Hallllloooo

What up party people???

So here's what's up: My bags are pretty much packed and I'm heading out of here mañana. I'll have my last really awesome brunch (the only meal they do well here) and then grab a cab to the bus station. Then, take that bus on down to Edinburgh (nice!). In Edinburgh, I will meet up with my mom and sister! (double nice!!) I'm so stoked, neither of them have been to Europe before so that will be fun. We'll stay in Edinburgh until the 23rd then hop on over to Venice which will be legenwaitforitdary. We'll stay in Venice for about a week and then fly back to the states on the 31st. More on all that to come.

Also, it snowed here. It's really, really pretty, but my buddy Patrick's flight didn't make it out today so I'm hoping my mom and sister get in alright.

Dublin is an awesome city. The Irish are really nice. This all boils down to Ireland is awesome and I wish I'd had more time there.

So here's the skinny (why is the term "skinny"? That seems size-ist...):

I woke up Thursday morning around 8, showered and finished packing. Then I walked to campus and turned in a paper that was due Friday. Then I caught the bus. Then I walked 4 blocks to Guild St. (THE GUILD) Bus Station and caught another bus. Then I got off at the airport. Then I had to wait half an hour before I could check in because apparently the desk doesn't open until 2 hours before the flight takes off. At this point, well somewhat before this, I realized how ridiculous that I was at the airport 2.5 hours before the plane took off, but I really had no idea how long the bus would take to get there. So I waited. I finally checked in (the guy behind me was really hung over. I didn't see him on the plane...)

Now I had a 2 hour wait. I hadn't eaten anything yet, so I bought a sandwich, chips (crisps), and a coffee. All for under £6. I want to take a moment to comment on how AMAZING that is. That is cheap for food anywhere and this was in an airport. And the sandwich was awesome. Really great.

Fastforward--> Airplane to Dublin, get through customs no problem, catch the 16A to Camden. That took about 40 minutes, but at least I had a seat. I got off and had no real solid idea of where the hostel was from where I was standing. I had sort of just guessed based on a crappy map I'd picked up at the airport. The thing about the UK and apparently Ireland is that they don't really do street signs. Sometimes they'll put them up on the sides of buildings, but not always. It's actually more reliable to look at the business names around you because they're usually named after the street they're on. So I started walking. After a few blocks I asked in a coffee shop where Camden Place was. They told me back the other direction. BACK THAT WAY! Then, I FOUND MATT! He had just left the hostel to eat, so he took me back and I checked in and we found somewhere to eat.

We wandered looking for somewhere to eat. Let me tell you this: Dublin is expensive. Especially in the city centre. A meal is generally no less than 12 euros. We eventually found a pizza place and got pizza for about 5 euros.

Then we got lost. Really lost. We finally asked directions and found out we were about a 10-15 minute walk away, which is a lot farther than we started. We finally made our way back and then decided to go out. Since we didn't have a great track record so far, we went just across the street and went in here:

Turns out they had a venue upstairs where some bands would be playing. We stayed for them and the first band was just phenomenal. Three young guys with a female lead singer. She had a voice sort of like really early Gwen Stefani meets Sleater-Kinney. It was awesome. The next few bands were pretty good too, but not that great. We hung out for awhile and talked to a lot of people. The Irish are really friendly. I like them.

Friday we decided to wander around town. Walked through St. Steven Green's Park:



It's very pretty there.

We walked through the Christmas-y area where this sweet band was playing:


They were having a great time and the little kid in the Santa suit was really good. He wasn't even really paying attention either.

We eventually found our way to the National Gallery which was freakin huge. We definitely didn't even go through half the exhibits. The Yeats gallery was really nice and I liked the Scottish art through the centuries.

That night we mostly just hung out, went back to Whalen's for a little bit with Matt's three Australian roommates, but called it a night fairly early.


Saturday was the day we went to the Guinness Storehouse. We decided to walk because it wasn't far, just about 30 minutes from the hostel. We stumbled on St. Patrick's Cathedral on the way by following some tourists who looked like they were on their way somewhere. It's very impressive:



Then past Christchurch:


Also very huge. It goes on for another block or so to the left.

THEN FINALLY:




The self-guided tour was really interesting. I find that I generally prefer self-guided in places like that than guided. I have a short attention span so my mind tends to drift when people talk. I mean...uh...people other than my friends...

Anyway, once we got to the 4th floor, we got ready to pour our own pints. While we waited we talked to Mark, the guy at the door. He was very nice. He told us about a bar that stays open until 4am or so because it's where all the cops go, so they don't need to close when everyone else does. We didn't end up going, but we realized the next morning it was literally 30 seconds from our hostel door. And in this case, I really do mean literally.

