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!