Happy Birthday Otosan!!!  Have a good one!

Happy Krys day beautiful!  Hope the day has treated you like the queen you are.  If not...I'll beat them all up!!!

Smile...you're loved.

Date:	2007-01-03 10:09
Subject:	Happy Holidays
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

We came home to have Christmas with the whole family. There was a big dinner planned, lots of friends and family coming, and monkey bread and presents to have. Yep, sounds very very nice. However, being this family, instead of a few days of happy family time, Mom has been admitted to the hospital. Happy New Year.

Date:	2006-06-12 07:38
Subject:	I've become so Numb
Security:	Public
Mood:	numb

It has been a rough month, as we all knew.  However, Saturday one more thing hit, and it hit hard.  Someone in the States who has been on the outskirts of my life for over ten years died at 5pm on Friday, your time.  He had leukimia and had been fighting the good fight for nearly a year now.  We were all under the impression that he would win.  Wednesday he took a drastic turn and he was dead by Friday. 

This hit me hard, with grief still in my heart from the last death.  And the last time I saw this person was at that funeral.  Last time I hugged him was leaving that funeral.  Its all connected and mixed up in my head.  Saturday my brian checked out, that night I experienced some of the worst insomnia I've had and the most miserable.  I'm still trying to study for finals, but my head isn't all there.  I'm doing the motions, but we'll see if I retain anything.

The funeral is Saturday, I will miss it.  I'm upset about this on some levels and relieved on others.  What upsets me most is that I'm 9000 miles away and my best friend desperately needs me.  Being in Australia has not proven the best of options. 

Fair warning, this is really long, so take your time, take a break,
don’t strain yourself, cuz I think I hurt myself writing it! ;-)
So much for that caught up factor. I’m right back to over a month
behind. Such is life, always moving faster than I can write. The nerve!
Anyhow, on to post Paris, pre parents Scotland.

We eventually had to come back from Paris, much to our dismay, where
life resumed as normal. Well, as normal as our life gets, that is. We had
about two weeks before my parents and brother were due to this side of
the pond. Strangely enough, Scotland greeted us with (gasp) sunshine.
Beautiful blue skies, the sun was out and it was almost warm! Here we
are thinking summer has finally hit. Everyone is outside, literally
covering every piece of lawn available. I mean every piece, there were
frighteningly white Scots sitting on the lawn of the museum, the
hospital, office buildings, the university, anywhere there was room and grass
there was a blaringly white set of legs and arms. The parks were absolutely
packed! We didn’t even know there were that many people in Glasgow!
Our blissful summer thoughts were shattered later that night when the
newscaster solemnly reported the “worst heat wave in twenty years.”
Ummm, heat wave? The temperature had reached mid sixties. Lets just not
think about this, huh?

The last week of classes the international students department held a
seminar on reverse culture shock. Now that’s a course I never thought
I would see. Naturally I attended, and dragged Shawn along with me.
Reverse culture shock is apparently a very common and difficult problem
that plagues abroad students when they eventually return home.
Narrowed down to four phases.

1. Disengagement—This is the easiest part. I board a plane to go home.
Well, easy for some, apparently they have had trouble with students
missing their planes…intentionally. Kind of says something about
Scotland, or the home, not quite sure which.

2. Euphoria—This is the stage where I’m so happy to be home, I run in
andkiss the floor of that 24-hour Wal-Mart, spend a night hugging the
steering wheel of my car, and drain a Slurpee machine directly into my
mouth. You laugh, I just might!

3. Confusion and frustration—this is where when crossing the street I
look the wrong way and get mowed down by the latest model of BMW. Hey, at
least I go in style! This is also the point where I decide I like
Americaor Scotland more. If I decide on Scotland I have two options… either I
move back to Scotland, or I try to convince the whole of America that
Scotland’s way of life is superior and we should follow suit. An
amusing,yet strangely possible scenario.

4. Adjustment—This stage is pretty self-evident. I’m supposed to
adjust, like my brother always said when he took my favourite toy…”adjust.” We
all know no one ever fully adjusts to anything, so personally I feel
they are setting an unattainable goal with this one.

There you have it, so remember the next time you go grocery shopping
after 5, or drive anywhere on the right side, like the weather and your mood,
this too could change.

Time flew by, as it seems to be doing recently, and all of a sudden my
families cabbie is calling me because he can’t find our flat. Eventually,
he found his way and my family is surreally sitting in my living room,
in Scotland! Well, they were sitting for a little while, then they
resorted to sleeping. Jet lag and lots of it. My Dad and my brother did
manage to stay awake long enough to see my university, and more importantly
the cloisters in my university. It’s all about the cloisters, my favourite
part of the whole building. We stayed in Glasgow long enough to take
the tour. Ever taken a tour of your own town? Well, it was interesting
and fun, but we already knew a lot of what we were told.

From there we flew to Ireland and the adventure began. We rented a
car, and as is normal, my dad drove. What wasn’t normal was the left hand
side driving. When people switch the side of the car they are driving on
their idea of where the right side is gets skewed. He found a lot of curbs
and had Shawn and my brother doing synchronized leg lift cringes with every
one. Happily, he only hit curbs, although we surely would have taken
one mirror off a parked car, but someone had beaten us to it. First we hit
Dublin, the touristy bits, of course. Mostly shopping, it was a
souvenir hour or two for everyone. We also wandered into the Temple Bar
area, where we missed the live band by three minutes, but stayed to eat a
lovely dinner anyway.

Having bought out a couple of small shops in Dublin we headed for our
B&B in Howth, a small coastal town nearby. After settling in and chatting
with our highly energetic host Ella, we went back out for drinks. Now
this was culture shock for me! My family particularly my mom and my
brother are the most sober people I know. Most of you know how I don’t
drink; I had to get it from somewhere. I looked at them (strangely)
when pub-crawling was brought up. Reasonably everyone wanted to have a true
Ireland and Scotland experience, and it’s well-known fact that the pub
is the culture of Ireland and Scotland. So it began. That night we hit
the local pub, Howth was very small and quiet and so was the pub. However,
we did meet a friendly Irishman who told us all the best places to go and
I discovered that I like rum and cokes, a discovery that would be my doom
later in the trip. Jet lag still in place, we called it an early
night and retired to the B&B, where Shawn and my brother conducted a snoring
symphony all night. Lucky me.