PINTS AWAY:


In all seriousness, that was the best pint of beer I've ever had. The tour actually lets you know what flavours to look for when you drink it, you even get to sample the roasted barley. Tasting that really helps you bring it out when you drink the Guinness. And it was just about as fresh a pint as you can ever get. We drank them looking out over the industrial part of Dublin.

This was definitely a highlight of the trip.

After the tour, we went back and hung out at the hostel for a bit. I made some burgers for dinner and they were awesome, tell you what.

That night we went to hands down the best bar I have been to in Europe. Not that there have really been that many, but it was really great. I wish it weren't quite so far from home. It would be quite the night out. It's called the Bernard Shaw Pub. I'd read about it on Lonely Planet, but forgotten about it. That night, we were talking with the girl at the desk of the hostel when her boyfriend offered to show us to the "really awesome pub" that he worked at and had to get to. Lo and behold, it was the Bernard Shaw Pub. Coincidence or fate? Let's go with coincifate.

It was great. Live dj playing good music, lots of space in the covered sort of back patio where the music wasn't quite as loud so you could actually talk and the best part:

Pizza bus.

I'm ashamed to say I forgot my camera and thus have no pictures, hopefully Matt will put his up soon, but I'll tell you what. I want one. The bus is a double decker bus that had the seats all pulled out and tables and chairs put in. The front where the driver would sit is the kitchen area. We weren't hungry, so we didn't end up eating pizza that night, but it's my new life mission to go back. It was just the greatest. They also apparently take the bus to festivals and the sort. So awesome.

In conclusion, Ireland was a success.

Love,
Clur.

Land o' Guinness

Tomorrow I'm off to hang out with Mr. Matt Sizemore in Dublin, Ireland. We don't have any real plan past flying there and staying in the Camden Place Hostel. Oh yeah, and going to the Guinness factory. The Bernard Shaw Pub and National Gallery are only a few blocks from the hostel so they may be in the future. I'll let you know if a few.



TROOOGDOOOOOOOR! HE COMES IN THE NIIIIIIGHT!

Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a good one.

I went with Patrick and his fiance, Nicole, to the Brig O' Don because who freakin wants to eat in the dining hall for Thanksgiving dinner? No. Not ok. Anyway, we go to the restaurant, lo and behold, they have a turkey dinner!!! Of course we had a starter of haggis and mash and amazing tomato soup. It was definitely pretty awesome to get turkey and cranberry sauce for dinner, I was not expecting it.

The highlight though, was probably the "kilted sausages". I kid you not. Kilted sausages are mini cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon "kilts". It was awesome.

Dreams

Last night I had several very strange dreams. All I can say about them is:

I would really like a motorcycle now

and

I am never getting in an elevator again.

Huh?

When I went to put on the shirt that I sleep in, it was perfectly folded on my bed. I have no recollection of doing that this morning. It was a very strange feeling.

THE UNICORN REVISITED

BEHOLD!!!!



The tower is just past that unicorn. And what a lovely unicorn it is.

Grrrrrr

You know what really grinds my goat? (Other than the phrase "grinds my goat")


When people cut into line, especially when that line is a line for food. Three times so far this week and twice today, people have cut directly in front of me in line. The first time today was when I was waiting at Subway for a sandwich. We have a Subway on campus in the "Hub". Yeah, not the SUB, the Hub. Throws me off my game every time, but basically serves the same purpose. Anyway, there's usually a suuuuper long line around lunch time, but on Tuesdays I have class just across the street so I can usually beat the crowd. I was maybe 5th in line today which is practically first. Then, a girl cuts right in front of me to stand with her friend. It's not like they were sharing one sandwich or even paying together. BULLSHIT. Here's the conversation that would have happened had I been in the mood for confrontation.

Claire: Excuse me, I just had a question.

Girl: Yeah?

Claire: Well, I was just wondering, well assuming really, that you passed primary school, right? I mean, you are in a university, it seems to me that one of the prerequisites was a primary school degree.

Girl: Um...yeah, I made it through.

Claire: So then, you know what the basic idea of thought behind the line is, right? That you stand at the back and wait until you're at the front? And stepping in front of other people is called "cutting" and there is an international, unspoken, "no cutsies" rule?

Girl: I was just standing with my friend, she was waiting for me.

Claire: Well I'm waiting for my sandwich and I was here first as were all of these people behind me. You can either go to the back of the line on your own or I will pick you up and place you there.

Girl: Fine mrehmrere blahblah blah i'm stupid.


But this didn't happen. She was quite small though. I could have carried her quite a ways. Or possibly even tossed her back there. Anyway, I got my sandwich and it was awesome. I did not let this girl ruin my lunch. The end.

Which I rarely am because it seems like more worth than it's worth and you usually come out looking like the wrong one.

