment. Not every town has the bonfire, but the majority have fireworks. Glasgow unfortunately did not have a bonfire and there was no public burning, but it was still fun.

We headed down to Glasgow Green at about 4:30pm. We really didn't know what to expect. All we knew was that somethings started at 4pm, the 'pre-fireworks show' started at 6:30pm with the fireworks at 7:30pm (it is pretty dark by 5pm now.) There was a carnival with all the usual rides, but this one on the left was really unique to Scotland. It was a 'Krazy House' but looked like a country cottage. All the rest you could more than likely find in any carnival in any country around the world. But as Mike put it, the carnies here have way more teeth than those at home.

As we had gotten there quite a bit early, we decided to head back a couple of blocks to a bar/cafe that we had passed on the way in. It intrigued us because it is in the basement of an old church, St. Andrews in the Square, that has been restored and now is a cultural venue and bar/cafe. It was really interesting and the food they serve there is very Scottish. Most places here serve ethnic food and you can find more Indian restaurants than actual Scottish ones.

After a libation we headed back to Glasgow Green and staked out a site to see the fireworks. There were thousands of people in the designated area and it was standing room only. The fireworks show last about a half hour, and the start was weak. They had quite a variety of fireworks, but would only shoot off that particular kind all in a row. The finale was really pretty though and the show did last quite a while.

Language Barriers

After reading Mark's post about Bill and their trip to Monterrey, I started thinking about the language barriers that we all incounter. We have all more than likely been there. Whether its a friend thats first langauge is not English, or if you have ever been to a Walmart in Michigan (other than in Mount Pleasant), at some point in time it hsa been hard to communicate with someone else because of the langauge.
I had a great experience of this in Chile. They teach you formal Spanish in all your classes. You get a few classes away from graduating and then they through in the fact that if you travel to any Spanish speaking country, don't expect to understand them right away. Then they show you a video of people speaking from all over South American and the Caribe and ask if you understand, which of course you don't entirely. You can catch snippets and sometimes make out what they are saying, but thats about it. I had a friend from Puerto Rico who went to northern Spain and had no idea what anyone was saying. Needless to day, it was not really uplifting.
But, I went to Chile anyway and had a great time. But it was really hard learning their slang. We had a whole class dedicated to Chilean Spanish. The teacher taught us some grammar, but a lot of it was us asking here what a term or phrase meant. The Chileans pride themselves in the fact that someone from Argentina, etc. can come to their country and have no clue what they are saying. But, since we all lived directly in the language, we caught on quickly enough and could communicate well.
I was excited coming to the UK because they speak the same language (kinda -- I would have been REALLY excited if they spoke Spanish.) Then we get here, and have no idea what any one is saying! In the States we are all aware of some of the differences in terms, such as a flat is an apartment in the USA. And we have met International Students from Glasgow that are studying at CMU. We knew the accent was thick, but we figured we could handle it. Well, the first day that we were here, we had no idea what any one was saying. At all. We were constantly asking people to repeat themselves or just smiling and nodding. It has gotten better now that we have been here for a month and a half, but at times we are still asking people to repeat themselves. Working has been great for me, I just ask the ladies there... what does this mean? And they explain all the terms for me. Some of its really odd... like calling pop, "ginger". And fries are "chips" and chips are "crisps". And the "crisps" here are all really odd flavors, at least they have good old pringles.

Work

I have been working here, at in the Occupational Health Department of the Western Infirmary Hospital since mid-October. I only work part-time, which is great. I love have most afternoons off and Thurdays. Unfortunately, the position is being filled and I will only have the job until at the lastest, the beginning of December. But, then hopefully I will be able to work some where else and met new people. It will be a bit sad since I really like the women that I work with.

As some of you have heard, my first week of work is still on "volunteer" basis. Because I am not a student here, I have had to jump through HUGE hoops to get my name put on our bank account. We can get checks direct deposited, but at the time of my first assignment, we still didn't have our bank account information (you have to wait up to 2 weeks to get a bank account if you are foreign -- something about money laundering...). SO... they gave me what is known as a "draft slip." I'm still not really clear on what it is exactly but it boils down to the fact that I cannot cash it, and I cannot put it into the bank because my name is not on an account. Our marriage liscence is not good enough, neither is our rental agreement, nor a payslip with my name and address on it. I have to have something from the city council. So.. last week Friday I made my way down to the City Council and registered with them. I explained that my name had to be put on the letter so that I could get my name on the bank account. The letter came today... my name was not on there at all, just Mike's. So... another trip down to the City Council. Now they are trying to get us to pay the City Council tax, but they are willing to put a letter out with my name on it. Mike is exempt for paying the City Council tax because he is a student, and I should be too because I am 'student dependant.' But, Glasgow's City Council likes to try to make you pay it. So.. that prompt a visit to the International Student Office so we could get their help. They are willing to help us fight it as soon as we get our bill, thank goodness. But, after all that, I still have a paycheck and no bank account to put it in. At least all the others have gone through the direct deposit system with no problems...

