Reflections

Alrighty folks! Thanks for sticking with me for these 6 and a bit months! This will be the last post until after the holidays.

I'll do the usual rundown of the adventures of last week. On Monday, my friend and I were volunteering to go to a secondary school to talk about careers in physics. Since she comes from an engineering background and worked in the industry before doing an instrumental PhD here, and I have stayed in academia, studying pure physics and mathematics and doing data analysis and programming, we made a good contrasting team. We went to this school in particular because we have a colleague in the solar physics group whose girlfriend teaches these classes. There were four classes total, grouped into two groups; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. These students are about 14 years old and have just chosen to take physics as their primary science. It was really funny to observe how two groups of students who are the same age can vary so drastically in maturity level. The first group were relatively quiet, but they all seemed interested in what we were saying. No one's attention seemed to wander out the window or to their notebooks and they were responsive to our stories. The next group was your stereotypical bunch of rowdy Glasgow boys. But it was not even like something we could fight. Simple rowdiness is no problem, but when you ask people if they have questions and they're asking questions indicative of a much lower maturity level, like 'how much money do you make?' or 'do you get to fly in space?' there's not much you can do in response. We didn't mind to much though, we got a day off of work and figure that if we got about 4 or 5 students to be excited about physics as a career, that's more than the usual amount who go on to study it at university. I believe we reached that goal with the first crowd. The teacher of one of the first classes had me speak to one student in a different year in particular who wanted to study astrophysics at university. He was in his sixth year and was consequently applying to programs at thsi time and wanted to know what it was like and the best way to go about it. Those are the times I really like speaking to this age group.

We were done at about 2:30 and did not really feel like going back to the department for the rest of the evening. She was planning on making this new Greek recipe that night so invited me over to help and partake in the consumption of said recipe. We went shopping at a Sainsbury's, which is more like a Safeway than any other supermarket I've been to here. Though this was a little out of the city (I miss having a car!) and so there was more space for a proper supermarket. We walked in and it turned out that the new Harry Potter film had come out on DVD (I know! I wasn't even aware of it!) and it was on sale for £7 as supplies lasted. She had to witness my sad, lingering, obsessive behaviour as without question and little regard to the fact that the £10 note in my pocket was supposed to last until Friday, I grabbed a copy off the shelf and kept on walking like it was no option. Glad I did, of course, as that was the cheapest I was going to find it and I can no longer watch US DVDs easily over here. But yeah, that's just shameful justification.
Anyway, she had this great lemon, dill, garlic marinade recipe for lamb neck. So we went back to her flat and attempted to make this marinade, with little failure, only a little. While the lamb was marinading we checked our emails to make sure we weren't missing anything important at the office then settled down to watch this British comedy, "Black Books" that I had been meaning to watch for a while with a bottle of wine. It was again, a great, fun evening.

On Wednesday I met up with this same friend, her boyfriend and another couple at The Belle, just a few doors down from my flat for some drinks. I had presented my pre-holiday work and 6 month update at our telecon that day and so was in the mood for a mild celebration. I really love The Belle, but the reason that I hardly go there is that it's so tiny that you have to have the patience to stand around for about 20 minutes stalking tables before one frees up. The entire pub is about the size of my parent's living room and it has a warm fireplace and dark stone walls. It's a brilliant environment, just very tiny.

Friday I met up with a girl I had met in Millport and a few times since at various parties we all had had. We had been meaning to get coffee together sometime and decided to go to Tchai Ovna, right by the university. I had never been to this coffee house before, but had heard great things. It was down a tiny little alley, a few streets away on the other side of the university. It was a lot like the tea house in Boulder, but more like a run-down shack. It smelled of chai tea and hookah and was filled with a hodge-podge of seats, cushions and couches. It reminded me so much of Boulder, I really loved it. And like the tea house in Boulder, it had a full binder filled with different teas you could choose from, almost like a wine list.

That day, the solar physics crowd went out for a special pre-holiday lunch and had a considerable chunk of money left over. They decided to all go to the pub at 5:30 that night and it was the first time one of my friends had been out in a few months as she's writing her thesis. Everyone took it upon themselves to make sure she had a good time. And a good time was had. We went to this shady looking pub on Old Dumbarton Road called The Rogue, you know, no windows, one working door, etc. It was fairly empty, but with a group of people, that's the idea situation as you can practically take over the whole pub. Which we did. It was a whole lot more people than usual since it was also all the solar physics students as well as all the gravitational waves people. Then (as my friend put it) the booze train left the station. Anyone who did not participate was quickly left behind in the dust, with no sympathy. It was a great time though, had by the passengers on said booze train.

The next day, she called me at 2 in the afternoon and I went up the road to her flat for a nice fried breakfast. Fried eggs, sausage, beans and tattie scones. Hit the spot. We chatted for a few hours, nursing the headaches and remembering the last night, laughing about the last night, then trying to forget it again. Then I went home to get all fancied up for going to Beauty and the Beast that night with a friend. It was at the Scottish Exhibition Centre and was the touring UK performance. It was an interesting experience going to the theatre here. This would be the equivalent of going to the Denver Performing Arts Centre and about half the people are just dressed like they would be going to the cinema. They serve crisps and Irn Bru as well as drinks and stuff that you can actually take into the auditorium and eat while you watch the show. It was a super fun performance and the funniest thing was that the only person with an American accent (which was obviously fake) was Gaston, the vain, obnoxious one. What can I say? It worked. Wild applause was given for Chip who was played by a little Glaswegian boy. But yeah, it was a great show and all the cynical Scots were enjoying it in the end.

Yesterday I went to the city centre to do some last shopping. The air is so cold here that the moisture is just freezing, leaving a thick, hovering fog. I got back, made some tea and packed for going to Colorado.

Today is my last day at work. Tomorrow is our Christmas lunch in the department. It runs all day starting with drinks at 11am in the common room then moving on to a fancy lunch, then moving on to a pub. Needless to say, I am already ready to go as my taxi is picking me up at 6:30am the next morning.

I do have to say, my life has really turned around these last few months. It is a bizarre change, and one I probably could not have anticipated, but I am lucky for it. My social life has blossomed; with people giving me Christmas cards, saying they will miss me, looking forward to the ceilidh when everyone returns. I really could not have asked for a better department to join and a better city to move to. The department is filled with good, honest, welcoming people who are down-to-earth and enjoy having a good time with each other. This city is filled with genuine, happy people who despise conformity. Even the West End, where I live which is considered the "wealthy" part of Glasgow, most of the people you would never guess could afford such a living. They are simply happy for where they are and recognise the struggles others have in life. My university is really everything I could have wished for; including the giddy child in me who gets excited every time I walk through the main building, due to it's resemblance of Hogwarts. I was thinking about this this weekend when I was shopping by myself in the city centre. I remember being there back in June, not knowing anyone, hoping that no one would think that I did not live there, worrying that someone would talk to me and I would not understand them and would look like a "typical" American. I was so filled with doubt; really hoping I would eventually fit in. Now this time, walking through the city centre, I know where I am going; I run into people I know and I am filled with warmth at the familiar site of Buchanan Street, hearing my favourite street performers playing and seeing the happy faces of all the Glaswegians.

My life now consists of such vastly different things than it used to. I now am occupied with the World Cup events, when my friend and I will get to go to a Glasgow Warriors Rugby match, which pub to go to on a Friday night, if I should go home for a quiet evening or join my friends just down the road, when I will have the £17 to go to the Highlands for some hiking one weekend, what I'm going to eat at Mr India's next week, and the list goes on. Things I never thought would be in my conscience, but had always hoped would be. If I am in my room crying over an idiot man or over a bad turn in my research, listening to Janis Joplin and drinking whisky, I am doing so in Glasgow, Scotland and things are not and can not be as bad as they seem. I am so fortunate to have tested myself in this world and succeeded with the resources I had. My success in moving overseas snuck up on me in these last few months and now I finally can call Scotland home, which is all I really wanted for Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

Feuerzangenbowle!

The holidays are now officially upon us. Not much has happened this week, so I'm afraid this will be a rather short update. The weather is now officially freezing. We have not had any snow yet, but people are starting to wish for it as it's definitely in the air.

This week has mostly consisted of massive amounts of work, trying to get ready for the holidays. Panic has gripped the department for that reason exactly and people are scrambling to get as much done as possible before Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations commence. On Wednesday I managed to escape for some curry with folks, which was lovely. It was the usual mention of curry at coffee, leading to a massive round of sarcastic, Christmas themed emails about the curry angel leading it's people to feast. The food was fantastic (as usual) and our Mr India was happy to see us follow the star in the sky, leading us to mass amounts of Chicken Tikka and bid us tidings of spiced onions. This was, of course, followed up by some Laphroaig at the usual Tennent's.

Thursday, escape was not so lucky as I finally had to convince myself to do some real, mass amounts of work. My friend who is finishing her thesis stayed late as well and we had dinner in the common room and left to walk back together at 9:30 that night. A full 13 hour day in the office. I did get lots accomplished in the way of work. My programs are running successfully, leading to much silent cheering and happy dances at my desk. My supervisor seems pleased with my progress and applications for funding in January should be very strong. Hopefully, this will also mean that I get an internal publication done by the end of the holidays.