Edinburgh: City of the Castle, Writers and the Dead pt.2

And the shame that comes from my poor posting habits.


Well then, last time I told tales of magic and marshmallow-y hot chocolate. And then I never said anything again. That's pretty lame of me and I apologize. Ok, give me a minute to remember, it's been awhile now.

Aright, so Friday, we took the bus down to Edinburgh and got there around 11. We met up with 2 friends of Krista's, found some lunch eventually at a little pub and then on to the hostel, blah blah blah. Cut to later that evening. We decided, in the pouring rain, to walk about 15 minutes to a theater to see a play one of Krista's friends had found on her iphone. Damn people with their damn useful iphones when I don't have one. Geez. Anyway, we bought tickets, got dinner at the Shakespeare pub, and then went to the theater. The play was "Confessions of a Justified Sinner" It was...alright. I liked the premise, a hardcore Calvinist is convinced, either by his skitzophrenia or by the devil, that he needs to kill a few people: the town priest who preaches in salvation for everyone rather than predestination, his brother, his mother, and his lover. But he forgets that he's done these things. And it's all so long and confusing and full of thick Scottish accents. But there was Haagen Daz ice cream at intermission, so that was pretty cool. Afterwards we made our way to our respective places of rest.

Saturday Krista, Brian and I were on our own since Krista's friends had booked a highlands tour that we'd pretty much already done. Instead, we decided to go to the National Museum of Scotland:

FOR FREE. Because all the museums are free in the UK. Which is awesome. As was the museum. All of the exhibits were really interesting. We wound up spending a few hours there. Then when we left it was raining again so we just went around the corner for food.

I think somewhere in here is when we went to the Elephant House and found the J.K. Rowling note.

I do know however, that evening was the night we went on the City of the Dead tour that took us down under the bridge into "the Vault". When the bridge was built, the planners had intended the space beneath it to be used for storage and work rooms. The problem though was that they never properly built any of it to be water proof, thereby leaving the spaces useless. Well, they had to do something with them so that is where they sent their garbage. And by garbage, I mean people. The poorest of the poor were forced to live in the dark, wet, cold spaces under the bridge. It's pretty freaking intense under there. I definitely recommend taking a tour if you're ever in Edinburgh.

Afterwards, the three of us were in a somewhat uncomfortable mood, so we wandered our way to a pub for a pint of cider. The one we happened to go in, on recommendation of a random guy going into said pub, turned out to be great. They even had a young guy playing acoustic guitar and singing covers of a lot of different songs. It was really great fun.

Sunday was when we went to the castle. We had to pay £12, but it was definitely worth it. We spent a full two hours looking at all the different rooms and exhibits, including the Scottish crown jewels. It was all very impressive. See?

Bask in my approval!!!

At some point after that, we took the bus back to Aberdeen and I for one went right to bed.



Ok, I PROMISE I will write something soon that is not about Edinburgh and more about stuff around here. I SWEAR I HAVE THINGS TO SAAAAY!!

Edinburgh: City of the Castle, Writers and the Dead pt.1

This weekend I went to Edinburgh with two other Americans, Krista and Brian. Before I get into anything else, I want to start with a little picture story because this will be the most exciting to some certain people I know read this.

We went here:



Drank this:



And found this:



!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went into this cafe called The Elephant House, obviously because of the sign. Apparently this is where J.K. Rowling spent a lot of time working on Harry Potter when she didn't have much money. We happened to sit at this big table with drawers in it. Anyone knowing me will know that as I got bored sitting there, I started playing with things. I opened one of the drawers and it was stuffed full of notes written on napkins, scraps of paper, postcards, etc. Some were poetry, some were memories, some were suggestions. We started digging through the notes reading some of them. It was kind of like being at The Cellar reading the Hey Yous that haven't been published yet. I mean...never mind. Anyway, I reached around to the back of the drawer and pulled out this one. It was amazing. What a great moment. We put it back in the drawer before we left so that maybe other people will find it someday.

I will post more about Edinburgh later, possible in pt. 2 of this post.

Pongin

Alright, before I go into anything else, I want to let you know how I was awakened this morning. I was nice and warm and comfortable in my bed when the fucking fire alarm goes off. Fuck that shit. It was 7am and I didn't have class until 11. Bullshit. I lay in bed for a few seconds before I realized that it wasn't just going to stop, so I got up pulled on a sweatshirt and some shoes. I've got to say though, I'm glad I keep my keys hanging on the door otherwise I would have forgotten them and been locked out at 7am.