NaBloPoMo

After reading Trista's post about National Blog Posting Month, I too have decided to make it my goal to post everyday. We do have some weekend trips coming up this month (to Plymouth, Englnad and the Isle of Skye.) I cannot promise anything those weekends, but I will make it up when I get home! By the end of the month, you may be sick of hearing from me, but I am willing to risk it! :)

Kelvin Walkway

We decided to go on another walk today. Mike had to go over to the University of Glasgow to check out a book and I had heard of a lovely walk that we could take that follows the River Kelvin through the Northwest side of the city. So, 2.25 miles later Mike was in the library and I was poking around the Kelvingrove Museum. They won't even let me step foot in the University libraries since I don't have a student ID card. But, the musuem exhibit was on how they restore paintings and different artists techniques, etc. and it was very interesting.
Then we went on our walk. It was very beautiful, but as we had already walked the 2.25 miles to get to the start of the walkway, we didn't finish the 13 km hike that encompasses the entire walk. Instead we walked along the path until we came upon the Botanical Gardens. There wasn't a whole lot in bloom out and about, but they were still some parts that were amazing. There is a path that you can take that has different flower beds that are categorized by centuries. We didn't wander down that path today, but decided that we would come back on a day that we had more energy. (Or a day that we took the bus or underground to get there, and had not walked 5 miles before we got there.) We did go through the greenhouse though. The flowers were amazing, even if I could only pick out Impatients and Orchids. They even had an area all for seaweed and a room dediced to plants that countries harvest, such as coffee, cocoa, gum, and even a tree that is used in laxatives.
At the end of the day we walked about 10 miles though (we had a side trip to a bar recommended in our Best of Scotland Book, Bar 10 -- it wasn't all that spectacular). The weather was beautiful however, and by the time it got dark (at 5:00 PM !!) we were certainly ready to go home for a rest.

Exploring

On Sunday we decided to take a walk through the city and explore more of Glasgow. We left the maps at home and our quick walk turned into a 2 hour jaunt through the city. It was really pretty though. We live in the city center, which is pretty busy and the apartments all look the same. Sunday we were able to walk down side streets and see some beautiful buildings. We would love to live there, but I am sure that our rent would double just because the building is pretty. And its amazing how quite a city can get just by ducking down a side street.
The building above was for sale. I really wanted it, but unfortunately it had already been sold. I am sure that Mike would have been okay with me getting it... yeah right!
The buildings here are beautiful. The one right above used to be mansions. There is another building exactly like this one at the other side of Charing Cross. Glasgow at one time was a very wealthy city, especially the North side. So, looking at the building is lots of fun just for the architectual beauty and to see what they once were. We even stumbled across an old Woolworths.

Harry Potter...

I was poking around on the Internet yesterday and thought to myself how cool it would be if the next Harry Potter book came out while I was here. Then I could get a copy of the British edition of Harry Potter. So, I went to J.K. Rowling's website. I eventually found the 'news' section and found out that the next Harry Potter book will be the last! I was so bummed... but at least her site is tons of fun to look at.

Spain Here We Come!!

We just got back from booking our trip to Spain! We will be in Torremolinos, Costa del Sol, Spain for 7 days (December 17th - 24th) at an all inclusive resort. Its near Malaga and Sevilla, so side trips will be easy to do. We are both really excited and cannot wait to experince Spain.

