Go Rangers!

The last thing I wrote about was Photography and writing my cover letter. I pretty much finished my cover letter, now I'm just waiting for some comments so I can edit it even more. We had three girls coming to stay with us this week so we borrowed an extra mattress from one of our flat mates, and we bought a little air mattress. Before they arrived, we made a fort at the entrance of our room.

The fort we made with the extra mattresses/blankets in our room before the girls arrived.

Thursday, I had bagpiping from 4-5pm and it was one of the coolest classes we've had so far. We were led into the bar in the Piping Centre, and there ended up being a concert in the bar for us. It was beautiful. Piero Ricci was playing an Italian bagpipe, also called a Zampogna. Maurizio Marino played with Piero on his oboe. My jaw dropped as soon as they started playing and I could not bring it back up the entire performance. I have fallen in love with the Zampogna. It is a beautiful instrument, especially accompanied by an oboe. CLICK HERE to watch a video of Piero and Maurizio (and Piero's band). Piero is in the middle playing the Italian bagpipe, and Maurizio is the second from the right playing the oboe. (At 4 minutes and 30 seconds, Piero and Maurizio have a small duet.)

After bagpiping, we came back to our flat and hung out for a few hours before going to Bamboo, our favorite club downtown. Laura's 3 friends were here for a couple nights, so we had 3 girls sleeping in our room on Thursday and Friday. We took the girls out to Bamboo and had a great time. We have now made friends with the bouncer, Stewart, and the security guard, Paul.

Friday, our friend Ted was in a performance downtown, so we all went to support him. It was so much fun seeing him perform and the play wasn't too bad either. He kept talking about how horrible it was going to be, but I actually really enjoyed it. After the play we walked to the Underground, through George Square, and took the subway back to our flat. We all got dressed up for another night of dancing...only this time we went to Cheesy Pop because it was open until 3am instead of 2am.

City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow

City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow

Brianne and Courtney posed for a picture with the lion in front of the City Chambers

Walter Scott's statue in the middle of George Square

Saturday, Laura and her 3 friends went to Edinburgh, while I stayed at the flat. When Laura got back (her 3 friends were already on their way back to Ireland) we had breakfast for dinner. Sarah made us french toast, Liam made eggs and bacon, and Briana was in charge of the toast. :-P

Since we had already gone out dancing for the previous 2 nights, we wanted to make it a pub night last night. We stayed on the West End of Glasgow, spent most of the night hanging out at 2 pubs, and then we were back at our flat by around 1:30am...an early night for us.

This morning (Sunday) we woke up, got ready and went to Curlers down the street to watch the Rangers/Celtic football (or soccer) game. It is a huge deal for Glasgow fans because both of these football teams are from Glasgow. One of our friends is a huge Rangers fan, so I couldn't go against the Rangers if I was going to be sitting at the same table as him. At around 12:30, the game started and we were rooting for the Rangers. (Kenneth Branagh, my favorite Shakespeare actor/director, is also a fan of the Rangers...that's reason enough for me to root for them.) The game was intense; 0-0 for the whole 90 minutes and then in the 3 minute overtime, the Rangers scored and won! Everyone in Curlers went crazy and then it was time for me, Briana, and Laura to get some food. (That's all we were thinking about most of the game, of course.) We walked up the road to Beanscene, a cute coffee shop with our favorite chili bowls. It was a great late lunch, and now we're all back at the flat relaxing. Another week of classes starts tomorrow and then Briana and I are off to Paris on Thursday. I can't believe we're just flying to Paris like it's nothing...I hope the weather will be okay.

Love and miss you all!

Love Always,

Jess

A Parents Filled Weekend

Friday night we went to Cheesy Pop, like always. The dance ended at around 2am and then we headed back to our flats to get some sleep before our trip to Edinburgh the next day.

Saturday morning, Laura and I slept in a little bit, and then at 1:15pm, we met everyone at the Hillhead Underground to take the subway to the Queen Street Bus/Train Station. We hopped on the 2 o'clock train to Edinburgh and got there in about 45 minutes. The train ride was so easy, I can't believe I haven't been going over there more often. We got off the train and, immediately, the boys (Liam and Ted) led the way to some vintage shop where they sell inexpensive kilts. They wanted to buy one, so we waited while they tried a few on. It was very entertaining.

Ted and Liam checking out all the kilts

Ted and Kilt #1

Liam and his first kilt.

A row of boots in the vintage shop that I fell in love with!