The next morning the Irish breakfasts began. (duh duhh duuuh!) In
the latest edition of the Lonely Planet on the UK and Ireland, it
speculated, accurately, that traditional English, Scottish, and Irish breakfasts are just something fed to the tourists, because if the locals ate this cuisine daily they would die. Lets look at the menu, to begin you get juice, milk, coffee or tea, and a bowl of cereal. Doesn’t sound bad, does it?
Well, then you get a fried egg, two pieces of fried bacon, two pieces
of sausage, a fried tomato, and toast. Now this may sound appealing, but
only once…in a lifetime! You have to remember both the bacon and the
sausage are extremely different and a lot richer than you would think.
The first day it’s pleasant to wander down and be fed a nice warm,
filling breakfast, this is only to lure you into a false sense of security. By
the third day you are glaring at the grease spot that remains on the
plate when you slide that bacon over an inch, while your stomach cramps just
from smell. I kid you not; all five of us were seeking out the bran,
after just a few days.

After the first Irish breakfast we drove the two minutes to the coast.
Mom was real concerned about getting to see the ocean. Considering
both Scotland and Ireland are islands, I didn’t think it would be a problem.
However, I thought I would make her happy early on, because it is hard
to see an ocean, say from the inside of a pub. We shivered and took
pictures, shivered, ooohed and ahhhed, and got back in the car. Next
stop, Galway!

Galway was the place we most enjoyed last time we were in Ireland, so
Shawn and I wasted no time in suggesting it for our next destination.
It’s a quaint little town with great shopping, nice people, and good
pubs. We stayed in an excellent B&B within walking distance of downtown. We
shopped, took tours, and got a little culture. The first night it was
just us kids…myself, Shawn, and Mike (my brother, he does have a name I
just don’t use it much). Not being fully familiar with the pubs in the
area we steered simply by the noise. If we could hear the music from a
block away, that’s the pub we chose. It turned out to be a very
effective system. We always went into crowded, noisy, and energetic pubs, with good live music. That first night, we had all decided to pub-crawl and see how far we got. Don’t worry, this is a short story, we are a bunch of
lightweights! In all of my infinite wisdom I decided that the rum and
coke would be a tasty way to start the night. Well, in Ireland the rum
is served in a glass with ice, the glass was almost full and the bottle of
coke was separate. Not being horribly familiar with the drink I
wondered if like Oreos and milk, I had to figure out a somewhat graceful way to mix the two to my taste. I don’t remember if I was successful, I was
toasted half way through. First pub, I’m gone, Mike and Shawn are buzzed and
it’s time to move on.

The next pub we found was The Quays, by the noise. We fought our way
through the crowd to the bar, bought the next round then wandered back,
back, back, until it opened into a double story building, absolutely
packed with people. At the time I didn’t know if the size of pub was
just a surprise to me because of that rum and coke or if my two companions
were equally startled with the everlasting and growing building. They were,
this became our favourite pub. This round I wizened up, sort of, and
had cider instead. Only half way through did I turn to Shawn and ask “what
was that about not mixing drinks?” He didn’t answer…I don’t think.
Sadly this was the extent of our crawl, everyone was pretty much intoxicated
and closing time was nearing. Like I said, crawl, day one, two pubs. On
the way home Shawn decided to revert to childhood and splash in every
puddle he found. Finding puddles was no mean feat as it had been raining all
day and night. However, one of those rambunctious moments did catch Mike
off guard, when he found himself in the line of fire of a newly airborne
puddle courtesy of Shawn’s boots. His pants didn’t dry for two days.
Lets hear it for alcohol for the sober people.

We had so much fun the first night, at least what we remember of it, we
did this every night for the rest of our stay in Galway. Not
surprisingly I don’t remember what happened what night. So, like my memory I’m just going to jumble it all together. I know my Dad joined us a couple of
times, and once Mom even joined in on the festivities. In an effort to
avoid ending the crawl at the first pubs I stopped the rum and cokes
and turned to my brothers choice drink, Smirnoff Ice, which tastes
deceptively like carbonated lemonade. At one pub my dad made friends with an
Irishman who was probably 70 or 80 and as energetic as you picture and
Irishman. At one point he was explaining the finer points of jigs and
the difference and said if it weren’t so crowded he would show him.
Moments later, space arrived and true to his word this guy did a jig in the
middle of the pub. Gotta love the Irish. Similarly, Mike was standing
outside the Quays when a very intoxicated man was “escorted” out, who promptly
turned to Mike and asked for change as he was on the streets. My
brother astutely observed the sports coat, nice shoes, and Rolex, and replied,
“You are a bit well dressed for living on the streets.” To which the
man replied, “I’m new to the streets.” :-)

Another time some girl yoo hoo ed Shawn, smiled, took a picture and
blew him a kiss. The committee is still out on whether she was Irish or a
tourist thinking he was Irish, he kept being taken for a local. The
same night, I think, I had some very drunk Irishman hitting on me, offering
me a drink, hand on back, and of course the music was loud so you had to
get real close to talk. At first I was enjoying being talked to then he
got that look, like he was considering something he really shouldn’t be and
I told him I had a boyfriend. His whole demeanour changed, the hand
moved away, I told him my boyfriend was right over there and pointed at
Shawn, who was oblivious to the whole thing. He quickly replied “I’m not
gonna look. He’s big, isn’t he?” Well, yeah, you could say Shawn is big,
particularly in comparison to the Irish. “I’m not going to look.” He
repeated, shook his head, that guilty smile, a little bit of terror,
“nice meeting you,” and headed for the bar. The night that Mom joined us we
ran into two boys from Pennsylvania who mistook Shawn for a local and
started asking him questions. They were brothers and the exact personality you
would expect from Pennsylvania, good-natured, strong family background,
and used to little communities. We liked them instantly and dragged
them along with us to the next pub, where the two of them and Mike went on
the prowl for girls. Surprisingly they brought some back! Lets hear it
for Ireland! By the end of our time in Galway we had worked our way up to
four pubs a night, woo hoo!