Pollock County Park and The Burrell Collection

Today the International Student Advisor, Jim Wilson, set up an afternoon trip to Pollock County Park and the Burrell Collection. We took the train to the park since it is a 6 mile hike out of the city centre. Then we headed under a bridge and entered a huge park. You could not tell at all that the city surrounded it. The park is quite large -- there is a golf course, the Police training sites for the dogs and horses, the Pollock House, Highland Cattle and the Burrell Collection along with lots of walkways, gardens and open fields.
The Highland Cattle were definitely adorable. They are like the shaggy dog version of cows. I was excited to see them since who knows if we will be able to see them in the Highlands.
This isn't a spectacular picture, but this is where the Police dog training takes place.
The Pollock House -- This is a beautiful house that you can tour through, but right now its about $13 per person to get into the house, so we toured through the gardens. Come November, the admission to the house is free until March. We'll go back then. But the gardens were beautiful and worth the walk through.
Then we went to the Burrell Collection which is an amazing collection of art by one man. They only show 60% of the artwork in the collection and still in fact to this day cataloging it. Pretty amazing since it has been in the hands of the city since 1944 and the building that the collection is now housed in has been open since 1983. What is really interesting is that they are still collecting works of art. There is a trust set up to collect works every so often. Also amazing since there is no admission, but I imagine there are outside donors that help. We were able to see a very wide array of artwork spanning all continents and eras. We saw... tapestries, doorways, window arches, spoons, china, statues, trinkets, paintings, rugs, stained glass windows, pots, artifacts, clothing, fireplaces, rooms... I am sure I am missing something, but we saw a ton. I would include more pictures, but blogger has decided that this is my limit for day and no longer wants to upload them...

Our Week

Its hard to imagine that we have already been here for a month. We finally broke down and had cable internet installed yesterday afternoon. The library was getting too annoying. The wait for the computer was okay, but the incredible slowness was irritating. It got to the point that it would take an hour to check email and answer it. Its wonderful to have internet right at our fingertips again. This week I have been working at the Western Infirmary Hospital in their Occupational Health department. I work 4 days a week and 3 of them only half days. I really like the ladies that I work with AND we get a paid tea time! How great is that... every morning (and I imagine in the afternoons as well) we get about a 1/2 hour to sit and have a cup of tea and a snack. Works well with the eating every couple of hours way of life. Mike went on a mini-research trip this past Tuesday and Wednesday to London and Southampton for his end of the year thesis. He went down to their libraries to see what kinds of documents they had and if he would be able to use them. He is researching communication through letters into and out of during pre-World War II Germany. He was able to test his German skills, and of course he did great. He was able to read and understand most of the letters. Luckily for him the library in London had some of the collections all typed out so that he didn't have to decipher people's handwriting and only a handful of the letters had really sloppy handwriting. He didn't have anytime to do any touristy activities though because he spent all day in the library. We are going down for half a day on our way to Plymouth next month to see some friends, so expect pictures then! I am waiting for blogger to fix their bug with uploading pictures, and then I will have more to share.

Stirling Castle

Last Saturday, (the 14th of October) Mike and I packed a lunch and headed to the bus station to go to Stirling Castle. Its about a half an hour away by bus, so that wasn't bad. Stirling is a much smaller town than Glasgow and Edinburgh. We had our first "small" Scottish town experience and it was wonderful. There is a constant smell here in Glasgow because it is such a large city. Something between fresh baked bread (nice), other food cooking (also nice), stale beer and cigarettes, and old pee. Obvisouly the last three are not all that pleasant, but as drinking is a huge thing for the college students (obviously) and there is no smoking in bars so everyone smokes outside, and the drinking leads to males using the streets are their bathroom, and there of course is smog from all the traffic. I have even seen parents showing their small sons how to use the sides of buildings and cars as their own private urinal more than once, so I guess its just part of life here, but doesn't help the arroma. Anyway, it was nice to be able to breathe in fresh air.
The castle was beautiful and you could explore most parts of it. They have "modernized" some parts of it that they use for the Park Rangers offices and some of their military offices. But even with these parts off limits, it took us about 4 hours to complete our explorations of the castle grounds. We were able to take a tour of the castle and hear about quite a bit of history on the castle (I love these tours!). We were incredibly lucky and it was a wonderfully warm and sunny afternoon and the views from the castle were amazing. Here are some pictures of or day...

Here is the entrance to Stirling Castle.

Edinburgh

On Saturday, the 7th of October the International Director set up a trip to Edinburgh, which is the capital of Scotland. We went by train, which was beautiful. We were able to see a lot of the countryside and now have a couple more little cities that we would like to see before we leave. To answer Aunt Sue’s question from earlier, we are able to do all our side trips by bus, train or plane. Plane tickets here are quite cheap because of a price war going on.
As soon as we got there, the director walked us over the Holyrood Park and the Salibury Crags. We hiked about half way up and John Wilson told us all about the sights from there. The views were gorgeous from there… here are a few of them.

In the far background, you can make out Edinburgh Castle.

This is part of the crag that we hiked up. We don’t get to see beautiful rolling hills like this in Glasgow. Mike and I would have to take a bus to the outskirts to see them, so it was nice to be able to in a city.