On Friday, we had a Feuerzangenbowle (fire-sugar-drink) party at a friend from Germany's house. Before the party, however, we rushed out of the department at 5pm sharp to watch the World Cup Draw at the Common Rooms. This was to find out who would be playing whom and when during the summer. Lot's of people were there watching it and they had it on the big screen. After they did this, a few of us headed to the party. Since it is St Nicholas/Sinter Klaus weekend, the Germans, Swedes, Dutch, etc celebrate with mulled wine and various Christmas goodies. I learned how to make proper mulled wine, by cooking wine on the stove, with apples and spices, then ladling flaming sugar and rum slowly into the mixture. It was super warm and cozy and a great party. They also had gingerbread and baked apples for everyone.

The next day, the mulled wine had left me with (surprise surprise) a massive headache. For my future reference, there actually is alcohol in mulled wine and it cannot be consumed like apple cider. Just a personal note. I was meeting a friend down in the city centre to do some Christmas shopping. We met up, went our separate ways and thankfully, since she hates shopping as much as I do, we met up two hours later and went for tapas at a Mediterranean bistro in town; mostly to pamper ourselves after spending so much money and braving the crowds. I also was calmed by the presence of Clanadonia playing on Buchanan St again. Oh, how I love watching big, hairy men in kilts bang on drums. I love it, I do. That made the shopping a little better, and I still love Glaswegians. It was very Christmassy on Buchanan St and, despite the crowds, it was still fun.
After shopping, I ran back home and dropped off everything before running out again to a friend's house for dinner and a Star Trek marathon. This girl has been a Star Trek fan for years and wanted to watch them with someone. It was fantastic. Her love for McCoy and my love for Spock led to some brilliant episodes and some really great laughs.

Today was devoted to Christmas cards and cleaning. As I am leaving in just about 9 days, I figured I really should clean up the place. Thankfully, it looks great now and I can pretty much just focus on work next week (so it will be even more boring in a week) before leaving for the good ol' US of A. Til next time! Ta ra!

Thanksgiving and 6 months down!

I hope you all are stuffed full of happy Thanksgiving turkey and good cheer. Bring on Christmas! Before we get to my week of having the parents here, let me bring you up to speed on a few fun things that happened the week prior.

Thursday before last, I went over to dinner at my friend and her boyfriend's house. This friend and I are going to be going to schools in the area as 'ambassadors' for students who want to study physics. One of the schools we decided upon, a girlfriend of another PhD student is a teacher there. We decided to all get together, five in total (me being the obligatory fifth wheel) for dinner to discuss what to do at this school. The boyfriend made a lovely chicken and couscous dinner and we cracked open a few bottles of wine. It was a really fun night, but the weirdest part was when we were all sitting around talking about teaching and we all ended up discussing our students. The PhD students (including myself) as well as the school-teacher talking about our frustrations and stories about our students, all comfortably sitting in couches sipping on beer and wine. All very posh and grownup. Funny how that can spring up on you. Of course, then we regressed to our immature sides when the boys played video games and the girls gossiped. The early/mid-twenties is a bizarre combination of responsibility and a fight back against it. The weather outside was absolutely dreadful. I am sure that some of you have read the news about the rain here in the UK; that it has been the wettest days this country has ever seen. Needless to say, we all split a taxi home afterwards.

On Friday, my friend's boyfriend was visiting from Switzerland. Since he barely speaks the language, he's been rather hesitant to move out here. This was phase two in her scheme to get him to move here: meet the cool, amazing, friendly friends. He's in his forties and rather shy, so we all went to Roastit Bubbly Jocks for some gourmet Scottish cuisine, and hit up the Lios Mor (the whisky bar) afterwards. I was amazed at the multi-lingual abilities of people at the table. I, thankfully, was able to understand slow german, but not respond. Most of the other people knew conversational german, so that's what was spoken when talking to her boyfriend. She also brought along her sister's fiance, whom he had met before to make him more comfortable. Once we went to the whisky bar, we all had to split up because there was no room for 12 people to stand in a circle, and thankfully, the boyfriend stuck with the other group when my friend joined us. So it was a big success. We all had a super fun night and I hope he manages to summon the courage to move here.

The next day was the big day, the family was arriving! Since they had yet to decide whether to fly or take the train, I wasn't sure when they were going to arrive. Subsequently, it was an excuse for me to lounge around all day long. Despite my encouragement to fly, due to the flooding in most of the UK, they took the train and arrived at 7pm in Glasgow Central Station. My brother was a bit tired so he went to bed in the hotel, but my parents were ramped up and ready to hit the town. We went to one of my favourite pubs, Cooper's, for food and drinks and afterwards went to the Oran Mor for some whisky. Thankfully everyone in Glasgow was nice and friendly and so my parents seemed to enjoy themselves. They finally went to bed around midnight, I think.

On Sunday, I woke up bright and early, went to the coffee house to get some cappuccinos and went to their hotel to wake them up. Our plan was to get some breakfast, head to the city centre and do some shopping and tours. We had breakfast on Ashton Lane, which was super lovely and really tasty. Then we walked down to the underground station so my mum could experience the "Clockwork Orange", Glasgow's underground. I love it, it's one of the oldest undergrounds, along with London (which has since been refurbished) and Budapest (which I've also been on!). My favourite bit about this underground is the lack of technology; at each stop the conductor sticks his head out the window and visually looks down the platform to see when it's clear, then closes the doors and drives away. Once we got to the city centre, we sent my dad and my brother to do the Glasgow city tour, which shows people the east side, the Clyde and gives lots of good stories about the University. My mum and I went shopping at some of the nice places that she can't shop at in Colorado. We bought some new shoes and some shirts, then met up with the boys to decide what to do. We went to Borders then the weather hit again, so we escaped to an Irish Pub just around the corner and hunkered down for a few hours before going out to dinner at the Butterfly and the Pig. We had a great supper there and I think that everyone liked it. The plan was to walk back to the West End, stopping at the Uisce Beatha along the way for some more whisky. Since the weather was so awful, we caught a taxi back to their hotel and bought a bottle of Laphroig around the corner and sat in the hotel room, drinking our whisky.

Monday we woke up and went to a coffee shop for breakfast before heading over to the University. I took them up to meet my advisor and showed them all around my office and the common room, my home away from home. People were all really nice and excited to meet my family. I showed them all around the University and we went to the Hunterian Museum in the main building. We then walked down to the Clyde to pick up Beauty and the Beast tickets for me. My dad wanted to find out where he was going to rent the car the next day so him and my brother went to explore while my mum and me went to the Kelvingrove Museum to wait for them in the lobby. They both discovered Glasgow's propensity to create a hodge-podge of exhibits for museums, with not much flow or design, but it's endearing. Once we met up at the museum, we went to run some errands to get ready for our trip. My mum discovered the proper grocer's and fell in love. Also surprising for her was the discovery of how cheap food is in this country. I remember discovering that when I first moved here and it is indeed a bit of a shock. Once errands were run, we met in Tennent's for some ale before going to Mr India's (mmm) to discover proper Glasgow curry. It seemed to be a big success and we went to the Lios Mor afterwards for more whisky (I think they're sick of whisky now) before walking home.

The next day my dad and I went to go pick up the rental car in the city centre and got absolutely soaked the entire way. Thinking about the driving experience makes my blood-pressure spike, so I'll gloss over it and say...we didn't die. We packed up the car, my mum and I went to buy some last-minute groceries and we made our way out of town. I directed my dad up the east coast of Loch Lomond for some lovely views, but the weather was threatening to wash out the road so we didn't stay long. We made our way back to the A82 and went up the west side of the loch, on a proper highway. The drive to Glencoe was lovely, if a bit rainy, and I don't think my dad liked how curvy the supposed 'highway' was. We finally found our cabin and settled in, going to the pub for dinner. I had an amazing boar sausage pie with some excellent vegetables. The views from the cabin were breathtaking. I don't know if my awe at Glencoe is because it is actually a phenomenal setting, or if it's because I was an avid student of Scottish history and am aware of all the events that happened in this glen, particularly concerning my family. So, quick story before I continue: The name "Glencoe" means Valley of the Tears because the Macdonald family was all slaughtered there in the 17th century. They invited the Campbell clan to visit their territory, without knowing that they were in the pocket of the English and in the middle of the night, attacked their hosts. Anyway, it's an interesting valley.

On Wednesday, I woke up after a great and peaceful sleep, with only the rain banging on the window (well, it might have been ghosts, but I think it was rain...my blood is welcome in the glen). I got the family up, made some breakfast and we struck out to explore the walks around our cabin. These paths led up An Torr, a little hill and went out to Signal Rock, which used to be a meeting place for the Macdonalds and is also supposedly where the Campbells lit the fire to signal the slaughter. In my happy fictional world, it's the place in Kidnapped (one of my favourite books) where Davey Balfour and Alan Breck hide for days from the English, watching their movements below in the valley. So we went exploring, getting a little soaked, but enjoying the mystique of the surroundings. We came back and warmed our clothes by the fire, settling in and reading. There was a 1942 edition of Jane Eyre left in the cabin, so you can guess what I read. We had a little tapas meal that evening, to spare ourselves from the heavy Scottish food we had been indulging in.

