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
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