While in Galway we took a day trip to the Aran Islands, which is a
small group of islands just forty minutes away by ferry. We went to the
largest one, called Inishmor, for some sight seeing. The biggest attraction
and the best part was DunAngus, a fort built by one of the Celtic tribes
nearly 3000 years ago. It’s on the top of a cliff with the defensive
wall to the rest of the island and their back to the ocean. The cliff must
be a 300-foot drop, straight down into the crashing waves and jagged
stones bellow, next piece of land…America. It was on those cliffs with the
waves below and the wind that I suddenly developed a fear of heights. I have
honestly never had one, until that moment. Although, I’m not going to
take it personally, everyone put their bellies to the ground and
carefully squirmed up to the edge. It was a pretty intimidating fall. The
views were amazing, the ocean a beautiful blue, and you could see the whole
island. Not to mention the fact you are surrounded by a fort built
3000 years ago. Just that was well worth the trip. The whole island was an
adventure. It was so small the roads, all of them, were about a car
and a half wide, so you were always doing that squeeze by take turns thing
with oncoming traffic. The whole island was covered in stonewalls,
sectioning off very small plots of land. Our guide explained that this happened as land was divided among brothers time and time again. These days, most people own several, but rarely right next to each other, maybe within a
two-mile radius.

That about sums it up for Ireland, aside from all the car time, where
my mom cried out every mile or so, when she was awake, “Babies!” Baby
sheep and cows, that is. Back to Scotland, and of course the highlands, but
not before a visit to Stirling castle. For history, education, and cool
architecture. Then onto golfers heaven, Saint Andrews, where dad
turned all of his golfing friends green by playing the Old course, the
original course, the home of golf. He also played another course in the area
and rather enjoyed both. Saint Andrews was a very friendly golf oriented,
seaside town. A bit chilly, but then this is Scotland. We spent a
couple days there then headed up to Inverness, and more importantly Loch Ness.
After discovering that he was on vacation and golf was fun, my dad
(appropriately) played golf instead of touring. Meanwhile the gruesome
foursome went on a tour of Inverness, Loch Ness, and Urqhart castle.
This time, being that it was tourist season, a boat ride was included. This
might sound really pleasant and romantic, a boat ride on Loch Ness, but
again, its in Scotland and being out on the water brought new meaning
the cold. The views were wonderful, Loch Ness was gorgeous as ever, and we
had fun. We had a domestic moment that night and saw a movie. The
next day we drove the three hours plus back to Glasgow. While it may have
been the longest drive the whole trip it went the fastest as we continued a
conversation that started in a coffee shop with the question “Would you
rather precede everything you say for the rest of your life with
wubidie wubudie, or slide down a hundred foot razor blade into alcohol?” The
questions got a bit more reasonable, but remained very entertaining and
the ride was over before you could say wubidie, wubidie.

The last trip was to Edinburgh for the famous Royal Mile, Edinburgh
castle, and the new edition to the tour, the hub. Which is a coffee
shop that was once a church, very pleasant place to have a cup of coffee and
very formidable on the outside. Edinburgh castle was a hit, with the
history of Mary Queen of Scots, the Stone of Destiny, and the Scottish
crown Jewels. Also, true to the contradiction of the trip we took the
whiskey tour. In which we were given a history lesson on whiskey while
riding through a building in over grown casks. It was actually pretty
good, until the end where they gave us whiskey. Been here a year and I
still don’t like the stuff. Then my parents went to London, my brother
went to Italy, and I stayed home and took a final. When everyone was
back in Glasgow, we finished off their Scotland experience with high tea, a
movie and manic packing. Time always flies when travelling, and it’s
always depressing when people leave. This time I really wanted to just
go home with them.

Now Shawn and I are back to manic packing and getting ready not only to
move, but also to skip the country, travel a month, and then go back to
the States. As I’m sure you can imagine this raises the stress, but
also adds a bit of excitement. We leave this Tuesday, which explains and
even excuses the length of this update. We have purchased interrail
tickets, which is a lot like euro rail, but better. The interrail is only
available to people who have lived in the UK for over 6 months, its for
a month, hop on hop off all the trains in 23 countries of Europe a nice
deal for indecisive travellers such as ourselves. We are going down to
London before the tickets begin to see Stacey, and meet up with Shawn’s
grandma who is coming through London next week. Then we head to Amsterdam for
a couple days and then the train tickets begin. We don’t know in detail
where we are headed, we have three places for sure, Italy, Greece, and
Portugal, and Paris. That’s four, huh? Yes, well, I can count,
really. The plan is to head down from Amsterdam towards Italy and then work our
way west to Portugal, probably hitting Spain and Morocco. Finishing on
the beaches of Portugal, where Shawn and I will promptly burst into
flame.
What actually happens will be a surprise for everyone, including us.
We begin our trip in the Flying Pig Palace in Amsterdam, I think its safe
to say things will only get more interesting from there!

I know this is really long, but I have good useless, but interesting
trivia. The term “One for the road,” was the last drink given to
condemned people as they were taken off to the gallows. Along the same
lines, the driver of the wagon that took people to the gallows was not
allowed to drink at all, which is where we get the term “falling off
the wagon.” Back in the 1800’s when foundling hospitals began, room was
precious so mothers who either didn’t want or couldn’t afford their
babies would be gathered and they were told to draw a ball from a bag. A
white ball meant the child would be accepted to the hospital, a red meant you
were on the waiting list, and a black ball meant your child would not
be accepted at all, thus the term “black balling.” Interesting stuff!
Also we discovered that a “slush” is a loose girl, which explains why I
can’t find a slush puppy to save my life. Anyhow, I’ll be gone for a bit,
hope all is well, have a great summer, and I will be seeing you soon!
Shocking!


PS. Don’t forget to call home…it’s Daddy’s day! Happy Daddy’s day to
all those new and not so new daddys out there!