After kilt shopping, we found out that Laura C.'s parents were at the hotel and ready for us to check in. Our friend, Laura Connelly, had her parents visiting this past weekend and they invited all of us to come along to Edinburgh with Laura. They bought us two hotel rooms for Saturday night so that Laura, and the 6 others (me, Briana, Sarah, Lindsey, Laura, and Liam), could stay together. After we checked into the hotel and dropped off our bags, Laura's parents took us to a pub called "World's End". We had a beer (or two), great conversation, and then we were off to dinner at Deacon Brodie's Tavern. The restaurant was named after Deacon William Brodie, the man who inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. We had to eat at 2 separate tables on opposite sides of the room because it was so crowded and we had 10 people, but it was great nonetheless. Our table was me, Sarah, Liam, Lindsey and Ted. We ordered a haggis appetizer which was unbelievable! I will definitely be ordering haggis again (when I am at a good restaurant). It is really good...I don't understand why so many people are against it. (Just try not to think about what's in it.) After an appetizer of haggis, I had Scottish Steak Pie as my main course and it was very good. Laura's parents paid for our pub drinks and dinner...it was so nice! We are definitely going to send them a thank you card and a little gift.

After dinner, we walked around the Royal Mile and then Ted insisted on taking us all to drinks at a really fancy hotel. It is supposedly Sean Connery's favorite hotel. So, we all got a drink with Laura's parents and then Ted had to leave to go back to Glasgow. As we were leaving, we found out that Ted had paid for all of our drinks! We couldn't believe it...we told him we weren't allowing him to pay for us. (We'll get him back soon enough.) After drinks, we went back to the Holiday Inn Express to get dressed up to go explore the nightlife. My friend, Morgan, from Smith is studying in Edinburgh, so she came to the hotel and I introduced her to all of my Glasgow friends. She took us all out with her friend and we ended up at a Revolution bar. (Revolution bars are all over the UK.) Morgan and her friend didn't stay for long but we stayed at the bar anyway.

Liam and the girls at Revolution

After the bar closed at 1am, we were still wanting to stay out, so we walked down the street to a club called Siglo. The sign said it was a burlesque bar, but nothing was going on inside except a DJ spinning, and a bunch of people dancing on the main floor. We stayed there for about 30 minutes and then walked back down the street to the Holiday Inn Express. All 7 of us ended up hanging out in one of the hotel rooms, watching the Olympics (since we don't have TV in our flats in Glasgow) and eating Pringles, of course.

The next morning we woke up, said goodbye to Laura's parents, walked to the train station, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then hopped on the train to Glasgow. This weekend made me miss my parents a lot. It was so nice being with parents, even though they weren't mine. I can't wait to see my mom and dad on April 6th in Dublin!

Walking into the train station in Edinburgh

Me and Laura at the train station

Sunday night we just hung around the flat, Monday I had my art history tutorial and then I found out all of my art history lectures are cancelled for this week. Briana and I went grocery shopping, went to Box Fit at the gym, and then I made myself a wonderful Chicken Tikka Masala dinner. Tuesday I had sculpture and we started working with a new model. We are working on sculpting a head right now. It is a life-size head (if not larger), which means these sculptures will be VERY heavy when we're done with them. I got a lot done on Tuesday, and I will try to take pictures of the sculpture next week. After sculpture I explored downtown Glasgow with my photography camera. I took some roads I have never walked down before and sort of got lost, but then found my way again. It was so much fun seeing the area of Glasgow where all of the businessmen and women are walking around on their lunch breaks. (I also got some beautiful photos for my Black and White Photography class.) When I got back to my flat, I asked if Laura and Briana wanted to go on a little adventure to take some more pictures while the sun was still high in the sky. We walked down a little alley on our campus and took a bunch of pictures to finish up our rolls of film. After our photo adventure, we decided we wanted to get sushi for dinner. Briana and I found a wonderful sushi restaurant not too far from our flat, so the three of us splurged on a huge sushi dinner.

Today Laura and I woke up a little earlier for photography because we wanted to stop somewhere for breakfast before class. We found a cute cafe called iCafe that had a great egg and bacon (toasted) sandwich. In class, we developed our film and made contact sheets...I can't wait to print pictures from this roll of film. After photography I had my first bagpiping lesson in a few weeks and it went okay. I need to work a lot more on making all of the notes clean and clear, but it will take some time. Oh, and did I mention it was snowing today? It's been snowing ALL day! I really don't understand this weather...I don't think Glaswegians understand it either. I took the subway home and I've been hanging around the flat since then because I had to do 2 loads of laundry and our dryer takes forever to dry my clothes.

