If there was any doubt in my mind as to what country I am living in, that question was definitely answered on Friday night. Okay, first, Wednesday I went to a free Gaelic class that the university is offering. It's free for all students and staff and is an introduction to conversational gaelic. Another woman from the department and I went together. This is a trial program and I'm convinced this department will be able to continue this as the room was completely packed with people from all ages who were really enthusiastic. Gaelic is REALLY difficult. You can't phonetically write down what she's saying, so you just have to remember what certain letter combinations sort of sound like.
On Thursday I worked...surprise surprise. I did get to finally talk to my mom though since we have internet now, which was really nice since we hadn't spoken since the holidays.
Okay, so, Friday. I taught classes, which again was a blast. Afterwards I went home to get all poshed up to go to the Astronomy Society Burns Supper. So, Burns Suppers...they're this big Scottish (and world-wide for ex-Scots) tradition around Robert Burns' birthday at the end of January; no fixed date. They consist of a traditional Scottish meal (tradition of not having food in the middle of winter, so treating to a big meal, kind of like our Thanksgiving), reading Burns poetry, giving toasts and followed up with a ceilidh. Ours was held at the Glasgow University Union building, which is a huge complicated old building on the other side of campus, complete with an entryway, a giant fireplace, debating chambers, reading rooms, libraries, etc. As we were all walking up to the building, lots of students and professors were all dressed up in kilts and fancy dresses and a bagpiper was standing at the entrance to the building, playing us in. You've got to hand it to this culture, they know how to dress up for a formal occasion.
So we go in, we got a great table with 7 of my closer friends, fellow PhDs as well as postdocs and faculty, and promptly started drinking and laughing. The boy in charge of the Astronomy Society, an undergrad, stood up and gave the Selkirk Grace (you can read more about Burns Suppers for all this detail on Wikipedia) and they brought in Scotch Broth. After we had that, you could hear bagpipes out in the hall and everyone grabbed their glasses and stood up. The double doors opened to allow in the piper, leading in a man carrying the haggis...yes, the haggis, a big, beige stomach tied together with twine. They circled the room and placed it on a table in the front of the room. One of the professors stood up with a knife to give the 'Toast to the Haggis' (you can't make this up). She seemed that she had a bit to drink already and had memorised the entire poem, shouting in a heavy Scottish accent and brandishing the knife wildly before plunging it into the haggis, sacrificial style and split it open. Everyone shouted "To the haggis!" and took a drink before sitting down. They dished out the haggis to everyone, followed shortly by a steak pie. After the main courses, the toasts took place. There is a toast to the lassies (again, you can read all about it) and a response from the lassies, which was really sweet. An undergraduate girl gave it and toasted to physics boys, the sweetest, shyest boys we'll ever meet.
They then handed out the whisky and a particularly famous, old, egocentric professor stood up to give a toast to the non-Scots. Given this man's reputation, we decided it would be entertaining to have a drinking game for his speech based on his vernacular habits. We had to give up by the end of the talk as we ran out of whisky and wine and barely had enough for the rest of the toasts. A french professor gave the response from the non-Scots which was hilarious and exactly what it was supposed to be. They then passed around the Cranachan for dessert which is a chocolate pot with raspberries and cream mixed with oats and whisky. Finally a professor gave up to give the "Immortal Memory" toast to Robert Burns. He talked about his life and why we have Burns Suppers all over the world and not things like "Shakespeare Suppers"...all for the love of the women, the food and the whisky, as well as friendship and good times. Very heartwarming. Then we all read Burns poems before running downstairs for the ceilidh.
As we were all liquored up and full and jovial, as well as having all of our friends, bosses and students present, the ceilidh was a blast. At this point, I know most of the dances and again, for the non-regular readers of this blog, a ceilidh is basically a square dance. And man! Are Scottish boys well trained! They might be the shyest boys in the world, but there is never a girl standing alone for a dance when there are extra boys around. They are just taught how to dance from an early age and they all know how to waltz, polka and everything else that is required in ceilidh dances. I am very impressed! We danced for ages and again, finished off the night with EVERYONE on the floor in one big circle, holding hands and singing Auld Lang Syne, speeding up and running into the middle and back out again, chaos reigning supreme.
After the ceilidh we went to the research club for drinks and stayed there until 2:30am, finally stumbling home, covered in ceilidh bruises (which are a thing to behold, let me tell you...as most of the dances include linking arms and violently swinging around, you leave with raw and black...not even joking...inner arms...it feels great!)
Saturday was spent mostly recovering, buying food, etc...fairly quiet and pathetic. Pathetic being the date that I had that evening, yuch. Not going to dwell on that. Sunday I got up and went to my knitting group that now meets in a small, local cafe in the city center in the basement of some bank. It was really lovely and I really enjoyed talking to everyone. They very much admired the hat I finished last week, so that felt good! My friend who lives only two streets away from me now gave me a call and I went over to her house for tea and chat, which is always fun. She's moving to Berkeley next month and my life will be a little lonely without her around.
On Monday I asked my other close friend if she wanted to come over to make some curry and have some gin and tonics as we are paying for our drinking habits, calorie and price-wise, so we thought that drinking gin instead of beer and drinking at home would help solve these problems. Which it sort of did; we just should not do that in the middle of the week. It was such a fun night though. My flatmate came back to us well into a litre of gin and listening to Tom Waits. He sat down and joined us and a little while later in the night her boyfriend came by as well so it turned into a little mini-party. We were *this* close to convincing ourselves to drive to Stoke and get some famous oat-cakes and be back in time for work. Thankfully we quickly saw that was a bad idea, but it was a great night.
Well, I think that's it for now! Exciting things that are coming up include going to the Burn (a big country house) for an astronomy retreat, teaching some cubs at the planetarium, going to a BBC Research and the Media retreat at Barony Castle, going to California for a meeting over St Patrick's Day and seeing the Dropkick Murphys at the Barrowland Ballrooms, a super famous venue in Glasgow; kind of Glasgow's version of Red Rocks. It's going to be a busy few months! Stay tuned!
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What a whirlwind life you lead. Seems absolutely smashing!! I'm glad you're hving such a blast. Post pics of your pretty new hat!
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