Thanksgiving, we got up late, made a lovely breakfast and settled in the cabin for some cooking. As you all had similar meals, I won't go into the details, but we used the same fantastic recipes from the previous year and had a great meal with lots and lots of wine. We woke up on Friday and packed up the car and went exploring the west coast highlands. After some white-knuckle moments, we stopped in Tyndrum for some food then continued on to Glasgow. Dad and I returned the car and met my mum and brother in their new 'regular' coffee house in Glasgow. We then went to Cooper's for dinner again and went to the Oran Mor afterwards. I got a few texts from my friends at the office saying that they were in the Common Rooms (another pub, not the physics common room) and that we should come by so they could properly meet everyone. After some convincing, I got my mum and dad to agree to stop by, buy a round and meet my friends, so they can see that I'm not lonely here in Glasgow. They were all really friendly and I think my parents liked meeting all of them. Then my parents left so they could be up bright and early to catch their flight and left me with my friends in the pub to celebrate my Six Month Anniversary of moving here. It was a great vacation, that I much needed and I hope my family loves Glasgow as much as I do.

Until next time! Ta ra!

SUPA-Heros and York

This past week left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. So, here's the story: Just after graduating high school, one of my fellow Anglophile friends and I made a pact that by the year 2010 we would be living in the UK and would meet up for a pint. Four and a half years later, with a month and a half to go, I was on the train down to York for the much-promised pint! When we made the pact, neither of us were really sure how it would work out, given that life is so dynamic and so many goals and dreams change, but we managed to fulfil it.

I caught the 7am train from Glasgow Central (having to leave my house at the wee hour of 6am to make the walk to the city centre) and made it to York by 10:45. We went out for some breakfast and tea (mmm egg and bacon roll with Yorkshire tea and lemon). York is really a cute town. Very very English. If anyone is planning a trip over here, I would suggest making a stop in York, even for a day. We went to the Minster (my friend is Catholic) which is a giant cathedral. We paid to walk around the Minster (well, I did, he got in free) as well as climb the tallest tower. It was a super steep climb, to the point that the person in front of you, you're looking at the underside of their shoes, as well as the stairwell only barely a shoulder width wide. It was about a 10 minute climb straight up, but then we got spectacular views of York at the top. The vertigo you feel at certain points is not so much the height, but the dizziness from the circular climb.

After climbing the tower, we went to the market (since it was Saturday, they had the local farmer's market, yes, they have farmer's markets here) as well as the Shambles, which resembles Diagon Alley. It's a very narrow street with the second storey of the buildings leaning over the road; giving a cramped feeling. There were great little fudge shoppes, tea shoppes, and the like. We also found Guy Fawkes' birthplace which is now an inn. The next time I go to York, I'm going to stay there, dash the cost.

We then hit the pub (something both of us, being expats, thoroughly appreciate) and hunkered down for a few hours. This pub is known for it's pies (not dessert pies, but pies here, meat and gravy enclosed in a pastry). I had the most AMAZING pie; it was a lamb and apricot pie with mint-infused gravy. The gravy was poured all over the potatoes and veg on the plate as well...goodness! My mouth is watering at the thought of it again. The lamb was perfectly cooked as well and the gravy inside the pie was super thick and fantastic. Just oozed out of the pastry. After we left the pub, we went back to the Minster because some parts were open that weren't earlier in the day. I really do love Gothic cathedrals; this is the largest in England. It's got a great feel to it when the sun is going down.

We then went to this place that supposedly had amazing cocktails that my friend has always wanted to try. It had been so long since I had a nice, fruity cocktail. My booze intake since the end of May has primarily been beer, wine and whisky. This was one of those really fancy places, but not in the same way that it's an over-crowded, old building...not at all the ambiance of a fancy martini bar. We had a cocktail that was 7 types of rum and absinthe. It tasted fantastic. We tried a few more, woe be to my pocketbook, before we had to go back to the train station. We got to the platform early and sat on the benches and chatted some more before my 7pm train back. We are both in similar romantic situations and so grilled each other for advice as well as making another pact, since we were so successful in the last one.

The train arrived on time and I settled down with some films on my laptop and a BLT from the trolley. I got back into Glasgow at 10:45pm and since it was a Saturday night and the city was bustling, I decided to walk all the way home, mostly to placate my body for the egg and bacon roll, the lamb pie and the amount of beer I had. It was such a great time seeing my friend and he's planning on coming up to Glasgow after the holidays, though I'm sure we'll be seeing each other while both in Colorado.

In other news, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) had their AGM on Thursday at the Glasgow Science Centre. Having a full meeting in the middle of the week really threw off my productivity for Friday. They had a PhD induction thing in the morning for the new physics PhD students from around Scotland (geez, I'm almost 6 months into my PhD and I am still going to these things!) to talk about our expectations, fears, desires from the PhD process. It was nice to be referred to as 'Doctoral Candidates' though; its things like that which make it much more real. In the afternoon, the rest of the SUPA community showed up for lunch and a bunch of talks. It was filled with celebrities (in the physics world, I mean). Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell gave a talk on pulsars, which was very good. She is a hero for any female physicist. Also attending was Peter Higgs of the Higgs Boson, which anyone who has read any article on the Large Hadron Collider would recognise. The head of CERN also gave a talk on the current status of particle colliders. The talks after that were mind-numbingly dull and quite painful. There was a nice reception in the evening and then we all went home, exhausted after the full day.

That's all the new exciting things! My family is coming to visit on Saturday, so I don't know if I'll get a post up next week, but there will be an extra long, special Thanksgiving edition after they leave! Toodles!

Remember, remember...

I know this is a little late getting out, but better late than never! It has been unbearably cold recently. I mean unbearable. You know in all those Masterpiece Theatres where people keep getting super cold at night? All those images of Edwardian England of people in nightgowns shivering wrapped in shawls? Yeah, it's kind of like that. Well, exactly like that. It must be the damp air coming off of the ocean or the fact that I'm living practically at the Arctic Circle! The nights are now properly long. It's super hard to go back to work after afternoon tea/coffee at 4:30 because it's pitch dark outside, and it will only get worse before it gets better. All that aside though, I still love living here and the vast amount of pubs make the weather a little less painful. It is very satisfying to go into a warm, loud, bustling pub filled with laughing, cheering drinking Scotsmen while it's properly freezing outside. You never want to leave.

This week, in our post-Halloween revelry, we had a Glaswegian friend visiting from his post-doc position in Germany. We all went out for...guess it, guess it...curry! There were too many of us in the tiny restaurant and so they split up our two tables and served us separately. I was on the losing side of the table with myself and another chap getting properly grumpy about our food not coming out yet. They were almost done with their meal by the time we got ours. So we started a mini-war between the two tables by putting a moat (our water glasses) and a wall of fire (the candles from the table) on the border. The whole thing started when someone put the bowl of their rice halfway over the line and it was properly sent back over. Then they had to borrow some of our rice later and so we charged an export tax. It was super immature but very entertaining. I went to the Oran Mor afterwards with my office mate and we had a great chat about the holidays and living in Glasgow, etc.

The next day was super stressful in terms of work and so this other girl, who is also a PhD student, and myself in the group decided to hit the pub afterwards. The night turned out to be a bit too much like Bridget Jones for me, but I had a great time nonetheless. We had a few pints at the corner old-man pub, Tennents. Then her boyfriend, who she's living with, called and they invited me over for dinner because he was making risotto. They live in a super cute, domestic little flat and really made me want a proper flat more. I really miss having my own fantastic little place, with a dining area, a living room, a kitchen all to myself and the like. We had a bottle of wine (the next morning it was discovered that finishing a bottle and a half on top of three pints is, in fact, a poor idea) and had a great dinner. It was weird to be the 'single person' again with a couple. But don't get me wrong, they were super friendly and I had a fantastic night.

The next night I was properly excited about; it was my first Guy Fawkes Night in the UK! I was tired from going out every night and so decided to stay in and cook myself a really nice meal (I was inspired after the home-cooked meal from the night before). When I left the office at about 7:30pm and stepped outside, the whole city smelled like gunpowder and there were constant fireworks going off in all directions. I went to the grocer's and got a bunch of vegetables and a bottle of wine before heading home. I passed the neighbourhood underground station and there was a queue all the way around the block to go to the Glasgow Green to watch the city fireworks. Since I was in the mood for a quiet night, I decided to skip this and head home. Plus, being me, lots of explosions and people make me very nervous! So I went back to an empty flat (THANKFULLY) and made my meal, which took about an hour. Then settled in my room with a makeshift table from a chair and sat on my couch and watched V for Vendetta while I ate. Aside from the fact that it's my favourite film, it was brilliant to watch with explosions going on outside my window. Particularly at the part in the film when V is addressing the (futuristic) nation, lecturing them for not celebrating Guy Fawkes Day anymore.

The next day the main guy in our department (our 'dad') got appointed to a chairmanship position, a big deal, and was giving his inaugural lecture. It was at 3pm then they had champagne in the common room starting at 4. He kept toasting to Gravitational Waves and our university and our department. We didn't leave the common room until about 6:30 after about 7-10 glasses of champagne each. It was time for the weekly pub-go and so we headed to Cooper's for a few pints. After that, it was suggested to go back to one of our flats and drink whisky. So we did. I think I got home around 1am. It was a super fun night though. The next morning, not so much.