This is Holyrood Palace. The Queen stays here when she visits Scotland. She has her own flag that she flies when she is there (she wasn’t this weekend). We could have toured the Palace and Abby, but it was £12. We decided that we would rather eat.
There were about 100 students that went on the trip, so we decided to split from the group, since they were just going to be doing a quick tour of the city and it was noon and there was still a long list before anyone planned on stopping to eat. We stayed on the Royal Mile this time, but have lots of plans for next time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to Edinburgh until 11am and didn’t break off from the group until noon-ish, so we didn’t get to start seeing the city until about 1:30pm and then a lot of places started closing at 5pm. We were still able to see much of the Royal Mile and only have to hit a few more place on our next visit, on of the main places being Edinburgh Castle. You need most of the day to see it and we didn’t want to have to pay to see it twice, so decided to wait. Also I have added more pictures to Flickr. Some are from our trip, and some are from earlier.

These boys played beautifully. Nearly everyday we can hear bagpipes being played. Some play better than others, and these boys were up at the top of the list.

Clan Tartan and Crest

During our excursion to Edinburgh on Saturday, October 7th, we found out that the Rose and Anderson Families have a tartan and crest. We stumbled across the Anderson Family first, which I was really excited about. Both sides of my family have the name ‘Anderson’ and while I don’t think that either came from Scotland, they may have still have used the tartan. Mike tells me that the more colours that are in the tartan, the richer the family is. Well, there are tons of colours in the Anderson tartan, so I plan on looking up my long-lost rich relatives because I am sure that they would love to fund some of my travel wishes! We didn’t expect for the Rose’s to have a tartan and crest at all and were really excited when we stumbled across it. I plan on getting a scarf with this tartan now and we already bought a magnet. Below are links to the Anderson and Rose family information, if you click on the links on the left of the pages you can see the tartans and crests and more. The first sight has more tartans, and you can look up other last names. It also has quite a bit of the different variations that a certain clan may have worn (such as hunting, dress, casual, etc.)

Tartans of Scotland
Anderson Tartan and Crest
Rose Tartan and Crest

Something to do!

Well, to tell the truth when I found out a few months ago that I may not be able to work, I was kind of excited because I have not not worked since I was 16. I was also a bit apprehensive about it because I am not good at doing nothing. I know that being a housewife, or a stay at home mom, is a big job, but I have no kids to look after and I don’t have an extensive social calendar. We had found out that I could work a couple weeks into our stay here and it was up to me if I wanted to work and how much. I don’t have to work, our budget allows for that, but I have been going crazy at home. I of course go out and see the city, but there is only so much you can see and so many museums and historic landmarks you can see before they all start looking the same. So as of Wednesday, October 4 I am working for a temp agency here. I love it! I can work when I want to and don’t have to accept a job if I don’t want to. This week I will be working for an ad company called AdTrailers. It’s quiet interesting. It’s a small run company and since most people know she’s out of the office, I am allowed to bring a book and explore the internet at my leisure. Pretty much, I am excited to get out and do something.

More pictures

This is the University of Glasgow. The building is beautiful. It reminds me of Harry Potter and I love walking through the grounds.
This is the 'lawn bowling' (bocce ball) courts at Kelvingrove Park. Anyone want to come over and play??

These next few pictures are from the Glasgow Cathedral. The stained glass windows were designed by local schools. There was lots to see here and everything was beautiful. We were very lucky and were able to see it on a sunny morning, so all the light coming through the stained glass windows was amazing.




This is a picture of a fossil of a crinoid at the Hunterian Museum. As most of you know, I am slighty obsessed with rocks and fossils. Well, I stumbled upon this exhibit full of rocks and fossils by chance, and cannot wait to go back... possibly this afternoon!

The River Clyde

It was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday, so we decided to walk down to the Clyde. As we were walking down the waterfront we found a boat tour called 'The Pride of teh Clyde'. We decided to take it and it was really fun. We were able to see quite a bit of the city's waterfront and hear all about the history of the ship business of the Clyde. I hadn't know that they were that well known for their ship building. At the end on the tour we were dropped off for a bit at a HUGE mall (galleries here), but the nice part about it was that we could see some of the rolling hills of the countryside. They were beautiful and now we are trying to plan a bus trip out to the country for the day. Here are some pictures of our boat trip...