Now, I'm going to continue working on my cover letter for an internship this summer in San Francisco. Until next time, I hope you all had a great weekend, and continue to have a good week.

Love and miss you all!

Love Always,

Jess

More pictures, less writing for this one.

Our egg's benedict ended up being WONDERFUL. I can't believe how good it turned out. I will definitely be making that again someday.

Thursday night was our friend Callum's birthday, along with 2 of his other friends. We went to a club downtown called Bamboo and danced all night. It was a great club and will be one of our new places to go on the weekend.

Friday night we went to a dance party at the Queen Margaret Union on campus called Cheesy Pop. They play old pop songs (Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Nsync, etc.) and we all had a great time.

Laura, Briana, and Heather

Laura dancing with Ted (aka Tedothy)

Saturday morning we went on an adventure to an island in Scotland, the Isle of Cumbrae. We took the train from Glasgow Central to a town called Largs. It seems like Largs is the place to go in the summer because there are so many ice cream shops and it's a good place for fishing when it gets warmer. It was our friend Ted's idea to go on this adventure, so Laura and I woke up after a late night at Cheesy Pop to go with Ted, Liam, and another Laura. I am so glad I got up to go on the trip. The scenery was beautiful.

Me, Laura, Ted, and Liam

The Boston College crew crossing the bridge

The ferry we took to the Isle of Cumbrae

Me and some cows

Ted and Liam walking ahead of the girls...we were slow

Trying to feed a cow, until I scared it with the flash of my camera

Saturday night we went to the Hive on campus at the Glasgow University Union because they were having a foam party. All of us got dressed in clothes we didn't mind getting ruined and had a great time on the dance floor as we were being covered in foam. Everyone was losing their shoes, but I was able to grab mine from the floor and hold onto them all night. Although it was a fun experience, I will not be going to another foam party anytime soon. For about 5 days after the party I had hives all over my body along with all of the other people who went to the party. I guess your skin gets so dehydrated from all of the soap/chemicals, so you end up getting hives. Yes, I know...I got hives from the Hive.

My feet after the foam party

Sunday night was of course the Super Bowl and we went to a pub called PJ Champs to watch the game. We got to the pub at around 7 or so to get a good spot, but the kick-off wasn't until around 11:45pm. I didn't think I would be staying up late to watch the whole game, but I got so into it. The game was great, and hanging out with all my friends here is always a good time.

Waiting for the game to start.

Still waiting...

After a great game...the Saints win! (Thomas and AJ had to take a picture together.)

Monday-Thursday= the normal week of classes

Saturday morning we woke up early to head to the main gate of Glasgow University. Me, Briana, and AJ bought tickets for the International Society's trip to the Highlands. I ended up taking over 100 pictures in those 2 days. The description of the trip is in the post below. We got home late Sunday night and then it was a normal week Monday-Thursday of classes.

A piper at our first picture stop in the Highlands

Me at our second picture stop

We ate lunch here in Fort William

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

Another castle...

I loved these benches

Fireplace in Carbisdale Castle

Upstairs hallway in Carbisdale Castle (where the Valentine's Day party was held)

A common room in the castle near our room

The main hall of the castle

Briana and I had our own room in the castle/hostel

George and AJ scaring some girls while we were hanging out on the roof

Our personal bagpiper for the weekend at Carbisdale Castle

The outside of the castle

Briana and I in front of the main gate

The view from the castle

On our way home...I took this from the bus

In Pitlochry for lunch

Tuesday I had sculpture and we started a new piece. Last night (Thursday) she had us come into the studio from 7-9pm because she cut our class short last week. Here is my almost finished sculpture.

After sculpture, we went to our favorite club downtown, Bamboo, and danced all night like always. We found another music room in the back, so we left the main dance floor and stayed in there for the rest of the night.

Now it is Friday and I am going to get some work done today. I've been working on my resume, but it is hard because I don't know what I should be leaving out since it can only be 1 page. And cover letters are going to be difficult once I find the internships I definitely want to apply for. Laura and I are sitting in a coffee shop down the hill from our flat, called Beanscene. They have amazing chili bowls, so we're currently eating chili and on our laptops.

Until next time,

Love and miss you all!

Love Always,

Jess

Big update to come...

but for now, I am just telling you all that I will be away this weekend. I am going on a trip to Carbisdale Castle. Below is the information about my trip...we leave tomorrow morning and are back on Sunday night.

Love you all and I will update you when I am home. I'm going to actually start some work next week so I will have some library time to sit down and write.