Love
Kristen

I know I’m bombarding you with updates, after months of silence, but
my intentions are good!!! Always were good, actually, but usually lacking
in the spare time or the desire to write. Now is the moment, and here we
go! After Brain and Amberly went home, we both fought that cold and I
struggled to write my final essay, which, believe me, was more of a
struggle than I had anticipated. But eventually, I triumphed. I’m
done! I’m done! Yaaaay!!. (insert jig here)

Apparently living in Scotland was no longer providing enough culture
shock, because we opted for a week in Paris. Kind of surreal to think
you are on your way to Paris, even after living in Scotland for nearly a
year. Still we boarded that plane, and found ourselves waiting in the
passport line to get a stamp! Yep, I was just little bit too pleased with that
stamp, but can you really blame me? The rain was pouring down as we
caught the bus into city centre. Luckily it stopped by the time we
reached Paris as we spent a few good hours wandering for food. Sadly
our first night in Paris and we eat dinner at McDonald’s. Depressing to
consider now. On the bright side, they had something called a
McDeluxe, which was a (gasp) real hamburger, thick and medium rare, with real
tomatoes, real lettuce, and a horseradish mustard sauce. It was
actually good! Shocking! When we ordered, however, it was time to real punch
home where we were…France, where they speak French. That is to say, she was
speaking French, we were speaking English, and the three of us were
eventually reduced to a tactic (employed often thereafter) called
pointing.

Finally, we needed to catch a cab to our Taija and Taylor’s flat, an
activity that proved a bit more difficult than we anticipated. After
several cabs passed us up, a nice English speaking Frenchman came over
and explained to us that cabbies in Paris were very underpaid and just
plain scared. In other words he was politely saying that no cabbie in his
right mind would stop for Shawn with the big backpack on his back and his
hair replacement on his head. That being said this nice gentleman and I
teamed up and successfully hailed a cab. Yay! Then came the terror, the
driving terror! To begin we were now on the other side of the road, again.
Meaning we were back on the right side of the road (figuratively and
literally as far as I’m concerned) only with the added bonus of six
lane roundabouts. Only two minutes into the cab ride I look out the window
and I see a Mercedes emblem up close and personal. Suddenly all those
safety films they forced on me in drivers Ed come flooding back. You know the
ones with graphic scenes of car crashes both happening and the
aftermath; can you say scare tactics? Anyhow, with images of T-bones, crushing
metal, and the Jaws of Life dancing in my head, the driver managed to
merge into the other four lanes of traffic in the roundabout and the
Mercedes instantly replaced us. After that, I stopped paying attention
to traffic, but I did see Shawn flinch a couple of times. Did you ever
notice how you instinctively lift your legs and curl into a ball when
you see several hundred pounds of steel moving rapidly towards you? Like
that’s gonna help!

Taija and Taylor’s flat is truly beyond description. Wood beams, high
ceilings, huge kitchen, with all the amenities (including a garbage
disposal, which apparently doesn’t have a translation into French,
because their friends asked them if it was an grrrrzrrrzzrrzz) several rooms,
loft, both elegant and artistic, totally unique from anything we have
ever seen here or in the states. To truly understand you would just have to
see it, we took pictures. We finally reached the flat at quite a late
hour, everyone went right to bed, but the next morning was Sunday, and
a farmers market was discovered just around the corner. To fully
understand the wonder and beauty of this market to us you have to know that
Scotland doesn’t import produce. Any kind of warm weather produce either
doesn’t exist, or exists in a form unrecognisable to us. For instance, we
bought avocados here once (only once) and they were about the texture of an
apple. I know what you are thinking, “it wasn’t ripe.” That’s what we
thought too, we let the silly things sit for over a week. Finally we
cut them and attempted to eat them…ever eaten crunchy avocado? It was a
bit too perturbing for us. So, here we are in Paris for our first day and
we are wondering down a packed street with fresh warm weather produce on
either side. Like a bunch of kids in a candy shop…over vegetables and
fruits??!!! If you know me, you know just how wrong that really is.
Not only was it fresh but also everything was huge, we bought appropriately
textured avocados the size of grapefruit. You know pumpkin squash,
well it was the size of actual pumpkins, even the grapes were mutants and it
all tasted wonderful!! The four of us got a little too excited about
the fresh produce and ended up buying way too much! Amazingly enough, we
did manage to eat it all in the span of a week!! The rest of the day was
spent socializing and, of course, cooking.

Now that we were in one of the most romantic cities in the world, what
do we do the next day? Well, we went to Disney land, of course! Not your
first choice huh? Well, it was ours. On the train ride there we
shared a coach with a group of boisterous and highly animated individuals who
were not speaking our language. Not a shock since we were in France, but we
were pretty sure it wasn’t French either. I thought that I recognized
a few Spanish words, but was confused because I can usually understand
enough to follow the conversation. I was catching one word every three
sentences. Eventually one of them asked me if I understood them, in
English, I told him a little and asked where they were from. Brazil,
which meant the language they were speaking was Portuguese. Turned out
there were two families, two sets of parents, each with one daughter
who were probably near our age. The girls both spoke broken, yet
effectively English. It’s amazing how much you appreciate even the clunky
communication in a language you understand. One of the mothers told
her daughter to translate for her that she wanted to speak to me slowly in
Portuguese, like slower or louder is going to make it understandable.
Regardless of human assumptions about language barriers they were a lot
of fun and got us in the perfect mood to enjoy Disney land—in French!!