The night before, we had all decided to head to SeeWoo which is this big Chinese food distributor for the Asian population as well as all the Asian restaurants in the city. It was like WalMart, but filled with Chinese food. Thankfully, one of my friends is Chinese and so he helped us find really good sauces and rice. It was all super cheap too, which was fantastic. Now I have food for a very very long time. Afterwards we went back to his place and watched some anime before he decided to cook us all a big roast pork meal. It was SUPER good.

Sunday was spent lounging around the flat, cleaning my room, etc. Nothing too exciting, which is how Sundays should always be. Time is flying by now; I'm going to be back in Colorado in 5 weeks, which is almost incomprehensible. Until next week!

This is Halloween!

Oh man, do I love this holiday. My week was fairly uneventful as the majority of it was spent preparing for the joys of the weekend to come. Others share this sentiment as well. When we were chatting about our past weeks, no one really had anything to say. So, I won't bore you with the minute details of my days. Friday was my last day until after the holidays of demonstrating the Astronomy labs. It was a super fun group of students this year. They were enthusiastic and optimistic, particularly when stuff would go horribly wrong. Anyway, so I said farewell to them and now I have a giant stack of lab books to grade. We'll see how they did.

One of my friends is finishing up her PhD dissertation and is, understandably, a bit stressed out. She hasn't been out with anyone in ages and doesn't even come to coffee any more. So we decided to go out for a girl's science fiction night. The original plan was to dress up like science fiction babes and hit the town. But since we had all been pretty stressed, and poor, we decided to have a quiet night in at one of our flats. Two of us still insisted on dressing up though; me because I lost a ton of weight to fit into my costume and the other because she wanted to wear the Star Trek uniform I have. We ordered the usual curry from the usual restaurant and sure had a laugh when I had to answer the door in my costume to give him the money. Anyway, we drank some leftover bottles of wine from the flatwarming party the week before and hunkered down for some much needed chat. We ended up watching Love Actually later on in the evening, which was a lot of fun because I hadn't seen it in at least 4 years. At least. Thankfully, my diet was over, so I inhaled my Chicken Tikka Garam Masala and Naan. Inhaled it.

The next day, it was Halloween; one of my favourite holidays. I stayed in my pyjamas all day, sluggish from the curry baby in my stomach. I watched all the old Halloween classics: Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus and Rocky Horror while I worked on my Halloween costume. The theme of the party was "dead celebrities" so I was going as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, obviously, being my sexy, classy, stylish, American self. So my big project of the day was constructing a pillbox hat from an old charity shop hat I had bought. Surprisingly, it was super difficult to find sunglasses in Scotland, so I settled for an old pair of mine. My friend came over, dressed as Farrah Fawcett, to help me with my hair before the party. I have a LOT of hair, so it was pretty difficult to rat up, but I finally managed what I could and we headed out.

I had heard that Halloween was sort of a big deal in Glasgow, particularly in comparison to the rest of the UK, where it passes almost unnoticed, but nothing prepared me for stepping out of my flat at 8pm and seeing almost every person, of all ages, dressed in costume wandering the streets. Trick-or-treating obviously isn't that big of a deal in a big city with sketchy flats and even sketchier (is that a word?) people, but everyone was dressed up, going to pubs or parties. And I mean everyone was dressed up. It was excellent. So we walked the 10 minutes to the flat where the party was, me fine in my wool, 70's coat and my friend freezing in her swimsuit and tights.

We arrived to the party to find Charlie Chaplin already drinking, Keith Floyd (a famous British TV chef who just died) drinking his signature wine, Natalie Wood taping fishes to her shirt and Chairman Mao struggling with taping Chinese Flags to his uniform. More and more people arrived and everyone put in tons of effort. There were Che Guevara, Audrey Hepburn, Marie Antoinette, and so many other great costumes. Even one chap did a last minute Scotty (the deceased Star Trek actor) uniform and discovered that his camera case looked conspicuously like a Star Trek communicator and had to spend the rest of the evening convincing people that he really wasn't that into Star Trek to put together such an accurate costume. Even my friend with a giant, red beard that is actually his, came as a disturbingly convincing young Sir Alec Guinness (dressed as Obi-Wan of course).

All was fine and well until Karl Marx started making pints of white russians, which promptly put me to sleep on the couch, along with Freddie Mercury and Linda McCartney. I finally woke up, with nothing drawn on me, thankfully and walked home with a few girls. We left at about 1:30am and you still couldn't believe how many people were in costume on the streets partying.

This was the first Halloween party that I didn't have to organize and definitely the only one where everyone put in at least SOME effort. It was a fantastic time and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. For those of you on facebook, photos are up...so enjoy!

The next day, I finally suffered the never-ending, day-long hangover. I stayed in bed all day, watched half of the first season of the West Wing and a few films, eating nothing. Absolutely worth it though.

Sorry for the short post...see you next week!

Millport and Birthdays

I'm sitting here early on a Monday morning (the British Daylight Savings ended on Sunday) and the computer server is still down for repairs they started on Friday. So I figured I'd update this since I didn't do it last night. Well, it's definitely autumn now. It's cold and windy and rainy all day every day. Umbrellas are useless this time of year because of the gusts of wind. Sometimes, though, as long as it's not too cold or you're bundled up nicely, it can be quite refreshing to walk home through tons of rain and sleet.
Last week was one of those "wasted" weeks due to a "team-building" retreat the new PhD students in the Faculty of Physical Sciences had to attend. These are new Chemistry, Physics/Astronomy and Geology PhD students. They pick us up in a giant coach at 9am on Tuesday morning and drive us to the coast of Scotland to catch the ferry to the Isle of Cumbrae to stay at a research hostel for 3 days. It's basically meant to make us as miserable as possible so we manage to bond with each other. Which is quite effective. I mean, really, send us to a remote island off the coast of Scotland in the end of October with no escape and we will bond through our destitution. This trip is one of those legendary, awful, required experiences that has become almost a right-0f-passage for the University of Glasgow PhD scientists.
So we get to the island in time for lunch on Tuesday afternoon. When we were signing up (under threat of death if we didn't) we got dietary preferences and since I cannot eat dairy, I put that down. So we show up for lunch and it's some godawful (again, one of the legendary things is the atrocious food that is served) beige, cream pasta thing. Since I obviously cannot eat this, I ask about the non-dairy thing and they had a little plate set aside for me. My non-dairy meal was two slices of brown bread with lettuce and sprouts on top. No spreads or anything else. However, I gladly ate it instead of the alternative, though it was a bit pathetic. The others said that the pasta seemed to remove taste from their mouths. We wandered around the island for a bit to the town of Millport and popped in for tea at this tiny cafe which was your classic small village experience. Lots of old people who all know each other, but they were very friendly. We made our way back for our much-feared 'team-building' exercises. You know those stupid things you had to do at camp? Yeah, those. Crossing the 'bog' with only rope and planks of wood; wandering through the forest blindfolded following a rope; etc, etc. Thankfully it was only a few hours (with a break for tea) and that was the last time we had to do it all week.

The local pub (The Newton) advertised events in our hostel, which I'm pretty sure they organised just because we were going to be there. So the first night, they were advertising a pub quiz. We all showed up to the pub at about 7:30 and basically took over. I'm sure the town of Millport is used to that time of year where they are raided by 50 some-odd scientists for a few days. So we started drinking and chatting and watching a Rangers game on the telly until the quiz started at 9:30. We moved into the back, giant lounge and settled in for our pub quiz. The staff members were of course the winners and their prize was a bottle of vodka. Hilarious. The pub, of course, closed at 11:30 and we were promptly kicked out back to the hostel to hang out in the lounge and play poker until the wee hours of the morning.

The next day we had to give presentations that had been assigned to us before. Whoever organised the physics presentations did an awful job as we were not allowed to present on our own specific field and they were generic, boring lectures that only physicists might find interesting. Everyone else had presentations like "The Chemistry of Addiction" or "The Chemistry of Assassination" or "How can we use deep geological time to predict the future?" Our's were "The spin of a proton" and "Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry" and since they weren't our fields of expertise, we were useless when it came to questions. Not only that, but in our group of 4, only two of us actually showed up in Millport. We had slides from one of the guys but the other guy didn't even bother putting together his bit of the presentation. So ours was a bit of a sham, but it was a fairly relaxed atmosphere, so I think we did okay. They videotaped us and are going to give us copies to go over in the near future, which may be useful.

That night, the staff organised another pub quiz in the lounge of the hostel to keep us out of The Newton as long as possible. The prize for this quiz was half a bottle of vodka, to everyone's amusement. It was mostly science-related questions with a bit of Glasgow Uni history thrown in. After that, we went down to The Newton for a karaoke night. One of the guys I was hanging out with had brought a bottle of Czech rum so we took the long way to the pub, along this little, unlit trail on the coast and drank some of the rum to complete the ambiance. This pathway made it feel more like we were on an island in Scotland; and the rum didn't hurt. The karaoke was a blast because you got to see a lot of people really come out of their shells. Everyone had a good time and it ended in the most Glaswegian way possible: the organiser in the pub announced the last song and ordered everyone on the dance floor to sing along to "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers, which is an extremely Glaswegian song. So everyone was jumping on the dance floor singing along holding our pints. Brilliant. We all got kicked out, of course, straightaway at 11:30. So a few of us went to the benches on the coast and drank more of the rum (which we had stored in my bag while at the pub) and talked about politics until about 1am. It really was a great bonding night for everyone. So really, they should just stick us on a craggy island with music and booze and miserable weather and we'll all be friends by the end of it.