Love Always,

Jess

IT IS DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE ... AND EVEN TO DREAM!!
But here it is: Feel like a "King" or a "Queen" in a Legendary Weekend Trip to:

★★★ CARBISDALE CASTLE ★★★
IT'S JUST GORGEOUS AND SPECTACULAR,
But the words or the photos can not just explain its magnificence and its beauty!

Carbisdale Castle was built between 1905 and 1917 for the Duchess of Sutherland and it is decked in history and has seen a king, a prince and a duchess. It is located in highlands with absolutely gorgeous views and panorama... It is a place to see and not to hear!!

Please welcome to Your Truly Scottish Weekend Trip: the biggest, the most exciting & the most popular every year.

PLAN & TICKET:
Ticket is priced at £55 and it includes:

* A haunted Highland Castle as your accommodation
* Transportation 3 full buses a return journey
* Bagpiper to welcome Your Majesty to the Castle and make your night a very Scottish one
* FULL access to all the rooms in the Castle: TV Room, Dining Room, The Library, The Lounge, The Statue Gallery, The Grand Staircase and The Tower
* See the beautiful marble statues or magnificent paintings in the galleries, the old library and dining room.
* 4 Stops to visit the must-seen places in Scotland such as Oban, Inverness, Loch Ness and (a surprise!!)
* Traditional Scottish HIGHLAND GAMES, with the chance to win amazing prizes for your team
* Tea, coffee and biscuit in the afternoon in the Dining Room
* Short walks around the castle area and enjoy the beautiful and pretty views
* A toast with a glass of wine by Ola, the Vice President of International Society, before the meal
* Dinner 3 Course meal and a bottle of wine (CHOOSE red and/or white)
* Ceilidh Dance Party followed by ....
* A fantastic Valentine Party with 150 Party Animals: DJs will keep your hands in the air in the biggest hall in the Castle.
* Breakfast: yummy yummy
* and finally a perfect plan for our way back to Glasgow to visit more of Scotland.

We are sure that there is NO DOUBT you will experience an exciting journey of fun beyond your imagination in just a couple of days, but you would need a couple of weeks to talk about it all with your friends :)

ooo Some features and facts about the Castle ooo

--- The castle is said to have several ghosts.
--- The castle has 365 windows, one for each day of the year.
--- The clock-tower only has clocks on three sides.
--- There is a secret door below the Great Staircase which could be opened by rotating one of the statues.
--- The Castle has a large collection of art with some pieces dating back to the year 1680.
--- There are 19 Italian marble statues in the Lower Gallery of amazing beauty, dating back to around 1857.

The Usual

I won't go into every single detail from the past week, because it was mostly the same as all the previous weeks. I had normal classes on Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday. We went to The Hive again on Thursday night and danced our butts off. On Friday night we went to Cheesy Pop for another crazy night of dancing and meeting new people. Saturday night was one of our friend's flat mate's birthday party, so we all went there for the night. Laura, Briana, and I didn't stay for long, but we were there long enough to be introduced to some guy named Freddie Fisher (aka Halfwit) who is really famous here. He was on Big Brother in the UK. After meeting him and realizing the rest of the birthday party wasn't that interesting, we headed back to our flat for a relaxing night. On Friday and Saturday we had our usual family dinners with the whole crew.

My flatmate Finlay climbing the walls in our flat on Thursday night.

Freddie from Big Brother

Sunday was a unique day for us though. Some of the girls and I decided to check out Glasgow's famous Barrowland Market on the east side of the city. It happens every weekend and is a big indoor market with so many different vendors. We got there a little late so there were only a few stands still open. I started a conversation with a guy at one of the shops and soon another man was giving us directions to the People's Palace (that I visited during my homestay). This man giving us directions was absolutely hilarious and was making fun of our accents. In the end he asked me to smell the cologne he was wearing and kept trying to get my face close to his neck. Since I was skeptical about getting so close to him, he grabbed my face and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. Everyone was cracking up and that was when we decided to get on our way and head to the People's Palace. It was a gorgeous day, blue skies, and the sun was shining bright. We didn't stay long at the People's Palace, and then headed toward the city centre for some lunch. We found a great little restaurant with tapas and the 5 of us shared a bunch of little plates of food.

Everyone out shopping on Sunday morning on Argyle Street

Entrance to the Barras Market

Barrowland Market

The park by the People's Palace

The girls walking towards the People's Palace (last picture I took because my battery died on my camera)

On our way back to the flat we heard that everyone was watching the World Cup in a pub near the underground stop, so we ended up going into the pub and staying there for a while just hanging out and eating pizza. After the pub, we came back to the flat and relaxed before another week of classes started.