Having gotten used to not understanding anyone around us, as neither
Shawn nor I speak an ounce of French, but it sounds lovely. The huge
shock came when it was cold and raining and we were in Disney land.
Cold doesn’t occur in L.A, or in Florida. Other than that Disney land was
fairly similar and yet different in a lot of ways, did that follow? To
begin there is no Matter horn, or Splash Mountain, and Space Mountain
is very very different. The Castle is the same but underneath it is where
the dragon sleeps. The dragon was this immensely detailed realistic
and hugely impressive animatronics beast! It took us nearly all day to
make it into the dragon’s lair, which is both good and bad; good because we
probably would have spent a lot of time in there and missed something
else, and bad because we wanted to spend a lot of time there. Also,
Thunder railroad is the biggest attraction in Paris, and it is a
similar ride in the cars and theme, but it has its own island that it goes out
to and is considerably longer, but then so is the line ;-) Other than
that, Tiger is known as Tigrou, the Pirates of the Caribbean appropriately
sang in French, we toured the haunted mansion in French (which was much more
gory, with flesh dripping off of bones) and experienced Star Tours in
French. From these, I am pleased to report that “Aaaahhhhh!” and
“Yaahhhhoooo!” translate directly.;-) The park was quite international
having people from all over the world speaking all sorts of languages,
so we weren’t the only ones confused half the time. However, we found
that all language barriers can be broken with body language. While we were
standing in front of the castle a man, not speaking our language said
something, brought out a camera and pointed to his family and the
castle. No words needed at that point. Only when we had completed the request
and he said “Gratzi,” (sp?) did we realize he was speaking Italian. By the
end of the day we knew we had been in Scotland too long—we were
sunburnt while it was raining! How sad is that?!

One night we were invited down to a pub that was having an African
themed party. They had a special meal, special music, and probably
special drinks (didn’t check)—all African. We braved the special
African meal and believe me it was special. The fish was whole, nothing
missing or altered, when it was served to us. I’m sure it was staring up at me in a very disapproving manner, but that wasn’t the worst of it. After
covering that evil eye with a lemon wedge I inspected my dinner further,
big mistake! This fish had teeth, not the innocent looking variety
either, sharp, pointy and mean looking. It’s no comfort to know that had your
dinner been given a sporting chance against you, you would have been
the one nursing your wounds. After that, I stopped looking to closely at
my food and carefully took bites. Finally resorting to the safety of the
bread on the table.

Notre Dame was gorgeous, immense, and impressive, honestly it put all
of the neat cathedrals we have seen here to shame. In fact, we saw a
couple of cathedrals in France and all of them out shined the UK’s claims to
fame. I don’t think I am even going to brave a description of the
Notre Dame, except to say that the gargoyles were very unique, gnawing on
meat, sticking out tongues, and doing other rather active things, for
gargoyles at least. After wandering the inside we sat in the courtyard and ate a picnic we had purchased earlier. The food in Paris, except for the
fishy experience, was divine. We went around the corner to a deli and bought
sandwiches on fresh baked bread. After finding this little gem of a
deli we went there everyday thereafter for croissants or pastries for
breakfast and a sandwich to take for lunch. Yum! We tried lots of delectable
pastries and treats while there, I won’t bore you with the details,
just to say, it wasn’t a thinning experience.

We tried to go to the lourve as any self-respecting individual in
Paris would do. The operative word there was “try” as it was on strike. How
often does that happen? With a whole day free we headed to Versailles
instead, which is the palace built by Louis the VI, the sun king.
Again, huge, and an absolute monument to conspicuous consumption. Not a
single room was without a painting or several, a bust or two, and one can only
imagine how it was decorated when in use. The hall of mirrors is
entirely as the name implies a hall with mirrors entirely lining one side and
windows lining the other (busts and painting included, of course).
When the sun is out, which it wasn’t, the mirrors reflect the light and the
entire hall practically glows. At least that’s what the brochure said.
Then there are the gardens, which is several hundred acres, the nearest
acres have amazing fountains, one of which is the largest in the world.
I imagine the whole place visually comes to life when the sun comes out.

We found old town Paris with the narrow coble stones and small shops,
it was fun to wander and imagine the horses and people of centuries past.
We also went shopping along the river Seine, where we discovered these
little booths were a collectors’ paradise. They had magazines, books, and
advertisements from turn of the century on. We also wandered into a
pet store, just to torture ourselves, only to find they sell squirrels for
pets. Interesting. Speaking of interesting Taija and Taylor were
invited to an interpretive dance in a pub on a boat. So, the four of us went.
I’m not going to go into the interpretive dance, because I couldn’t
interpret a thing from it. But the boat was such a neat idea, little
nooks and crannies filled with chairs, tables and in a couple of cases
a bar. Probably a place I would frequent if I lived there.

Even though we spent quite a bit of time being tourists the other
portion of time was spent with our hosts, who were amazingly excellent hosts,
company, and cooks. Did I mention fresh produce? Where touring Paris
would have worn us down, we could go back to a home, relax, be social,
and have fun. They also invited other friends to the flat, one of which
was American, from Woodside, and they met in Paris. Shrinking world,
shrink, shrink, shrink. The girl’s name was Laura and she had been earning her
PhD. at Oxford for the last seven years and somehow living in Paris at
the same time. She was delightful, and what I found interesting was that
every now and then she started speaking like a Brit, not necessarily
the accent, but the language. They tend to say lovely, or brilliant, when
pleased. It’s the little things that rub off and I just know I am
going to come home spouting similar American culture no no’s like “wee,” or
“shattered,” which means exhausted. Another friend of theirs from
Australia actually had an English accent, fortunately I asked her where
she was from instead of the really huge mistake of making a guess in
the question, “Are you from…?” If they aren’t, they are insulted, or
you’re a stupid American, or both! Finally, we also met a Frenchman named
Jerome (pronounced sherrrrrOme, tongue roll on the r) who was reasonably
bilingual, highly energetic and friendly. The advantage to speaking a
second language was discovered that night when he was speaking of
Parisians being depressed and “wanting to suicide themselves.”
Everyone laughed and explained what he did wrong. After thinking about it for a second he asks “it’s cute, no?” Well, yeah. “Then I’ll keep it.”
Everyone we met was friendly, open and a lot of fun. Overall our week
in Paris couldn’t have been better.

Alright, I have typed you and me to death! I shouldn’t fail to
mention that all the while we were getting around Paris using the Metro which
is the Tube only ten times better, going more places, with more trains,
and for less money! I don’t have any vernacular, but I do have useless but
intersting trivia! The first, courtesy of Taija, is that gargoyles
aren’t hanging around the outside of churches to protect the church, they are
the evil spirits that can’t get in. So, they have to just sit there,
on the outside and wait for something to change, jealously watching
everyone else go in. And from a commercial currently running—British sailor’s
used to take limes out to sea to prevent themselves from getting scurvy,
which is why American’s call them Limeys. Like I said, useless, but
interesting!! Anyhow, I’m done for now and I’m almost entirely caught
up! Shocking, don’t you think? So, how is life going on that side of the
ocean? Or it is possible that after all these updates in such a short
span you want to be removed from the list. Either way you could write
me, I do like to hear from you! (hint, hint). Hope everyone is doing well,
having fun, and keeping in touch :-)!