The next day about half of us woke up on time and we had to put together improvised talks on current issues in the science world: funding, climate change, government vs industry, etc. We were all hungover and did a mildly decent job before hopping back on the coach to take us back to Uni. On the way back we all were talking about how much work we had to get done and so would go in when we got back, at about 1:30, but as soon as we saw sight of the university, none of us could really be bothered and so went straight home.

I got back to my flat with an email notice that it was my 2nd supervisor's birthday and we were all going out at 6:30 for dinner and drinks. Of course. The fun never stops. So I met up with them and we went to this interesting Persian restaurant that had just opened up near the university. It was really great food. We went from there to the Doublet which has an upstairs bar (I know I talked about this before) and a jukebox. So we played lots of cheezy music for a few hours over some drinks. We then headed to the Uisce Beatha to settle in and top off the evening. They were playing Jaws on the telly without sound so we basically just watched that, narrating along the way. On the way home, at 1am, the dreaded Scoobie Snack was suggested, which means we have to eat one. So we did. Then went straight to bed and woke up feeling not-so-hot the next day.

Friday was a big birthday day for everyone as one of my friends was turning 30 and someone else in the department was turning 50. I took my friend out for lunch to celebrate as she's terrified of the passage of time and wasn't coping with the new decade very well. I went demonstrating at the observatory for a few hours in the afternoon then went back to her house afterwards to help her get ready for her party. We opened up a bottle of wine early and watched television for a little while. Her swiss relatives showed up at 8pm on-the-dot and everyone else trickled in later on. It was a great, relaxed little party for everyone.

Saturday I was invited to have supper at the house of the Astronomer Royal of Scotland. He invites a few new PhD students and new staff members over to his house every year from the University of Glasgow. It was a really nice house just on the other side of the Botanic Gardens. Him and his wife made some excellent food for all of us and we spent the night there having civilised chat and great curry (yes, they served curry, the delicacy of Glasgow). I left a bit early as it was my 5th night in a row of drinking. So I went home through the mist and the rain and crawled into my nice warm bed.

Sunday was a very very lazy day spent watching The West Wing and Disney movies. Can't complain. Here's to a new week! Ta ta for now.

The Yon Bonnie Banks and the Wee Craggy Shores...

Wow, what a week what a week. I currently am lying in bed on Monday morning fighting off a particularly nasty cold that has spread around the department. It seems that once the students return, they bring with them some awful plagues.

So last Monday, I had to go to a First Aid Training Course taught by the infamous Tom. This guy is a giant, ex-army Glaswegian man with one of those inscrutable accents. I really can't even describe the hilarity of having him around, slagging off the university, first aid techniques ("aye, 'tis better en thae militairy") and such. He also warned us at the beginning that he'll "bee callen thae gar-rils [girls] 'swee'art' far 'tis a ganheratiun-ul thang an' if ye dunnae like it, I'll call ye 'sir'" because apparently a girl tried to file a sexual harrassment suit one time against him. He was completely harmless though and very nice. Lots of bizarre stories. He had one that took place on a remote roadway up in the Highlands that is supposedly nicknamed "yankee road". Now, I don't know if you know this, because I certainly didn't when I first moved here, but calling an American a "yank" is extremely derogatory. He was kind enough to apologise to me for saying it, though it doesn't really bother me too much. It just helps me know if people are being particularly unkind to me. The other great thing about him was that he constantly repeated that if you come upon a scene make sure you "look up for danger". He repeated this so many times, that some of my friends, after they took this course, later started a band called Look Up for Danger. That's how much of a legend he is. Oh and another thing, and this was really weird as I keep finding words that don't mean the same in American English: so Tom was talking about a car crash, for example, and would say "you come across the scene and there are 4 casualties" so I'm like, "great! call the mortuary and walk away". Thankfully I didn't say that out loud, but it took me half the day to realise that "casualty" here means the same thing as "victim" in America and vice-versa. So weird. Later, when I was relaying this to people at the pub their response was "is it possible that ER is a lot more grim than we previously thought?" for they didn't know the difference either. So funny.

The next day was our friend's birthday and he, unfortunately, came down with a nasty cold (the same one I've got now, I believe) and we were supposed to go out for his birthday. He canceled our nice reservations at last minute, so there was a scrambled effort for curry instead, since we had spent the day preparing for a big meal. Mmmm Lamb Saag. I also had my first Gravitational Waves SUPA course. So the Scottish University Physics Alliance offers courses around Scotland through Video Conferencing for PhD students to learn more in a certain topic they feel they should know more about. It was really nice and relaxed. Since Glasgow is the university for Gravy Waves, the lecture is held in person there, by my professors.

Wednesday was a particularly busy day. I spent the morning preparing for my presentations I had to give that evening at the TeleCon then in the afternoon went off to the Observatory to prepare the labs for this Friday. I hadn't been to the observatory before and it was a bit further than I previously had imagined. We drove, of course, myself, the professor and three guys (two PhD students and one postdoc) all went down to make sure everything was ready to go. It was a really cute observatory, pretty standard actually. Lot of classrooms, labs, offices and a few telescopes. Oh, and a little makeshift planetarium in the back. I came back from that and gave almost an hour long update to our LIGO working group at our weekly telecon. I was updating on a new code, presenting a proposal for a new project I'm going to be doing and presenting a full known pulsar list I had put together. All were well received by everyone, though it was very exhausting.

On Thursday I had to go to a Communication Workshop. Yes. Enough said. Though the one thing that was interesting/funny was that the guy running it was a lot like Mr Weasley from the Harry Potter films. He talked for a while about learning how to give and receive compliments. The receiving bit was interesting because he was talking about how the British culture is wired to bat off compliments in a defensive mode. Such as "That's a nice tie you're wearing today." "Oh this is really old." It was very much geared toward teaching us how to teach others and ask good questions and communicate to different audiences. But yeah, pretty painful.

Friday we went out for the usual pub-go and I had a lovely lovely veggie burger. A few people dribbled in and out of the pub and I left relatively early to go home and talk to a friend but also because I got a text message that evening asking if I wanted to climb Ben Lomond the next day. Ben Lomond is another munro (higher than 900 metres) and looks over Loch Lomond, the largest loch in Scotland about an hour outside of Glasgow. I was super psyched about this because we had been having fantastic weather that week and I wanted to climb a proper peak in good weather. Also, when I first moved here, my dad and I went to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs with a little tour bus. I remember seeing Ben Lomond and thinking about how I would get to climb it one day. This was also a perfect opportunity because I love the feeling of nature in the autumn and Scotland has some gorgeous season change. We met up bright and early, just three of us and drove out through the back roads into the highlands. It was some great winding roads with so many colours and the sun rising over the hills. I've said this before, but it does feel like Colorado a lot of the time, just a bit more rolly. Kind of like driving through the foothills. Anyway, it was absolutely spectacular and the mist hovering over the fields definitely added to that ambiance. We went through Drymen, which is a cute little town on the edge of the loch where apparently a lot of people get married, then up the west side of the water. We decided to take the "tourist" way up the mountain as it had been a while since I had gone hiking. This was a long, easy walk up the back of the mountain. It had it's steep bits but would then flatten for a while, repeating this the entire way. The way up the mountain took a little less than 3 hours and felt so good when we finally made it. One of the women had to turn back due to a stitch in her side, but she was a good sport about it since she's basically grown up on these mountains. But the other woman and myself sat on the top of the mountain and nibbled on the obligatory sandwiches and tea as we looked over the hills of the highlands.

We took the non-tourist side down, which especially at the beginning was a near-vertical descent, but gave some much more spectacular views of the loch. It was particularly gorgeous near the end when it went down into the trees. Looking back on the mountain, you could see a steady stream of people going up the tourist way as it was later in the day, so thankfully we didn't do that. It was super cute though, hearing all the families, as we got closer to the bottom, with the little Glaswegian kids moaning about the hike and the parents shouting "look around! you should be so lucky to see this!" ... total flashback to my childhood of hiking in the Rockies. There was a beautiful meadow area just over the trees that looked over the loch and I think it would be worth doing if there wasn't enough time/energy to hike the whole mountain, to go this way up to the meadow and have a picnic. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day.

That night we were going out again to the Butterfly and the Pig restaurant (look at the link, it's the cutest website) in the city centre to make up for the missed birthday from before. One of our friends came down from Edinburgh for it as well. After the fantastic meal (ending with Sticky Toffee Pudding, of course) we went to St George's Square which is beautiful at night and went to the old Counting House for a night-cap. Being absolutely knackered from the hike earlier (though thankfully those of us who went didn't feel as guilty about stuffing our faces) we called it an early night, but it was super fun. So that's the end of another week! Ta for now!