On Monday I woke up feeling horrible. Everyone seems to be sick around me so I was just waiting to come down with something. I was all ready for class, about to walk out of the flat, and I was just feeling too horrible and could barely see straight so I got back in bed and didn't go to my 10am class. After a couple more hours of sleep, I was feeling better and went to my art history lecture at 3pm. I figured it would be bad to miss both art history classes in one day. The girls and I have started to go to a bunch of the classes they offer at the gym every week, so at 5:15 we went to BoxFit. That class is so hard, but definitely good and we can always feel it the next day. Laura and I were hungry after the class so we ordered Indian food and had it delivered to our flat. We ended up having an Indian food picnic on the floor of our room. The food was great and we had enough leftovers for another dinner the next night.

Indian food picnic in our room

Tuesday, I had sculpture from 9:30-12:30. It was another great class and we worked on a new piece. It was our last day with our model, Elaine, because next week we are getting a male model. We will definitely miss her great sense of humor and the chocolate treats she brings us every class. The pictures below are of my sculpture from Tuesday. We only had a couple hours to do this one and we won't be able to work on it again.

After sculpture I took the underground to the station after my normal stop. I wanted to go to the Salvation Army for some cheap t-shirts for working out in. Since I didn't bring a lot of clothes, I took out a lot of my t-shirts that I didn't think I would need. Little did I know I would we working out 4 or more times a week. I found a few t-shirts for only a pound each and they're actually really comfortable. At 3pm I had my normal art history lecture, which was actually pretty interesting. We talked a lot about the origin and science of photography. Briana and I stopped at a cafe on our way home from class and realized that we barely have any time left to travel during the rest of the semester. On the weekend of Valentine's Day we are going on a weekend trip to Carbisdale Castle with the International Society. Most of April I will be traveling around Ireland and Scotland with my parents when they come to visit. Then it will be exams and final papers, and the semester ends on May 29th. We decided to start making some traveling plans for the next few months as soon as we got back to the flat. Briana and I bought the last two seats on a flight to Paris. We are leaving Thursday March 4th and returning on Sunday March 7th. We have yet to find a place to stay, but at least we know we are going there. I signed up for a site called couchsurfing.com where people (who have been verified and recommended) host backpackers, students, and really anyone else who is traveling around the world. I got a name of someone from my friend at Smith who couchsurfed in Paris at this person's house in the countryside. Her host hooked them up with a boat tour of Paris and provided them with a bed to sleep in and coffee, tea, and touring around the city. I'm hoping to research these couchsurfing hosts a little more to check that it is safe (which everyone says it is) and hopefully we will find a great host who will let us stay for free, cook for us, and even tour us around the city...most of the hosts actually do this!

Last night I spent a lot of time practicing my chanter for my bagpiping lesson today. This morning Laura and I walked to photography and we were actually able to create some prints in class. I thought we would have to spend a lot of time developing the prints with all of the bins of chemicals that are usually in a dark room but I saw no chemicals in the room when we got there. Instead, I saw a huge machine in the middle of the room that looked like a copy machine. The print developing is AUTOMATIC! How cool is that? Now we don't have to spend a bunch of time in the dark room developing each of our prints, we can put a few in at a time and they come out of the machine in about 2 minutes. Today I was able to print 2 of my photos and I'm very proud of them so far. I'll have to post pictures soon. My bagpiping lesson after photography went well, but Glenn (my tutor) told me he won't be here for the next 2 weeks so I don't have a lesson until February 24th. That means I have to be really good at the exercises he assigned me because I'll have 2 weeks to practice.

I am no coming down with a cold because it seems like it has just been passed around our group of friends and flat. I'll wake up with a sore throat and then throughout the day it is mostly just congestion and a head cold. When I got off the underground from bagpiping I went to Boots (our local drug store) and bought some cold medicine and then I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of oranges. I'm hoping to be better by this weekend for some more dancing/clubbing in Glasgow. (But don't worry...I'll take it easy if I'm not feeling well.)

Laura, Briana and I just came back from grocery shopping. We are going to try to make eggs benedict tonight. I will take some photos of our attempt and tell you how it went tomorrow. Until then, have a great night and I hope you all had a great week. Email me if you want my address here. I will send you postcards if you send me your address as well. (If you don't have my email, leave me a comment on my post in the comment box below.)

Love and miss you all!

Love Always,

Jess