This is a picture of the Opera House here. It of course was modeled after the one in Australia.
After we returned from our boat tour, we headed down to Glasgow Green, another one on Glasgow's beautiful parks. The Park Rangers give tours here on Saturdays and Sundays, and since the weather was still nice and sunny, we decided to take advantage of it and go on the tour. It was a very nice tour and I have to admit I have become addicted to them because you learn so much more about what is in the park than you would if you were just walking through. The tour lasted about an hour and we still haven't walked through a large chunk of the park. Thats for another day. After we tried the ice cream over here and it was divine, not as good as Chile, but a close runner up. There are indoor gardens there, but there was a wedding at 5pm and the wedding party had shown up for pictures already and we didn't want to interupt. Here are some pictures from the tour:

This is the tallest terra cotta fountain in the world. This just cleaned it up and fixed it and now it is under close watch for any vandalists.

Pictures..

Since for some reason the computers here see it as a security risk for me to upload pictures most of the time, I am going to do it this way....

The beautiful Kelvingrove Art Museum and Gallery... we spent about 3 hours in there one afternoon and still have not seen even half of it!

This is from the French Market that was up during the Merchant City Festival. We bought meat from this booth and I even tried it. It wasn't too bad.

This picture is from the Merchant City Festival too. These three guys dressed up like this, had music blaring from somewhere and where riding around on those electroglide things. They were great!

This is a view of the City Chambers building on one side of George Square. We only live a few blocks from here and pass through this square about everyday.

We took a tour of the Necropolis during the Merchant City Festival. The Park Rangers give tours of all sorts of places, and this one was our first. It was a 2 horu walk through the park and we learned all sorts of neat
facts about the Necropolis and the city.

Scottish Food

Before we had our flat, we were a little timid in our tasting Scottish food. We of course tried Fish and chips (fries), but that was about it. We have now tried Scottish Pies, which are really just meat pies. And I even eat lamb burgers. We bought a Scottish Cookbook the other day and have tried a fish recipe out of it and then I made scones. I was kinda nervous about it because I love scones, but they turned out to be delicious!

The other night we even tried Haggis. We were told to try it by many people, but not from the little grease pits you find on every corner, but at a nicer restaurant. Well, we looked around and found a nice (and reasonably priced) restaurant, Wetherspoon, that had haggis. So, Mike ordered that and I tried it. It wasn't all that bad even and I would eat it again. Although I still cannot think what is in it. Apparently there is a more modern way of preparing it that doesn't include all the ingredients that traditional haggis contains and this is what I like to think was in the haggis that we tried. But you all should be proud of me! I am eating lamb, beef, haggis and even smoked sausage we bought in the French Market. I think I have lost my mind.

ohh.. library internet

I just wanted everyone to know, that I have tried uploading more pictures onto Flickr, but alas the library's internet sees it as a security risk. I am going to try on our laptop later on today, but Mike and I may have to breakdown and find a service for our apartment. We have been busy lately, there was a festival in town this past weekend and we were able to brouse through a French Market and see traditional Scottish music sung in a local pub. We also were able to take a guided tour through the necropolis that is nearby. It was really neat to hear all the stories off the place. We have slowly but surely seeing more and more of the city as the days go on. We have been to the art museum, which was amazing, and the Glasgow Cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful. But, now Mike has to start doing some research for his paper that is due at the end of the year. He will have 3 classes, 2 that last the full school year, and 1 that is a semester course. But they don't all meet every week and when they do, its only once a week. Its rather od, but he also has a near 50 page paper to have done by the end of the school year. So, me may be heading off to Berlin soon to see the Holocaust Museum and German History Museum (a professor here strongly recommended that Mike go if he continues with German History). And the archives in London and South Hampton are in our future as well. Well, I hope to have picutre up soon!

We have a flat!

Well, we are all moved into our very own flat. It is quite close to campus, at the most a five minute walk. And the grocery store is pretty close too, along with a library. We really like it and it was furnished. It was definitely easy to unpack everything when you only have 2 suitcases apiece. I forgot my flash drive, so I will post pictures next time. Yesterday we found pound shops, which I was VERY excited about. Not as good of deals as a dollar store, but the same idea. Today we started out walking to the Barras (a market)and found that we live very close to some beautiful churches. We didn't go through them yet. Then, we went to an outdoor flea market and started some of our souviner shopping because we needed something to put on the walls. The pure white walls were starting to get to me. Then we found a little festival. We have no idea what it was for, but everything was french. Most of the booths were brimming with divine smelling foods. Unfortunetly, we had just eaten, but we did try a crossant and it was heavenly. Next, we are going to the Art Gallery above the library and then on from there.

We're here!