The Scoobie Snack

Sorry for being a day late, but I was at a concert last night and didn't have time. On last Monday we went out to Mr India's with the usual crowd. I had some rather disappointing news that day and was not in the best of mood, so curry was lovely. We got the usual and lots of Lal Noofan and nan. Afterwards, I went to my friend's flat for some wine and a chat. It was lots of fun and I really enjoyed getting to know her more.

On Tuesday I had some fantastic meetings with past and present supervisors. It was a good chance to catch up and we had some great talks about what needs to get done. My current supervisor sorted out all the "new" things I have to do and was very supportive in figuring it out. My past supervisor called on a conference call and talked to me about our past research and had me start working seriously on our paper. Well, I have been writing it, but now I've got to do work for it. Not fun or okay. Still it was good talking to him and we had a game plan by the end. After all these meetings I went into the common room where they had been having a welcome event for the new physics students. Events for undergrads here tend to be filled with free booze. Great for us, because we can attend or when it's over we can go pick up the leftovers. Anyway, I went in for some beer and started chatting to another girl who is a PhD student that I haven't spent much time with. She wanted to go hang out at the pub and so we went together. It was super great just chatting with this girl about life and things. She's currently watching all of The West Wing right now (as am I) for the first time, so we had some great chat about politics and boys.

On Wednesday I had super fun. Some of my parents' friends came to visit in the afternoon. These were my first visitors since I've properly settled here. I showed them around and hopefully they enjoyed themselves. I don't really know though, since they left at 6:30 to go back to the hotel and sleep. Since I had my whole night planned out to spend with these people, I sent out a plea for some socialising and was met with spectacular return. My 2nd supervisor was taking out the guy who gave the visitor colloquium. I met him in Budapest and he's teaching at Cardiff right now. So I met him and a few others at Mr India's (of course). Adding to the drinks that I had with my visitors, we had a few more beers with curry, then went out to the Lios Mor for some whiskey. We chatted about everything under the sun (and beyond) until they closed 7 or 8 whiskeys later. As we walked back up Byres Road I branched off to go back to my flat. I got called back across the road with the declaration that we were going to a friend's flat for some more whiskey. The way up there we passed Maggie's mobile chip shop. Home of the Scoobie Snack. Now I had yet to experience this, as did the Cardiff visitor so we were pursuaded to get one. This is arguably the best thing that one can consume the way home from many many drinks. It's a burger patty, layered with a sausage patty, layered with bacon (remember, bacon here is like canadian bacon), then an egg then cheese, all on a massive roll. Again, best thing you can have at that time of night. Of course, you can feel your heart screaming out in pain as you eat it. We finally all went home after one whiskey (we decided we had tapped out at the Lios Mor) and crawled into bed. We all took the next morning off (really hoping the Cardiff guy made his 7am flight) to recover.

The next two days were relatively uninteresting at work, minus a £46 hair trim. We had a party at our flat on Friday night which was super fun (actually) and of course left everyone with many regrets the next day. I slept until 4pm the next day due to a massive headache (the vodka and the red wine punch is probably what did us in). We then had a poker night at my 2nd supervisor's flat which finally ended after 5 hours of poker playing. We ended with beer and el-cheapo sausage rolls at 2 am. I really need to stop eating crap like that in the middle of the night. We had a concert the next day with a few friends that met up at the pub then went to the concert. I must have had a rock in my shoe or something because I woke up this morning with a blood blister the size of my fist on the bottom of my shoe. Which is where you will find me now: my foot elevated and in much pain, on my back writing this in bed. Ta for now!

Being 'New'

So the day after I got back from Budapest, I had to be up bright and early and down at the Glasgow Science Centre to have a booth on our Institute of Gravitational Research. I got to spend two days explaining space-time theory to 5 year old kids. Try it sometime; it's fun. I met the token precocious kids who can sit there for hours explaining to me about the atmosphere and planets and asteroids and eclipses while their overwhelmed mothers finally take a breather. I loved it. The best bit is when you get to explain something to these hugely inquisitive kids and you can see them understand something and you know that they'll spend inordinate amounts of time explaining it to their mothers that evening.

The walk down to the Science Centre was absolutely lovely. I love the fall and I walked down Kelvin Way along Kelvingrove Park. The leaves were changing and there was the necessary crispness to the air. It was a beautiful walk; particularly on Sunday where no one is around until maybe noon. I also crossed the River Clyde which I always enjoy as you can look down and see the shipping yards. The GSC's cafeteria had a beautiful veiw across the Clyde to the University tower.

Speaking of the cafeteria, one thing I hugely love about Scotland is the attitude toward haggis. It seems so exotic in the US and I remember when leaving and people were asking me to tell them the first time I had it. You remember when I had it, it was a few weeks back now. I've had it a lot since then as it's readily available and seems to be a staple of the diet. Can't really blame them, either, as it's filling and nutritious and really doesn't taste that bad. No, really. Anyway, the reason I started down this path, is that I have had haggis on multiple occasions now with no difficulty or really second thought. I got my lunch for free at the GSC and when I went to the cafeteria, the hot option for the day was haggis and chips. Great! No problem. Didn't think twice. Until I was sitting at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking over the Clyde, eating my haggis and chips with ketchup did I realise how actually surreal the whole thing was. Funny anecdote, too, the Scots always seem to be completely surprised when haggis makes it onto some 'weird foods that we dare you to try' list. The only equivalent for Americans I can think of to really drive the point home is if something like hot dogs were on that list (which, arguably, I feel safer eating haggis than hot dogs). Something that's so familiar that for whatever reason the rest of the world is terrified of.

Last week was the first week for the new PhD students and the term in general. I helped out with the new 3rd year physics labs and their 'teamworking exercises' for two days. Hey, I got paid and got free lunch. Can't complain. Though I did have to deal with a particularly arsey group of Glaswegian boys hell-bent on making trouble. All in good spirits of course, but I definitely had to keep them from cheating on a more-than-regular basis. The last bit of the last day though did end up being pretty beneficial when they brought in some professionals in the field of physics to discuss their careers. Our groups had 45 minutes to come up with questions to ask them. I managed to convince them that out of anything that week, this would be really valuable, because it's the time to start thinking post-degree. So after they came up with some questions, they started asking me about being a PhD student. I'm pretty sure that I convinced 8 boys to go into research ::pat on back::. Because, really, it is a pretty sweet life.

The main annoyance of the week was having to go to all the 'orientation' stuff for the new students. Since I came at a weird time, a few things were hastily explained to me and I was left to figure out the rest myself. Which I did. Also, just being back from Budapest, I now actually have things to do, believe it or not. Now I have to do an unbelievable amount of stupid courses and teamwork events when I could be doing real stuff. It wouldn't have been that bad my first month, when I was still sorting stuff out, but I'm to the point now that I'm working on the weekend just to get things done. Also, some of the other new PhD students (who feel like their about 5 years younger than me) are the biggest bunch of condescending, pathetic, arsey, sexist, Oxbridge boys I've ever met. Not to be a snob, but not only have I been here for four months and figured things out, I've also actually done research for two years before that. For whatever reason, they still feel the need to introduce me to professors and ask if I need help with my computer. Oh for frak's sake.
Oh well, the proof is in the publications. Ta for now!

Goulash, Scientists and Home

Wow, two weeks has already past. Sorry for missing a week, but I was busy living the high-life in Budapest, Hungary. Time is really flying by; autumn is already in the air and I absolutely love the feel of it. It seems that all places feel the same during the fall. It's getting dark early now and leaves are everywhere. So to sum up the first few undocumented days: I'm pretty sure I contracted the Swine Flu and stayed home from work for two agonising days, which I don't really remember as I was lying in bed and praying for death, but it passed quickly. We went out for curry the next night and I stocked up on some Lamb Tikka Madras which satisfactorily cleared the sinuses and perked me back up, just in time to go to Budapest.

Now the bit that really matters and why you're probably reading this. On Friday morning, I met up with a few friends and one of their girlfriends drove us to the airport. I partook in my first tradition of the Glaswegian traveller, a pint before the flight. No matter what time. Including 10:30 am. For the first time (and definitely not the last) I had a pint of lager with eggs and black pudding and bacon. Oh Scotland. Little did I know this was only the beginning of my exciting discovery of how Glaswegian physicists travel. The flight was pretty simple: the regular commuter flight from Glasgow to London then a quick layover in Heathrow's Terminal 5 (which, if you've ever been, is basically an airport attached to a mall) before heading off to Budapest on British Airways. On the way, I listened to a file that I put on my iPod of Hungarian and how to say hello and thank you (those were the only ones I had any chance of remembering). Don't worry, I didn't listen to "hello" and "thank you" repeatedly on a 2 1/2 hour flight; I interspersed it with some music. We landed in Budapest in the early evening and all crammed into a taxi to the Ramada. It was an interesting drive as it felt more like the United States than anything. It was a wide motorway, we drove on the right side of the road and passed a giant strip-mall with a Tesco (sort of like Safeway). Once we got to the Ramada, we ran into some other physicists in the lobby.