Anyway, in better news, my friend Patrick and I taught two of our European friends, Jacques and Jake, how to play beer pong like true collar-popping frat boys. We couldn't find red solo cups, that seems to be pure American culture that hasn't yet infiltrated the UK. We were able to sweet talk one of the porters into giving us a couple ping-pong balls. The conversation was something like this:
Patrick: Hey, how do you go about borrowing table tennis balls?
Porter: Well, you leave your keys and i.d. card and when you bring back the paddles and ball, we give you back your things.
Patrick: Oh, well, ah...how many ping-pong balls do you have? Is there any chance of buying some from you?
Porter: What do you need them for?
Patrick: Well, we're going to-
Porter: (interrupts) Never mind, I don't want to know. Here, have two. Don't tell me.
Patrick: Thanks!

It was awesome. Here are a few highlights:


Jacques drinking from the goblet of FIRE!


Patrick and Jake. True frat boys at heart.


Timed group picture with bad lighting. stupid fluorescents.


In other news, I have plans to hit up Edinburgh this weekend and Dublin with Mavv for the first weekend in December. More to follow!

The Unicorn

Alright, so the title of this blog is Left at the Unicorn, which to some may mean a whole lot of "huh?"

Well.

Here's the story:

My friend Patrick, the grad student, had a class on the third floor of Kings College, one of the older buildings on campus. He gets to the building on the first day of class and goes up the stairs. One flight, two flights, no third floor. What? But...my class! He wanders for DAYS! Ok, not really. He actually goes down to the main office and asks about the third floor (which is not forbidden to students). He is told to exit the main building, turn left at the unicorn statue and re-enter the building at the next door because his class is in the TOWER!

I also have a class in the tower to the left of the unicorn. About the legend of Arthur. It's pretty awesome.

Karaoke

Karaoke in Scotland mostly means get really drunk and slur the words to your favorite song.


How fun!

British people are funny

So lately people have been asking how life in Scotland is going. Well, as I already told Jordan, I really can't sum it up as well as this video can:

Pubbin

Last night I went with the homies Patrick and Marusa down to The Bobbin, a close student-y bar with pool tables. Patrick played some British Pub style pool while Marusa and I nursed our beers. A brief word about British pub pool is that it's fucking down and dirty. The balls and cues are smaller and lighter, the pockets are narrow and the tables are about the same size as those plastic 10-in-1 game tables that include chess and checkers as their bullshit way of making ten games. Anyway, it was cool to watch and we met a dude named Gary who talked about forestry and underwater logging. It was pretty dope.

Dear Claire,

Feel free to wear more layers. It is cold here.

Love,
Claire

Food

Food. Food can be awesome. The dining hall here, however, does not serve awesome food. Additionally there are set meal times: breakfast is from 7:45 to 9:15, dinner is 5:15 to 6:45. If you miss those windows, you don't eat. But wait, what's that you say? "But Claire! I see breakfast and dinner times, what about lunch?" Well dear friend, lunch is not included in the catered dining plan. "But Claire! What do you eat?" That is a good question! Some days we go to the Hub to eat (yeah UPSers, the "hub" not the "sub"). The Hub has several different stations to eat with food prices upwards of £1.50. Other times we'll go to the Lidl's just down the street and purchase the 99p meal deal. A small sandwich, bag of chips, and a bottle of water. Really, it's not a bad lunch and it's under a pound. But today my friends, today we have instant mac 'n' cheese:

Skype randomly makes noises at me. Chill Skype, Chill.

Ok so here's the thing. I initially wasn't going to do the whole "blog" thing because...well...I didn't really want to. But I've been reading other people's travel and "travel" blogs, Jordan, Kaitlin, "Liz", Isabel, whether they know it or not and I started to feel left out. I HAVE THINGS TO CONTRIBUTE TOO! Also, it's been hard to actually catch people on Skype, this seems like an ok alternative.

But now I'm all behind. I've been here for a week and a half, gone clubbing, been hit on by drunk guys, gone to class, and wrestled the Loch Ness monster. So here it is. I'll briefly touch upon a few main events in my recent life. I have a feeling most posts won't be this long, but seriously people. We have THINGS to catch up on.

First, my room has a "hand basin" under the mirror. We call it a hand basin because we're British. Mostly it means I only need to leave my room to pee. Or do I?


Next, the other half of my room:



I thought about cleaning it up a little, but then realized how uncomfortable that would make Evanie. Note the incredibly ugly curtains. Oh my god. They're so freaking ugly. Also, you can't see it in this picture, but every room is equipped with an electric kettle. Yes, that's right, a kettle. Not a microwave or a fridge. A kettle. Because we're British.

Now check out the sweet asylum style hallways we have here. There are three buildings like this that look exactly the same. It's actually really creepy and quiet most of the time.

Can't you just see the walls bleeding?


Ok enough. How about the time I caught the Loch Ness moster?

So dope. But really, I'm more of a catch and release person, so Nessie is still out there for all of you.


In other news, I just sneezed so suddenly that I scared myself. More to come in the future!!