Well, we are finally in Scotland. The flight was not that long, but with the time change and constant in flight movies, we only slept about 2 hours on the plane ride over. Then hit customs, more security and got on the very short plane ride from Dublin to Glasgow. Our hotel is great and by a large park and the beautiful campus of University of Glasgow. Yesterday we went to the University of Strathclye where Mike will be taking classes and got that all worked out. He will only have to take 3 classes, 2 year long classes and one semester class, but there will be a huge paper to write on top of that. We meet a very helpful profesor that laid out the program for us and what to expect as well as helped us get Mike all registered at the university. We even got a cell phone yesterday so my mom can now rest easy.
As of this morning I am now equiped with a library card, and hopefully by this afternoon we will have our apartment. I'll let everyone know more and add pictures later this week!

For Grandma

My Grandma VanderVoord made this beautiful dress about 57 years ago and wore it on her wedding day. Then 26 years ago my mother was able to wear it on her wedding day. For years I had wanted to wear it on my wedding day. I thought it would be so special to wear the same dress that both my mom and grandma had worn on their wedding days, but Grandma always said, "oh, you don't want to wear that old thing." Oh, course I did! But she claimed it would fall apart. While I didn't wear the dress on my wedding day, I was able to try it on with Grandma's original veil.
I did end up getting a new dress for the wedding, but Grandma picked it out. She was the one that pulled the dress off the rack and had me try it on. Thank-you Grandma!

Mystery Flower... again

I know that I have already asked this... but please, help! I need to know the answer! Does anyone know the name of this flower?? They were all over around Niagara Falls and they are so pretty.

Stupid Girls

First, I was so excited when I opened my e-mail and found out that peer pressure still works. James and Stacey now have a blog! How fun! Now just one more brother to work on....
OK, I dropped Mike off at campus this afternoon because we had things to do right after work today. I realize that I was a college student not that long ago, but I hope I was not that ridiculous. Most college students realize the "dress code" is jeans and shirts, flip-flops or tennis shoes, but not all. You still have the people that go to class dressed for a club. I actually saw some odd girl walking across the campus in 3-inch spike heels. I know CMU's campus is not that big.. But still!
Oh, and by the way, the CMU football game actually made it on to ESPN-2 tonight... who would have thought?

The countdown begins...

Mike has had a countdown until when we leave for Scotland for months now. Mine started today. We still had money left on a couple of different gift cards so we decided to check into one more larger suitcase. I found this one on sale. Its spectacular. It will definitely be easy to pick out AND it comes with all sorts of fun bags inside it. Now, I am finally excited to pack... I just have to remember I still have 26 more days until we leave, so I cannot pack up too much stuff into the suitcase!

A New Sister!

Well, after 23 years of waiting, I finally got a little sister. The weekend started with the Rehearsal Dinner. Which meant that at 5:30 that morning Uncle Jim, Mom, and I were out in the backyard grappling with a 130-pound pig, trying to get it on to the roaster. I am sure that it was quite the sight, but thankfully no one was there to witness that occasion. It wasn't so bad until I shined the light on the pig. BIG mistake. In my opinion, it was not worth it, but James and Stacey, and everyone else, thought it was tasty.

The Wedding was beautiful. And the Reception was great. A big group of us had to sabotage the car. We filled it with various inflatable animals and balls, including a 7-foot alligator, golf wiffle balls, little pink pigs, fake money for the Honeymoon, about 250 balloons and a Cosmo with tips for the Honeymoon. We shut all the doors and cracked one window so that we could stuff the car with even more balloons. It was great! James was smarter than Mike and I though, and took a pin from his boutonniere and popped all the balloons. Becky has some great pictures of it. If you click on the 'Flicker' link to the left I have some more. Thanks Lynn for helping me with that!!

Niagara

This past weekend Mike and I and a couple of friends headed to Niagara for a friend's wedding. After a LONG drive and an inquisition from the Canadian border patrol, we finally arrived at the hotel. Neither Mike nor I had been to the falls for quite some time, so it was fun to see them again. We did the "Journey Behind the Falls" tour, which was really neat.
The wedding was beautiful. It was at Niagara-on-the-Lake and you could even see Toronto across the lake. They were able to rent out a gazebo right on the lake and have a violinist for the music. It was very pretty. It was in a public park and we were amazed by the amount of people that would stop and watch the ceremony. Many stayed for the whole thing and there were even people video taping it. Shannon even and two girls ask to have their pictures taken with her.

Mystery Flower

Does anyone know the name of this flower?? They were all over around the falls and they are so pretty.