A Sick Day (Day 10)

Today I was sick... and no, I was not hungover considering I hardly had anything to drink at dinner and I went to bed hours later anyway. There's not much to tell besides the fact I stayed in bed almost all day and didn't even emerge until it was time to go to dinner. (I did get up briefly around noon since the hotel was running a fire alarm drill and I nearly had a panic attack as I tried to calmly walk down to the front desk to ask what was going on.) One of my friends, Stephanie, watched a movie in bed with me after that happened and kept me company for a few hours. I think I needed a day to pull myself together a bit, especially since we are going to be traveling again tomorrow.

Tonight was our last night in Glasgow and I can't believe our time in Scotland went so quickly. In 6 hours we have to be ready to leave for Corrymeela in Northern Ireland. We will take a bus for 2 hours, a ferry for 2 hours, and then another bus for another 2 hours, so it's going to be a long day of travel! The pictures of the place we are going look beautiful -- we will be by the coast and I can't express how excited I am to be out of the city, it's definitely worn me down. I don't know if we will have Wifi at the next place we are going since it's considered a "retreat" so if I don't post for a few days it's simply because I don't have the means to.

I will write again when I can! Goodbye for now.

A Walking Weekend (Days 8 + 9)

I'm squishing Saturday and Sunday into one post, mostly because I didn't get around to blogging yesterday. Yesterday morning we were up and out by 9am even though it was Saturday, and the itinerary for the day got fairly messed up which threw the vibe of the group off quite a bit. We were running late in general and we were supposed to be done with activities around 1pm, but things ended up going until about 4pm, and boy did we do a lot of walking. By the end of the day everyone was pretty grumpy and tired, even the professors. 

We toured the Glasgow School of Art in the morning, which is absolutely beautiful and designed by Charles Mackintosh. I was practically moved to tears it was so wonderful, but we weren't allowed to take any photographs at all when were were there. I found out Mackintosh met Gustav Klimt in the early 1900s and I almost lost my mind, since Gustav Klimt is one of my favorite artists (if not my favorite) and some of Mackintosh's work was inspired by him. Our tour guide through the school was a recent graduate whose name was Abdi, and he was very passionate about the building and the artwork within it, which made the tour very fun to be a part of.  

We also went to a religious museum and a church called Govan, which had many large rocks and carved headstones in it. Let's just say an hour tour of just rocks was a little too much for some of us to handle and, even though some of it was very interesting, a lot of other parts dragged on for far too long. Me and two of my friends took a 3 hour nap when we got back and then spent the rest of the evening working on homework. 

Today was a much more relaxing and enjoyable day. We slept in, ate a quick breakfast, and then attended a church service with a few other members from the group and our professors. We ate lunch with the congregation afterward and had tea, and then walked around and looked at different shops for a lot of the afternoon. I found a great spoon that I bought for 50 pence, and I'm really excited about it since it's vey different from any that I've ever had! Six of us walked with Dr. Kuess next to Clyde River and he read us some Scottish poetry. The picture above is him leading us down a path to get next to the River. It's wonderful spending time with him since he lived in Scotland and knows so much about the cities we visit -- walking with him and spending time with him means I'm always learning something new, which I love. We also walked through the Scottish Botanic Gardens which are free and open to the public. The green house had plants from all over the world, including a room labeled "killer plants" for the ones that eat bugs (definitely my favorite part). 

The rest of the afternoon will be spent doing homework and possibly going to the Sauna that's in the hotel. Also, I've haven't been feeling well recently -- the whole trip my balance has been a little off and I feel like I occasionally suffer from tiny spells of vertigo. Today I was also experiencing chest pains. If you guys could send a few prayers my way that I'll be fully restored to health, that would be wonderful! It's nothing serious but I do notice it and it is rather bothersome. 

That's all for now!

Death & Dancing (Day 7)

Today was once again very long and packed with a dozen different activities. We had class time in the morning and then toured the Necropolis in the afternoon (a.k.a. The City of the Dead). There are more than 50,000 people buried there and 3,500 headstones.  It was very powerful to walk through it and we visited the Glasgow Cathedral right after and took some time to journal our thoughts about how we want to be remembered once we pass away.

The activity for the night was much more enjoyable! We went to a Ceilidh (pronounced kale-ey), which was very much like Century Ball Room in Seattle, except that we were taught dances from Scotland instead of swing dancing. Everyone was very hot and sweaty, including our professors, and most people were drinking beer. (I also spent a majority of the time deciding which Disney characters everyone is… I was given Wendy from Peter Pan!)

We have a much more laid back day tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to since I need to take some time to read and journal for my classes. I’m missing the countryside and open spaces and I’ve been feeling a bit claustrophobic being stuck in the city. But hopefully visiting the country in a few days will help take care of that.

Goodnight!

Accidentally Drunk (Day 6)

This is an embarrassing story… but here it goes anyway. (Don't worry Mom, I'm fine now.)

Today I accidentally got drunk/tipsy at lunchtime, and it caught me completely off guard.  No, I did not order any drinks or anything that I thought had alcohol in it.  But I did order crayfish, which came in a cocktail looking glass with a funny pink sauce on it.  I had already been feeling woozy earlier in the day, and I have been since my flight over here so maybe I have an ear infection or something else that contributed to this.  But I started to eat my food and I didn’t like it very much because it had a peculiar taste to it… I didn’t even finish it, and there wasn’t that much to begin with. 

After I stopped eating I started feeling really warm and lightheaded/dizzy so when I paid for my food I asked the waiter if he could check what was in it, just because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something strange that I could be allergic to.  When he came back from the kitchen he said, “The cook told me that there was the shellfish, some Tabasco sauce, mayonnaise, and brandy.” 

“Brandy?” I said. Both of my professors were standing right next to me since they had been at lunch with a group of us and my first thought was dear God, please let me not be drunk in front of them.

But I was.  At least I think I partly was because I felt very lightheaded and dizzy and similar to what I felt like a few of the nights after I went out with my friends in Edinburgh, but this time I wasn’t enjoying myself at all.

Dr. Chaney, the English professor said, “It would make sense if you were feeling it because you are very tiny dear.”  Many of the other students agreed with that statement and threw in the fact that I hardly needed any alcohol at all to feel something. Unfortunately all of this happened right before we went to hear a guest lecturer speak and one of the girls looped her arm through mine as we walked to the university.  All I could think was this is so embarrassing and I don’t feel good, I really want to sleep.

During the lecture I had to resist the urge to put my head down and zonk out on my desk, so I spent my time drinking a bottle of water that our trip guide had bought for me.  After I finished it I felt much better, but I still have to say the whole experience was not enjoyable.  However, my friends did get some funny pictures of me walking down the street and making faces at them… (please don’t ever show those to anybody.)

So that was my adventure of the day! The moral of the lesson for me was this: Marie Rose sauce (the sauce on my cocktail) it not like any normal sauce.  There is alcohol in it – brandy is definitely not my cup of tea.

P.S. We are now in Glasgow and will be here for 5 nights!