Glasgow in the spring

It sure is nice. 

Everything is blooming. Birds are singing. Life is good. 

Ah, spring. You rock my socks off. 

Even the university is festive. 

And to celebrate... the Glasgow University Union pub. 

Also, my photography class is coming to an end, which is very sad for me. I really, really liked the class. I have my presentation (basically the final) on the 4th. I printed two more pictures yesterday, one of Martin and one of the dog my dad and I found on the Isle of Arran. Both came out great, if I'm allowed to get a big head about my photos. It helps that my subjects were attractive. :)

Keep in mind these are pictures of pictures... not the greatest, I know.

Happy spring everyone! Hope everyone is doing great. Love from Glasgow!

BBC Scotland

This past Saturday, Sarah (my Australian roommate) and I went on a tour of the BBC Scotland building. I wasn't too excited, considering I don't watch the BBC. We don't even have a TV here. But I was willing to go, as I hear the building was pretty neat. The big shiny rectangle there is the building.

The entrance. BBC Scotland is the English speaking channel, and BBC Alba is the Gaelic speaking channel. Both originate from this building.

This is the inside. They call this central open area "the street". It's a really cool, open floorplan. Also, they used the space really well. Under each one of the "steps" is usable space, such as meeting rooms, editing suites or film studios. Pretty neat, huh?

This is at the very top of the building, looking across the Clyde. You can see the spire of the main building of the university in the distance. :)

And this is looking towards the city center. It's quite a pretty view, if you ask me.

This is the inside of the largest film studio. Some really big shows were filmed in here, like The Weakest Link. It was really cool to be in there. Really insane looking.
There was a lot we couldn't take pictures of, which makes sense, as it is actually a work place. But it was a very fun tour. At the end they let us record our own radio show with scripts, sound effects and the whole nine yards. They are going to send me a copy, and if I can figure it out, I'll post it on here. It's pretty freakin' funny.

Other than the tour, I haven't been up to much. My two finals are next week, so study time is taking priority. I have a really good study plan for the next week. I love having everything laid out like that. Helps me focus. I tried to go to a coffee shop today to get some studying done, but ended up just bouncing off the walls after drinking a latte and laughing hysterically at everything. I had to leave to avoid making the other customers homicidal.

My mom will get here on Monday. Can't wait! Love from Glasgow!

France!

Whew. So, I know I'm really behind with this. But this post really intimidated me. So many pictures, funny stories, things to sort through. But here it is, finally. Anyways. On March 26th, I left Glasgow for Paris, France to see my cousin, Anna, who is living in Nancy. I took a train to Edinburgh, a plane to Beauvais, France then a bus to Paris. My cousin, Anna, was in Paris to meet me. She was in the train station. Wanna know where the bus dropped me off? Not at the train station, that's for darn sure. I got dropped off in the middle of a parking lot on the far west side of the city. Wanna know what's stressful? Being dropped off a bus on the west side of Paris, needing to be on the east side, and not speaking the language. So I called Anna and thanks to her map reading and a lot of me wildly gesturing at train maps while trying to speak French with subway employees, we eventually got me to the Metro. I had to take two different subways to get to the train station from where I was, and I had to walk over a mile to the subway station. So that gives you an idea of just how far away from the train station I was. Now, this would have been a pretty laughable adventure on any other day. But we had tickets for the last train back to Nancy for the day... and I made it with exactly 13 minutes to spare. Not something I want to EVER do again. In my life. Never. Paris is a stressful town. But we finally made it onto the train, and headed out to Nancy. Made it in (late because of some sort of accident) hungry enough to eat our own hands, so we headed straight back to the apartment Anna and her second cousin Ludovic shared. Made dinner, drank a few, chatted, caught up. After it was all done, it was a funny story, but it was horrifying at the time. I was so scared I was going to get stuck in Paris with all the rude french for a whole night (and yes, they ARE rude in Paris. I discovered that more on my way out...). Forget that!

Anyways. The next day, we walked around Nancy and saw all kinds of cute things. For whatever reason, I just loved the name of this street. We passed it a few times.

This was in the main square of the town. It looked like a giant had taken a big swig of melted gold then sneezed all over the square. Everything was covered in gold paint. Very pretty in the sunlight.

And of course, it was a gorgeous day. Sunny, bright, warm. Exactly the opposite of what I'm used to.