Before I keep going, I should probably explain what I was attending. This was a regular meeting for the international collaboration with whom I work. Though we communicate regularly about our progress via email and weekly telephone conferences, we have meetings four (soon to be three) times a year in person to accomplish the things that are difficult to do over the phone, like discuss particularly complicated issues that require lots of input. The weekend consists of meeting in our smaller groups (I work in continuous waves, so my speciality is pulsar analysis) in conference rooms. It's two 8+ hour days of basically an extended telecon. The rest of the week feels more like a proper science conference where people give scheduled presentations. The difference lies in the fact that we know all these people and it's all within a specific field. These meetings run from Monday through Thursday and is mostly a chance to exercise our skills in multi-tasking and catching up on emails and various side-projects.

Okay, back to the Ramada. Because everyone knows each other in these meetings, we run into each other everywhere. After checking in and myself discovering that I had somehow landed a giant, king-sized suite, we met up with people in the lobby. I almost cried with happiness at my bed, but not before walking into my room with all the lights off and not turning on and the television on a blue screen that said "Wilkommen Frau Macdonald". Totally creepy; I thought I had walked into some sort of Eastern European horror film. Finally, I noticed the small box next to the door that I somehow figured needed my room card to activate. Granted, it was about 2 minutes of wandering around a semi-dark room but I eventually got there. Score so far: Erin 1 Budapest 0...haven't been defeated yet. Though the language is completely inscrutable, so I guess Budapest more has a score of 10000 but who's counting?

We got directions from the front desk to go visit Ráday utca, where there are tons and tons of restaurants, all with a good portion of tables outdoors and as you walk down the street, you actually walk in between the restaurant and the tables. It was beautiful, warm weather, far into the night. We split up and about 8 of us got a table together at a restaurant called Jaffa. Later, after we ate, some people from our group at Milwaukee came in and settled down. There was some mixing up and down the street, but I just settled with a bunch of new people at Jaffa and had some beer and chat. They were a really fun group of people and we ended up staying there until about 2am. Again, this was just the beginning of my week of socialising and partying. Everyone was welcoming and happy and pleasant company.

The next day, Saturday, was the first day of the face-to-face meeting. We met up in the lobby and wandered over to the university that was hosting the meeting. This "wandering" included crossing the Danube River which was thrilling and exciting. Though, contrary to Strauss' opinion, the Danube is much less blue as it is a browny-grey. Still lovely though and makes the Clyde River look like a creek. The meeting started at 9am and took place in a conference room with about 20 people. Everyone had their laptops out and got straight to work. Lunch was provided for us every day and was a great exploration in the culinary delights of Hungarian catering. Without going into details, I'll leave you with the following: Brilliant at meats and sauces, not so brilliant with dessert. One particular one was a chestnut puree that I still maintain tasted like cloves and pot blended with flour and water and pressed through a play-dough spagetti-maker. Another one was a dry couscous with raisins and mango chutney-like topping. I don't recommend either though it did make for some great stories.

On Saturday at lunch, we looked out the window and saw this weird spiky glass building. We decided to go for an adventure and discover what it was. Totally worth it. The regular crowd from Glasgow, the former and the present group all rallied outside for our grand hour-long adventure. Turned out it was totally worth it; turned out to look like a half-overgrown bunker, half-modern avant garde building surrounded with barbed wire. Absolutely bizarre and hilarious. The best bit was that there was a running track that led into the barbed-wire area and promptly died. Excellent discovery and led to much speculation.

Oh man, I'm only up to Saturday afternoon and I already have carpal tunnel syndrome. Okay, I'll have to speed things up a bit. Well, that night we took the Budapest trams (a totally great mode of transportation) to the city centre, called the Oktogon. We found a great restaurant just off of the square and about twelve of us sat down for dinner. Many pints and some great goulash later, we went wandering around trying to find some excitement. We found some street performers singing Evita and Monty Python songs, so, needless to say, we wandered on. We found this brilliant bar area that was all outdoors and gradually went underground. The underground area had a cracking band playing that we could just wander in and out of. After having some beers outdoors, we decided to check out the band and it turned out to be this crazy, tribal, trippy group that had 3 drummers and a singer who chanted what sounded like old Aborigine songs. It was absolutely fantastic and we all left sweaty and hoarse and sore. We don't sleep until we're dead, though, we made our way back to Ráday utca. Funny anecdote: before we decided to get more drinks, we had all intensions of going to bed. Two guys saw a rickshaw and decided to take that home. While they arranged the trip, we walked on ahead. They caught up to us and the guy asked where they were going. When they said, he said it was too far. So they got off and paid him to catch up with us in a rickshaw. Got a great picture out of it though. So we went to Ráday utca and found a bar that was still open so we went for some cocktails. They eventually got us to leave by mixing the third round poorly and putting on some really awful 80's Norwegian pop music. So we left and actually, finally went home. At 3:30am. It is a good thing most of these chaps are no longer at Glasgow or I'd never finish my PhD. Brilliant company though.

The next day was the second day of our face-to-face meetings. Rather uneventful (thankfully). We wandered to the Danube during lunch and enjoyed the sun. They had a joint meeting at 5 that ran pretty late, so we met up again on Ráday utca for dinner. We hung out at the restaurant until 11pm and went home for an "early" night. This ended up with me chatting online to a bloke who was frantically trying to finish his talk for the next morning so I stayed up as his cheerleading squad. Went to sleep at 3:30am again. Dang it.

The next day was the first with the proper meetings taking place. This was with all 180ish people there and was in a large hall filled with tables and extension cords for the generally accepted lack-of-interest in non-relavent discussions and subsequent news/email checking. Again, everyone glued to their laptops. This night was our conference dinner at the Marriott looking over the Danube in a ballroom. Amazing setting. As the Glaswegians do, we went out for a pint in the 20 free minutes we had before dinner started. The dinner was fantastic though they limited us to one bottle of red and one bottle of white wine for a table of ten Scots. We discovered that the hotel bar downstairs sold wine for half the price they were going to charge us for more bottles. So we (and by we, I mean the delegated group of large, intimidating boys who were less likely to be questioned) went downstairs and bought some drinks. We then went to the balcony and looked over the night lights of Budapest. Tired of spending too much for drinks at the fancy hotel we decided to take a large group of people to the underground/outdoors bar we had found two nights before. There ended up being about 30+ people there and this old Irish guy bought rounds and rounds of Polinka, a strong, vaporous Hungarian liquor. We left for the hotel around 3am again. Dang it.

The next day we went off in the afternoon to go see the House of Terror. It wasn't a horror house, thankfully, but rather a museum on Nazi and Communist occupation of Budapest in the headquarters that were actually used. It was super depressing but really informative. It started at the top floor and worked down. We all got rushed into a life at about 5:30, figuring we were being ushered out (again, language barrier) but the doors closed and the lights went out. Going through my (and by the faces on the others, also their) mind: this is it. do people ever come out of this museum? am I going to die? is this the "Terror" bit of this house? Then a video came on and this Hungarian guy started talking (subbed in English) about how he was forced to kill prisoners and to what extent. The lift started slowly moving down while this played. It worked well because we were all sufficiently feeling a bit uneasy when the doors opened into the basement prisons and gallows to end the tour. We did not die. We then went to the pub next to our hotel that had pints of beer for just over a pound. This successfully helped us forget the horrors we had just heard about 20th century Hungary. Again, dinner at Ráday utca for some brilliant German food. One of the blokes got a "Transylvanian Wooden Meat Platter" which was literally a pile of different meats on a slab of wood with some pickled veg on the side. Classic. We then went back to the pub by our hotel and had some "proper" Polinka (i.e. not served in bulk out of plastic shot glasses) that was quite fantastic. 2:30am this time. Doing better.

The next day, the meetings ended at 12:30 so a few of us decided to go to "Memento Park" that one person's friends told us about. We found instructions on a map to get there. It's a famous park that has old Communist statues. This park didn't really seem to be on the map, but there were the instructions. We had to take a tram to the end then catch a bus to the outskirts of Budapest. After finally deciphering the Hungarian bus stop, we realised that our stop is the 28th from where we were. So we were WAY out there. Thankfully the only people that ride that bus who don't know where they're going (and subsequently stand out) are only ever going to Memento Park so this old Hungarian counted down stops for us. We finally made it and it was absolutely amazing. It stood on the top of this hill at the literal end of Budapest. We knew this because there was a sign on one side of the road that said "Budapest" and one on the other side that said "Budapest" with an X through it. The sun was setting and illuminated all of these old, giant statues left over from communism. It's very hard to describe, but it was basically a field on top of a hill that was just littered with about 15 statues. Absolutely phenomenal. We made it back just fine. This was the last night that all of them were there before they left for Munich for Oktoberfest (something my fiscally responsible, read: poor, self had to opt out of). So we did our usual routine: pub near hotel, dinner on Ráday utca then hit the Irish Pub next to one of the hotels. Fantastic, cracking time.

The last day of the meeting was a half-day so I had a full afternoon with no delinquent Glaswegians with whom to have fun, so I was able to explore the city a bit more. Since my camera died, I finally summoned the courage to find batteries with lots of pointing. Success. I was able to walk around the Danube until my feet were bleeding taking lots of great photos. I got some take-home felafel (amazing) and went to bed at a respectable hour.

