Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands, and Glasgow

Greetings everyone. I hope all is well in your respective schools, homes, alleys, cities, and countries. I'm supposed to be doing a detailed study of Welsh literature right now, but I figured that writing about something I actually care about might help get the creative juices flowing.

I'll start off with Glasgow. It's the largest city in Scotland (although Edinburgh is the capital), and is located just about 45 minutes away by train. One of my flatmates is from there and invited us to her home for a day to see the city and have dinner with her family. Glasgow is renowned for its shopping district (along with knivings), so naturally the two girls I was with wanted to spend several hours browsing through clothes they couldn't afford. It was all good fun though. Soon enough, all of the money spending had us hungry so we took a bus over to my friend's house. We met her lovely family, and her dad was nice enough to feed us lunch and drive us to Loch Lomond. Luckily, the entire day was sunny (a rare occurrence here in the UK). For the record, there's a Scotch whiskey named after Loch Lomond that quite tickles my fancy.
 That night was honestly one of my favorite nights here so far. My friend's mum cooked us a delicious roast chicken, complete with mashed potatoes, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. Oh, and did I mention the homemade berry crumble? Legit. Afterwords, her teenage brother and I had a few rounds of some much-needed FIFA and Call of Duty. Let me just say that I had GREATLY been craving the satisfaction of pwning noobs. Later, we all joined in for a 'Friends' sesh until we got sleepy-eyed and had to take the train back home. That day in Glasgow made me feel more like home than I have here all semester. Thanks Gilly :)

If that wasn't interesting ENOUGH :D (seriously, I won't be offended if you close this tab right now), I went to the Scottish Highlands and Loch Ness last weekend. I had really been wanting to go, and I figured that I would get absolute hell from my friends back home if I lived in Scotland for three months and didn't at least LOOK for Nessie. Unfortunately, my friend from uni in the States (who is currently studying abroad in Athens) couldn't make it...the airport she flew through on the way to Edinburgh basically jerked her around for two days. Sorry K-Chu :( but hey, at least you got a free night in an Amsterdam hotel, eh??

Anyway. I took a bus to Loch Ness at 8 a.m. on Saturday. On the way there, we drove through some of the more famous parts of the Highlands: Stirling Castle (think William Wallace), Elton John's huge pink castle, a free whiskey center, etc. I want to note here that although I haven't been to THAT many places in my life, the Scottish Highlands is absolutely the most beautiful one of them all. Seriously. It's hard to tell in photos, but the whole scene is just epic. Snow-capped mountains, rivers, thousands of sheep (speaking of, I vaguely remember reading that the Scottish census reported more sheep than people in the Highlands back in 2000).

Eventually, we arrived at the famous home of the Loch Ness Monster. First things first ----> I fully believe in this legend. I know, I know, mock me if you want. You just need to go there. First of all, the lake is 300m deep. That's really damn deep. Second of all, it's 24 miles long. Poseidon could be living in there and nobody would know. Furthermore, the group we were with took a little trip on a huge marine bio boat while we were there. During, their sonar picked up an 8 meter, one-ton moving object below. And as much as you want to doubt, this marine bio boat was the real deal. The biologist working the boat claims with 100% certainty that there are at LEAST 18 monsters living in the loch. Although now that I think about it, that guy was pretty loopy...

Either way, it was a great weekend. Knocked Loch Ness off my to-do list and had a relaxing scenic getaway. This weekend...my friend's ranch. Well, and lots of papers and reading.
For those of you who will be celebrating it next week, Happy Thanksgiving! May your forks be drowned in gravy and your bellies filled with the tenderest of turkeys. 

 And to all,
cheers.

"...take me to foggy London-town."

Ohh, London. Famous, hectic, cloudy, and really damn expensive.

That about sums it up, I suppose. The one aspect of the city that's difficult to describe, though, is its emanating electric buzz . Being surrounded by 8 million inhabitants, a continuing flow of tourists from all around the world, swift-walking businessmen, and countless sites that we've been familiar with since childhood really make the city seem alive. I don't know if I'd ever have the desire to live there (or salary), but visiting for the weekend was perfect.

I stayed on Queen Mary's campus in the dorm room of a friend from back home. He's studying abroad this semester as well, but he'd been there long enough to properly show me around the city. When I arrived early Friday morning he was still in class, so I made my way through most of Westminster by myself. For those of you who aren't familiar with London, Westminster is one of the primary scenic sections of the city. It's home to Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the River Thames ----> essentially most of London's postcards in less than one square mile. Considering the wind blew my only map into a park pond literally within ten minutes of getting off the bus, I sort of just wandered around from site to site. London's a very conducive city for that kind of traveling, though. After lunch, I met up with my friend and we went back to his place for a chilled out night of chatting and drinks with his crew.

Randomly, we had the opportunity to visit Stonehenge early Saturday morning. His university was putting on a chartered trip for MUCH less than it should have really cost, so I posed as his Indian friend and hopped on board the bus. We were lucky enough to have mostly sunshine that day, which lit up the simply awesome English countryside . I'm talking quaint little homes with thatched roofs, green fields of grazing sheep, giant horses cut into hillsides, old brick roads -----> yeah, the Shire. The only thing missing was a giant dragon firework show. Stonehenge was...well, to be quite honest it was just a bunch of really neatly placed ancient rocks. But it was certainly cool to see, especially considering it's one of the "Ancient Wonders of the World", or whatever. Afterwords, we visited a couple English towns for lunch and got to see one of the four copies of the Magna Carta in a church.

After a long nap and some interesting Indian food, we got ready to go out for a night in Central London. The place is absurd. With so many people on the street, you'd have thought it was some sort of European carnival. College students, oldies, couples, vendors, dogs, monkeys, anything goes in Central London. It's fairly comparable to New York City, I'd say, just...well, more British. Had my first experience in a gay club, which was poppin' (albeit I have a newly found respect for girls who constantly have to fend off thirty-five year-old men with mustaches on the dance floor). Ate some food off the street, met some new friends, and had the privilege of paying about $12 for a beer. We got home about 4 and capped the night off with some eggs and hookah. All in all, I'd have to say it was a great night.

I truly did plan to tour more of the city the next day...but 6 a.m. bedtimes somehow have a way of making you subconsciously indifferent to alarm clocks. I did manage to take a quick snapshot of me pushing a cart into Platform 9 3/4, though.

I'm not much of big-city kind of guy, but London was amazing. It's one of those experiences that you really just have to have yourself. Much thanks to my friend for letting me crash on his floor (can I at least have a blanket next time?) and to my new friends for showing me a good time. I think as soon as my bank account recovers from the violent assault it received from London I'll definitely try to book another trip.

Cheers

"All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mus'd on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
                          An' done nae-thing,
But stringing blethers up in rhyme
                          For fools to sing."

- Robert Burns
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hey. for those of you who don't know me, i'm matt. in a nutshell, i'm a third-year college student from the southern U.S. studying abroad for a semester in Edinburgh, Scotland. if you haven't been here, please come.
this place is beautiful.

but first things first: i have a journal. this isn't it. there, i often write things like "fuck", and "God", and "she's the one". here, i simply wish to share my experiences abroad with the friends and family who might be interesting in hearing about them. also, i think that such a record will be quite valuable in later years for personal use. via this blog i'll post photos, findings, anecdotes, insights, jokes, and anything else that might help document my time in the UK. i sincerely hope that you will enjoy what i have to share, and that in some way it may inspire you to do a bit of your own "studying" abroad. cheers. xx