Hugs and loves
Kristen

We now know what lucky thirteen had in store for me. I accidentally
sent the silly thing out without a single reread. As a result my deep dark
secret has been revealed—I’m not real coherent first time around
(screams of horror). I do apologize for the missing words, the added words, the paragraphs that were only one sentence with lots of commas, and the
wrong words in the right places. If you didn’t notice any of this, ignore
me, I’m nuts, the last email was grammatically perfect, as always :-)

Onward and upward, or at least forward! The mad travelling trio
arrived back in Glasgow just in time to pick the latest additions to our
touring gaggle, Brian and Amberly. Now it was time to see the relatively local
and extremely well known castles. First Edinburgh Castle, which I
think is going to be hard to describe. Picture a castle, now a make it
bigger, no bigger still, in good condition, with all the amenities—moat (no
water, but the hole, that malaria problem again), arrow slits (dunno the
technical term), portcullis, dungeon, kings chambers, the main hall…you
get the idea. Add the history of Mary Queen of Scots, the Stone of
Destiny, and the Scottish jewels, then throw in several hundred
tourists, stir vigorously and you have Edinburgh Castle! How’s that? If you
want a better picture, I’m sure you can find one on the web. Overall, the
castle is great fun, and then there is the Royal Mile, a road that leads from
the castle a mile down to Palace of Holyroodhouse & Holyrood Abbey. Big
deal, you think, a mile walk on one road, yet this road in consists of shops.
Shops, shops, shops and more shops, anything Scottish, touristy, old,
strange, unusual, and pretty, can be found on the Royal mile, not to
mention all the personalities of the shopkeepers. This is the single
most expensive mile you will ever walk, unless you are the mall of America
variety.

After filling our minds in the castle and emptying our pockets on the
Royal mile, we settled into a coffee shop, carefully situated in an old
church. I think I have already mentioned the interesting reinvestment
of the buildings that are unmistakably cathedrals into anything from
stores, to coffee shops, to pubs. A very nice, comfortable café, where our
latest additions to the gang expressed their jetlag: Brian consumed several
espressos in rapid succession, whereas Amberly took a more direct route
and slept. Eventually we all got home and come the next morning we
were supposed to go see Stirling castle also, however, Shawn and I were beat
and didn’t want to get out of bed, and Amberly was still fighting that
jetlag, so it was only the very energetic Brian and Crista who went to
Stirling Castle, and as I was at home sleeping off the last two weeks
of travelling, you will have to ask one of them how it went. That night
the five of us gathered in a circle and indulged in toasties, which can
only be described as an activity. A bottle of alcohol, traditional scotch,
but in our case Mead is passed in the circle, one person toasts to
anything, drinks and the bottle is passed through the entire circle on that
toast, until it returns to the toaster, who closes the toast. The bottle is
passed to the left and the whole process begins again. Toasties is a
heartening activity where people appreciate one another, an experience
hard to describe on paper.

Sadly the day had come for Crista to leave. We took her to the
airport, put all her luggage (and a bit of ours) onto one of those carts, hugs, and all the scripted farewells we could possibly think of…safe journey, be careful, call, was nice to have you, good to see you, glad you came,
and so on. Finally, when out of farewells and hugs, that awkward moment
when there is nothing left to say, and nothing left to do, but separate and
off she walked with luggage that outweighed her and we got in the car and
drove away. It was actually fairly depressing. However, we had more
company to entertain, and, guess what, they wanted to see the
highlands.

Head north mad travellers…again!

Time to turn on our heels and return to Inverness, Loch Ness, and a
few random towns in between. Only this time, instead of following the
symbol stone/castle trail we followed the whiskey trail. As I’m sure you know
the Scots love their drink particularly Scotch whiskey. There are just
as many distilleries on the way to Inverness as there are castles, no
surprise there. Unfortunately we didn’t have quite as much time, so we
limited our travels to two distilleries, Dalwhinnie and Glen Fidich.
The whole thing was actually fairly interesting to the one who didn’t know
that scotch was a type of whiskey. The Glen Fidich also put their
guides into kilts, had a museum and a movie of the humble beginnings and the
most important part, the free sample at the end. Kind of like wine country,
if we had avidly stopped at every distillery along the way, we would have
been toasted by the end of the day. Fortunately for my unsuspecting
company and me we only did the two.

Back in Inverness, this time we did the hostels, which was equally
pleasant, if you are partial to bunk beds. The up side to the hostels
is the fact you have absolutely no choice but to meet people. There is a
communal room and kitchen and in the hostel we stayed at the communal
room had a cozy fireplace and a house cat. Shawn and I, having been
separated from our furry companions for so long, were horribly interested in the cat. However, he was a typical many person cat that would allow
himself to be pet and then not, not entirely friendly, not unfriendly, just a
cat. Yet on our last day there, the white kitty apparently fell in love
with my entirely black outfit and hopped into my lap, purred and of course
shed all over me for about a half hour. I was thrilled!! Sad, I know.
Anyway, aside from the kitty Amberly and Brian joined our old friend
Tony on the tour, while Shawn and I caught a movie. We caught up with one
another and hit the wonderful restaurant next door to the hostel, where
we had an assortment of interesting meats including, lamb, highland
venison (tougher than ours), pheasant, and pork, all safe choices considering
eating red meat is like playing Russian roulette. We have definitely
expanded our pallets since moving and eaten all sorts of animals I had
no clue were edible (like pigeon for example, who wants to eat a rat with
wings??)! I suppose this is part of that Scottish education, huh? We
also enjoyed the four fiddlers that frequented the pub below the
restaurant, very talented musicians all over the place! On our way
back home we stopped at the Moniac Winery, which makes the best Mead on
Planet earth!