This is closer to the edge of town, by Anna's apartment. We walked along the river for a long time. It was lovely, and there were a bunch of swans in the river, too. So pretty.

We found this really pretty church while walking into town to get kebabs one night. We didn't feel like cooking.

The square is lit up at night. This seems like it should be some kind of official building or a museum, right? It's actually a hotel!

Mmm... kebabs... Yeah, I ate the whole thing, cause I'm a champ.

The next day, I had pizza for lunch. I ordered a cheese pizza. It came with cheese, yes. But it also had squares of potato and little curry bits (the yellow bits). Surprisingly delicious!

The outdoor-cafe culture of France is so wonderful. Almost no one eats inside. The whole restaurant is basically outdoors! Which makes sense, because the weather is so lovely.

One day (I was there a whole week, I can't remember the individual days...) we got churros and sat in the park to eat them. Lucky me, Anna caught a picture of me with my mouth full of fried dough (YUM).

This was the park we sat in. Gorgeous! We ended up falling asleep in the grass, and were woken up by two policemen jabbering on in French. We have no idea what they were saying to us, but they gestured for us to leave, so we packed up and carried on. Maybe you can't sleep on the grass?

Anna and I cheesing it up for the camera. :)

I got pain du chocolat, which is essentially a croissant filled with chocolate. Ohmygoodnesssogood. I could have eaten twelve more. Also, ignore the fact that my hair makes me look like a soccer mom. I got it cut after I came back home.

So, Nancy was amazing. Warm, sunny, lovely, nice people, great food. I would go back in a heartbeat. I left very early on Friday, March 30th (we got up at 5am!) on a train back to Paris. My flight back to Edinburgh didn't leave until 9pm, so I would have the whole day in Paris to myself. I got to Paris at about 8am, and decided to walk around a bit before settling down for some breakfast. Took the train to the city center and started walking. I ended up right next to the Louvre, which was HUGE. I had no idea it was such a big building.

Gratuitous shot of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. So tourist, I know.

Oh, and again. Beautiful city, and I was there so early there wasn't much traffic around yet.

This is a bridge crossing the Seine. See all those things attached to the sides? Those are padlocks. Nope, I don't know why.

I got into the courtyard of the Louvre, where people were lining up to get in. It was a lovely morning, and I sat in the sun for a while, ate an orange and watched the sun rise up over the glass pyramid. Jealous?!

And to prove I was really there: grumpy-looking Taylor at the Louvre.

Pretty pretty.

This arch was on the other side of the courtyard. It looks a bit like a mini Arc de Triomphe.

I then walked through the garden that stretched out behind the Louvre and ended up at this fountain, where I sat and ate a madeline cookie that I had swiped from the apartment. Shh... don't tell.

This neat looking thing was by the exit of the garden. NO idea what it is. Frankly, I didn't know what a good majority of the things I saw that day were.

After walking around by the Louvre, I walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower. Now, that's a long walk, if you are unfamiliar with the terrain of Paris. It wasn't too warm, though, so it wasn't too bad, and it was a pretty stroll. Once I finally made it over there, I took so many pictures of pretty things that I needed a picture of something goofy. So here ya go:

It really is rather impressive in real life. You always hear so much about it... but it's really something else to see in person.

Gorgeous.

Here's a little video I took after this picture. :)

Then from the tower, I walked up to the Arc de Triomphe, which was another quite long walk. Really neat structure, though.

This was the closest I got to the Champs Elysees. It seems super busy and scary, so I just carried on my merry way after snapping a picture.

After seeing all the big sights I wanted, I walked back over to the west side of the city where my bus would leave from later on. I snuggled down into the grass in a park (in the sun... yum) and read my book. It was completely wonderful. I also got some lunch from a little pastry shop, which was cute, but the people working there were super rude. I guess I always thought that whole "rude Parisian" thing was made up... it isn't. I obviously cannot speak french, but I was doing the best I could under the circumstances. I clearly pointed to the things I wanted, was friendly and pleasant. And yet, the lady scowled at me and muttered under her breath to her coworkers. I mean, come on. You work in PARIS. A good chunk of the city's revenue comes from tourism. Not everyone speaks French. I was being clear in other ways. No need to be patronizing. Gah. Anyways. After reading, eating, drinking, sunning and lolling about, I took the bus back to Beauvais (horrid traffic), took a plane back to Edinburgh and a train back to Glasgow. It was super late on Friday once I got back, and it was all I could do just to drag myself in and fall into bed.