The next day was the flight home. Easy enough and uneventful. Flying into Glasgow was a revelation though, because as we came through the clouds I got that fantastic feeling that you get when you've been gone for a long time and you finally see your home. It's like the city is giving you a hug, welcoming you home. You recognise streets and buildings and a wonderful feeling of comfort comes over you. This is how I felt, which means Glasgow is my home now. Deep in my conscious I'm home. I got back to my flat, went to the research club to meet up with the Friday night drinkers, got some deep-fried black pudding and chips on the way home. Living the true Glasgow life.

Pubs, Kilts and Drums, Oh My!

Well, here I sit, the cars rolling by, bagpipes in the distance (no joke), Frasier on the telly and I'm wrapped up in a cardigan sipping some tea as I write this. Ah to have a cold on a Sunday. The department has been absolutely beleaguered with illness. All week I've been sitting in my office hearing sniffles, hacks and coughs all down the hallway. It was inevitable and I was finally slowly overcome throughout the course of the weekend.

Aside from a horde of Visigoths storming the citadels of my immune system, I have had quite an eventful week. Tuesday night I came back to my flat after a day at work to a rather unwelcome and unpleasant set of people in my house (visitors for another flatmate, whom I believe were talking about me right before I came in). I passed around the obligatory plea for help from my coworkers for a pub outing. A suggestion came up to finally go to Crosslands, also known as the "Trainspotting pub". For those of you who have seen the brutal, disturbing, yet heartwarming film that is Trainspotting would recognise many of the places around my flat as locations from the movie. Though it is set in Edinburgh, there is only one scene, the opening one, that is filmed there, the rest was all mostly filmed around Glasgow and particularly around my flat. Anyway, if you have seen the film, you would no doubt remember the infamous scene where Bigby throws a pint off of a balcony onto a woman's head (again, heartwarming) and proceeds to threaten to find the person who did it. This is a real pub a few streets away which still has the balcony and all. It has been much renovated in the last years, but the outside still looks as shady as ever. I'm really glad we went though, I had a great time. The night was simply two others, the IT guy and my second supervisor, downing pints and discussing video games. After a few rounds we decided to go back to my supervisor's flat and open a bottle of whiskey that we had bought at the whiskey festival. Needless to say, I did learn the lesson to never, ever go out drinking with two Glaswegian men in the middle of the week.

This lesson was learned since I had to be up and at the university at 900 am to help out with our University Open Day. Yes, I spent the day greeting wide-eyed curious young'uns and their excited, proud, if somewhat overbearing parental units and explaining to them why they should go to the University of Glasgow and study physics. I was the token student as I moved overseas to attend this program and am very proud of that decision. I have done these sort of events at every university I've ever attended and I quite like trying to convince kids to go into physics. We had well over 400 students come through our department mostly asking what they would need to get in, not needing convincing to attend, which is a really great sign. I stood representing the Astronomy department as well as the Institute for Gravitational Research. IGR had some excellent visuals to explain General Relativity as well as our detectors. People were really inquisitive about it. I was helping out with a few of the Astronomy PhD students with whom I really do not connect. They are really immature and cliquey and had a difficult time actually doing their job. I much more get along with the IGR crowd who are a bit older and more responsible. In general, we had a great day which was very successful for the department.

That night was the World Cup Qualifiers for Scotland. This was an important match because we would be placed in the World Cup based on if we won or lost. This was one hell of an experience. We all met up at Cooper's just down the street from my flat at about half-five, two hours before the match started. This way, we were settled and with seats. Good thing, too, as I was completely overwhelmed by the experience. By the time we had food and pints flowing, it was nearing kickoff for the match and the place was standing room only. And I mean standing room. Like front row of a concert standing room. This place was absolutely packed. Simply one pub out of the many, many choices on every street of Glasgow. I imagine any other pub with a decent amount of television screens would be the same. People were dressed in kilts or wearing a Scottish flag as a cape. Not everyone of course, but there were enough to raise the spirits. The national anthem was sung along and the entire place was enraptured for the full two hours. It was quite a disappointing game as we lost 1-0, but there were many, many close goals that strained everyone's blood pressure in the place. It was, though disappointing, a fantastic experience of Scottish life.

Thursday we had our first Journal Club meeting of the term at the department. This was especially fun for me as I was the only one who hadn't been to one before. It's only about 8-10 people: professors, post-docs and PhD students and it's basically a book club for scientists. We read, well "read" journal articles every week and discuss them as well as keeping everyone informed on how their professional careers are going. I had some exciting news to share about the project that I worked on at Colorado, but I'm going to keep you in suspense for next week as it's still in the works! I really enjoyed the club, though, I just usually really like things like that. I like being reminded about the collaborative and dynamic field we're working in.

Friday night was a fun department outing as we were celebrating someone finishing their PhD and leaving and another person's 30th birthday. We had birthday cake at coffee at 4 before heading to the Research Club, which has been closed for the last month then heading to The Rock for the going-away party. We had some great chat about Halloween, relationships, travel, the usual. Not too exciting, just a regular Friday night out.

On Saturday, get this, no, wait, brace yourself! We had SUN!! It was a gorgeous, cloudless day in Glasgow. Though I was starting to feel under the weather, I simply could not let this beautiful day pass me by. I had a bit of clothes shopping to do down in the city center and I was dying to pick up some new books to read. This week is fresher's week (basically the UK version of orientation week) so there are lots of students and the west end was absolutely packed with people, both due to term starting and due to the weather. I made it to the city centre and did some awful clothes shopping, but once that was out of the way, and I was freshly armed with new styles of black I made my way down to Borders. I ended up buying lots of new biographies, Carrie Fisher, Dawn French and the Julie/Julia book. I went back to the Botanic Gardens across from my flat and read for the rest of the evening in the sun before heading out to the Uisce Beatha pub in Woodlands; another one I've always wanted to try. This is a place I could make my regular.

Before I went back to the Botanic Gardens, I should let you in on the awesome band I discovered on Buchanan Street. I was walking back to the underground I hear these pounding drums resonating down the street accompanied by a single bagpipe. It was so tribal and original and seemed to be right out of every Scottish cliche. I'm not going to complain. This is one of the things I wanted when I moved here. It was 7 men, aged 20-70 who were donning kilts and tattoos, channelling my beloved late Uncle Mike, pounding away at the drums. Sooooooo excellent. You can watch a video of one of their performances in the same location. If you watch until the end, you can get a semi-decent shot of a more-than-decent-looking man and down the city centre of Glasgow. Just watch the video at this link: Clanadonia For those of you who don't have the time/technology to watch the video, here's the picture of a few of the group that I'll leave you with until next week...
I. Love. Scotland.

2-0!

This week was a bit difficult to maintain motivation as I had a week of being away. I continued to present my code with the group, but we're having small technical difficulties, so it's a slow, monotonous procedure. I pass my time, though, by reading review papers and going over scientific aspects of what we're doing. It does not help, either, that my supervisor is out of town.

My flat is in a bit of a state of turmoil. The floors in the bathroom and the kitchen are in a pretty poor state and so our landlord is having them replaced as well as getting us new cupboards and a refrigerator. Our shower is also broken, and my disdain for taking baths has only increased. Hopefully though it will all be finished today and we can move our kitchen out of the hallway and back where it belongs. I have a pleasant little maze leading to my bedroom door created out of piles of dishes, dried foods and a cabinet. I'm pretty sure that one of my flatmates put a perishable item in this giant mass as it is beginning to smell. Ugh. Again, it should be done today. Fingers crossed. It is pretty entertaining, though, to have a flat crawling with sweaty, giant, Glaswegian builders. They're all very nice, but definitely skivvied off a bit early on Saturday due to the Scotland vs Macedonia World Cup qualifier (Scotland won, 2-0... woo hoo!).

Due to the flat being redone, my flatmate and I went out for dinner on Thursday night at O'Couture, a little student joint in the city centre. They were having a special on, so we were able to get an extremely cheap meal. It was a lot of fun, but I felt bad for the place because it seems to be bleeding customers. It has such a nice ambiance, but nothing to really set it apart from the many many similar places all down that street.

Friday night we went out to Coopers on Great Western Road. Since many of the department play football after work on Fridays it was just myself and one other guy for a bit, but it was nice to chat with him as I didn't know him that well. The rest all showed up and we got some food and hung out there for quite some time. The next day I went and did some shopping on Byres Road though the weather has been absolute shite for the last few weeks. Only now, as I write this, can I see a glimmer of sunlight coming through the trees; the first I've seen in at least a week. Over the weekend, the clouds were so heavy, it felt like perpetual dusk.

A few of us went to go see District 9 on Saturday night. It was fantastic to see a new, well-thought-out science fiction film about which I knew nothing. There was a little too much in terms of medical procedures, but that really served to prove to me that my decision at the age of 5 or so to not go into medicine was a sound one. Other than that, I would actually recommend it. Just be prepared to close your eyes a bit. It was necessary for the story, so I can appreciate that, but it was still a lot to handle. I won't say anymore, though, in case you want to see it, because it was a great film to watch without knowing anything. It stayed true to science fiction in the purest way in the sense that it used aliens and our disattachement to a foreign species to make some serious sociological commentary. Something that could not have been accomplished with a human race.

After District 9 we went to Mr India's for curry. A place quickly becoming dear to my heart. When/if any of you come visit and you like Indian food, this will be the first stop. So, leaving you hungry for curry, I will sign off until next week. Cheerio!