Eventually we found ourselves back in Edinburgh, not only revisiting
the shops, but with tickets to a concert. We were going to see Bare
Naked Ladies, and if you don’t know their music, well, you should (in my not
so humble opinion). They are from Canada and are fun, lively, and all
around silly, and that’s just their music. The concert was an absolute
blast!!! To begin it was a considerably small venue, no seats, just stand. The
sooner you got there, the closer to the stage you were. We were
relatively on time and found ourselves about seven people back from the
stage, good spots. We suffered through the traditional really, really,
really bad opening band, which was actually one guy. No I don’t know
his name, he didn’t bother introducing himself. He didn’t move, his songs
sounded identical, and he certainly wasn’t interested in interacting
with the audience. Do they put the really bad opening acts on so you
appreciate them even more when they finally get on stage? Is this some sort of
marketing ploy? Then BNL entered! Jumping up and down, acting silly,
doing their songs, telling jokes, talking to people, and just plain
having fun. That has to be one of the best shows I have ever seen! They
obviously were a college band, they wanted to chat, they did spoofs on
all the latest hits, and star wars soundtracks (including Britney Spears,
mind you this is an all male band) “just to make sure everyone was happy
with the show.” At the end, one of the lead signers throws his guitar picks
into the crowd, and amazingly enough…we got one! After that night,
Shawn and I enjoyed ourselves so much that we bought tickets for the same
concert in Glasgow later that week! What fun!

Unfortunately Amberly had brought a cold with her from the States and
bythe end of all this excitement I had it in a big way! In fact, I kept
that cold for nearly a week and a half after they left. Something to
remember them by I guess :-) Well, that gets us into April and I’m
knackered. I don’t really have vernacular, however, according to our
Scotland book whiskey, spelled without the ‘e’ (whisky) means its
Scottish. Elections are coming up here and they are very concerned
about the older voters, which are very un pc termed the “grey vote.” And to
end it, I will leave you with a question that my professor actually asked
in seminar last week. In referring to a piece of art he asked “What is
nine inches in God’s terms?” That room has never been quite so quiet, as we
all hope that someone else will say what we are thinking. It was the
fellow from Nottingham who spoke up, “A very lucky man!” My professor,
not realizing his faux pas, blushed and translated. He was asking for
the metric conversion of inches. Whooops!

Join me next time when Shawn and I leave the happy little island and
brave the big scary continent.

Hugs and loves
Kristen

Lucky thirteen! Look out for lightning. Am I supposed to skip
thirteen like architects skip the thirteenth floor? Just call this fourteen and leave it at that? Nah, that would just confuse me horribly, not to
mention all the people emailing me saying, hey, I didn’t get 13. It
would be mayhem, the kind of mayhem only the lucky number thirteen could
bring. So cross your fingers and rub the poor rabbits foot (no it wasn’t lucky
for the rabbit, but things could be different with you!) as we dive,
throwing superstitious caution to the wind, into update 13. Duh duhhh
duuuh!!

Smile, things will only get more interesting from here. So, Crista,
Shawn, and I have had a fun filled, light speed tour of Ireland and are
finally sitting, catching our breath, in Dublin airport. There is a
quiet lady with two amazingly well behaved twin boys who were about two
sitting across from us, probably waiting for the same flight. Both of young
boys, blond haired, blue eyed, are sitting like gentlemen eating their crisps
(those are potato chips to us) until suddenly one of them, in a burst
of excitement called out in the most charming British accent, “That man
has no hair!” He was pointing at Shawn. Both mom and Shawn turned out the
same colour red, and the three in between bursts of hysterical laughter
managed to agree that he was quite right. Mom finally removed her face
from her hands and apologized, which was totally unnecessary and the
poor little boy had that expression on his face, that we all experienced
when we were young, pure and utter confusion accompanied by the thought
“Grown ups are so weird.”

Back on the bigger island, we headed for the highlands. Having rented
a car we headed first to Stirling, where we climbed the 274 spiral stone
stairs of the Wallace Monument. On one of the four levels, which must
be in there for everyone to catch their breath, we were given graphic
demonstrations and descriptions of the Scottish weapons through the
ages. Most of the weapons were not sharp and pointy; apparently the blunt and
heavy were more effective. You see, surviving a stab wound is difficult
but possible a hundred years ago. However, a crushed shoulder or the
internal damage of a blow to the trunk of the body, no one could
survive. The whole thing was all very gory, as Scots are prone to be, and the
individual dishing out the information was rather enjoying himself, and
our reactions.

After spending our morning climbing stairs, hearing about the blood
and gore and not to mention all of the evil manoeuvres of the “fookin
English,” in the last couple centuries, we headed further north. Unfortunately, foot and mouth was quite rampant and lots of things we
closed. We looked lovingly, from afar at Dunothar castle, which is the
filming location of Mel Gibson’s Hamlet. It was closed and we were
bummed because it was right on the coast of the North Sea and looked so
interesting from several hundred yards! Along the way we followed sign
to Pictish stones, circle stones, and castles, most of which were closed
due to foot and mouth. Mind you they didn’t have anyone out there shooing
you away, just a little guilting sign explaining that you could be carrying
foot and mouth and by wondering out to this site you could infect any
number of wild life, not just domestic animals. In other words, if you
are selfish enough to wander out there, not only could you be
responsible for killing farmer bobs herd and lively hood, but you could also murder Bambi! That was more than enough logic for the three of us to respect
their wishes and stay off the land.