WONDERFUL trip. It was so much fun, and really interesting. I'm so glad I went. Love from Glasgow!

The Isle of Arran

On Friday, March 23rd, my dad and I went to the Isle of Arran for the night. It's a pretty small island off the west coast of Scotland, almost due west of Glasgow. It's largest village is Lamlash (where we stayed) with a population of just over 1,000. It was a little hard for me to fathom. I went to high school with more students than people in this village... Anyways. We started our journey from Glasgow Queen Street Station, which I have become oh-so-familiar with in my time here. We took the train to Ardrossen Harbor, which was in the itty-bitty town of Ardrossen (shockingly enough). The first (and pretty much only) thing we saw was the marina, which was fairly neat. It was kind of creepy, though. The place was like a ghost town. I don't think we saw a single other person outside of the ferry terminal. Eep.

Once we made it to the ferry terminal, we had over an hour to kill until the ferry showed up, so we got tea and coffee and sat in the terminal, where I saw this hilarious poster. Yeah... that's exactly what the Scottish islands look like... PSH IN YO DREAMS
Then the ferry arrived! It was massive. I guess I forgot the actual aim of ferries is to... well... ferry. Meaning cars, vans, bikes, trucks and lastly, people. You can see here that the front end is lifting up. That's where the cars drove in. The pedestrian traffic went over a bridge into the side of the boat.
This is where we parked ourselves. It was super nice. It looked a bit like a hotel lobby. Except for the fact that we were right by the bar... which was totally unintentional, I assure you...

So we arrived into the town of Brodick, which is the only village the ferry goes to. However, Lamlash is about 5 miles south of Brodick, so we had to catch a bus. But of course, because we were not familiar with the layout of Lamlash (not that there was much of one, considering the town could have fit on a TicTac), we got off way before we should have, and had to walk across town. But that was okay, again considering the village was the size of my toe. We made it in to our hotel, freshened up a bit (aka changed my socks and put my glasses on) and headed out to find a pub. Of which there was one. So the Pierhead was the pub of choice. We got dinner (shepherds pie... oh my goodness... easily the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in Scotland) and... well... drank. What else do you do in a tiny Scottish island village pub? And so libations were had. And then another one. And then some more. We eventually made it back to the hotel, had a few more for good measure, then went to sleep. You can only imagine how we felt in the morning at breakfast... We had to make it back to Brodick to catch the ferry back to the mainland, so we decided to walk through Lamlash to get back to the same bus stop we got off at the night before. It was a very pretty town.

Not a whole lot to it, though. Very green, gray and brown. But what else is new? It is Scotland, after all.
You can just see the pier up ahead, which was not very impressive in person, either...
Here are the weary travelers. We slowly came alive over the course of the day... but the morning was not a pretty time...
We found this freakin' adorable puppy dog on the pier. She would run up, put her stick down then lay down behind it like this and wait. As soon as you took a step toward her, she would stick her butt up in the air and get all jittery, like she just couldn't wait a second longer for you to throw the stick. Once you grabbed it, she would sprint down to the end of the pier and wait for you to throw it. The effort necessary for a good throw was way past my limit that morning, but I mustered a few half-hearted tosses for her.
This little swan was hanging out in the harbor, too. I never saw if it had a mate. Seems like a lonely life.
This is Brodick. Again, not terribly impressive. I did get some pretty tasty chicken nachos for lunch, though. And the fog made the island looks pretty.
More Brodick, before we got on the ferry. I guess this was an old fishing boat that was abandoned in the sand. Kind of sad looking. So we finally got on the ferry, got back to Ardrossen, took the train back to Glasgow and walked home. And nothing else was done on that day. It was all I could do to stay upright. And my poor father had to get up at 5 the next day to catch a cab to the airport. Suckaaaa. I got up to see him off, then went back to sleep for another 6 hours. So the Isle was a lot of fun, and there was a lot of pretty scenery. But I would not have quite as much pub-fun if I was to go again. It kind of leads to wanting to pull your head off. Ow. All in all, a very fun overnight trip, though!

Love from Glasgow!