We did, however, manage to get to two standing stones, and there is a
reason. The Brandsbutt stone was in a residential area, a playground
to be exact, just twenty feet from a set of swings! The stone, about
three feet high and two wide, had both Pictish symbols, which no one has been
able to decipher, and Ogham, which was partly broken by one of my
professors. Now that’s something to write home about, my Celtic
civilization professor helped to break an ancient language. We touched
the stone, thinking this was made over a thousand years ago, and here
it sits in the middle of a community park. The Scots have got to have an
interesting perspective on life, with ancient stones sharing space in
their parks just like a slide. The other, the Sueno Stone was in an
equally residential area, surrounded by neatly manicured lawns and a
twenty-five foot case of glass. As you may have guessed, there was no
touching involved this time. This stone, however, was immense over
twenty feet tall and extremely impressive. The front had a story that read
like a comic strip, image by image. Luckily we had a book that explained
the story, because we had no clue what the funny little men were up to.
The sides had Pictish symbols, as did the back. A whole lot of information
and history on that stone, and, as of yet, we don’t know what it is!
The Picts failed to leave behind a key, probably assuming that their
language would survive. Ooops, anybody could make that mistake!

Head North young people! Into Dundee, which was just another city. A
slightly different accent, but the city was really, not that interesting. We reserved a room in a B&B in a small town called Abroath only a few
minutes away. Then we pulled a classic American manoeuvre and assumed
we would check in, get situated, and then go find ourselves dinner.
Abroath was indeed your classic small coastal town that rolled up its sidewalks at the ungodly hour of six! A decent, meal, I don’t think so. We ended up in a hotel and to give you an idea of this place, we ordered an
appetizer of deep fried mushrooms—it arrived and there were three mushrooms. The three of us looked from the plate to each other to the plate. And of
course, our honoured guest, Crista, looks at us with that terrified
expression of “Is this normal for Scotland.” No! Just for this creepy
little town, that you just know has bred fifty percent of the world’s
axe murderers! The B&B was equally, errm, interesting.

The next morning, again on the foot and mouth trail we attempted to
see Aquarthies, Castle Campbell affectionately known as Castle gloom, and
Duff house Castle. Along the tour of things we couldn’t see we drove
through Aberdeen, which, for once, was something we didn’t want to see. We did
succeed in getting into Huntly Castle, which was mainly ruins and a
total blast. It was cold and everyone was scared away by foot and mouth, so
we had the entire place to ourselves. We were very silly, taking pictures
and up and down the stairs, into rooms, out of rooms, just being silly
and probably very glad to be out of the car. After a couple of hours, of
cold and insanity we braved the car and under and hour later finally,
reached our most northerly destination, Inverness.

Inverness was an extremely charming cross between modern city and
small town. All the amenities of the city and the attitude of the town, in
fact, only three days before our arrival had the council designated
Inverness an official town. We know this because everyone we met felt
the need to mention it, like they won the lottery…”Did you hear…?”
Annoying, but redeemingly cute. Here we stayed in a wonderful B&B called Castle View, and yes, it did have a view of the caste, it was also right on
the river. Wonderful view and the room was very comfortable, the staff
friendly, and the breakfast actually offered fresh fruit and yoghurt.
Most places will only serve things that clog the arteries, so this was,
quite literally, a refreshing change! That night we opted for the
Inverness “ghost tour,”which was a one man show/tour of the city, where
he described all the horrendous and strange events that went on the spot
in the last century. Like one lady who was hanged for concealing
pregnancy, a law I studied this year, pronounced dead, put in the coffin and taken off to the graveyard. The gravedigger apparently noticed a ring still
on her finger and, as gravediggers do, proceeded to remove it, or at least
attempt to. However, the damn thing wouldn’t budge, so he decided to
remove the finger. Breaking out that trusty knife and he plunges it
into her hand. You can imagine his horror and surprise when she sat up and
screamed. She was still alive. However, since she had been sentenced
to death the case went back to the council. Who after careful
deliberation, decided that she had been declared dead and now she was alive, this was all very suspicious and dangerous. Wisely, they opted not to mess with the powers that be, called it a miracle and let her go. The tour was
full of silly and crazy stories like this, and the guy giving the tour with
was a loud, obnoxious nut—we liked him instantly.

The next morning we caught the tour of Loch Ness, given by our English
guide, Tony. Are you confused, I sure was? Apparently he was Scottish
born, grew up in England, and eventually moved back. Anyhow, he was an
expert on the monster and took an extremely scientific point of view to
the whole thing, but remained a believer; at least that “something” was
in there. Nessie aside, Loch ness was indescribably breathe taking,
clear, still, and beautiful! I can’t even begin to describe it! You will
just have to come see for yourself, someday. The tour also included a trip
to Urqhart Castle, mostly ruins, and right on Loch Ness. Stunning! There
was another Glaswegian on the tour, among many other nationalities, but
she perfectly personified the Glaswegian when she was practically dying
climbing the stairs in that castle, however, she refused to remove the
cigarette from her mouth! Should tell you something about this city,
huh? After the tour we wandered Inverness a bit, seeing the sights, and, of
course, into the shops, and got back into the car.

Our trip back to Glasgow was pretty long, as we are not used to cars
anymore. The beginning, however, was entertaining because of the wild
life. To begin, we saw a bunch of pheasants, which is you have never
seen one are round, slow moving, extremely stupid birds. Our guide, Tony,
informed us that they were bred by the aristocracy to be so slow and
stupid, so when noble company came to visit and hunt they were sure to
shoot one. More useless information to clog the brain cells! We also
saw tiny highland deer, and huge, we think elk, rabbits, sheep, huge cows,
and of course those loveable highland coos, with the hair falling adorably
over their eyes. Normally we would be able to pet these cows, but with
foot and mouth we don’t dare for fear of some farmed charging us with a
pitchfork. Our route home took us by several Lochs, which, by the way,
is just another word for lake, just as Glen is the same as valley. We
passed, and in some cases stopped and took pictures at Loch Ba, Lock
Linnh, and Loch Levin, some with mountains, some with delightful little
fishing boats, and some as smooth as glass with that perfect sunset in
the background. All those things you have heard about the beauty of
Scotland, not only are they true, they don’t do it justice!! Glen Coe was also a short stop along the way, as it is a huge hiking destination we
expected it to be closed, because of foot and mouth, but we thought we would get out and check. To our shock and surprise, if the tourist office there
had been open, they would have sanitized us and sent us into the hills!
That was very cool, too bad it was after five!

Driving was not nearly as scary of an experience, however, there was a
sign that sent us all a little on edge. It read “Oncoming traffic in
middle of road.” Isn’t that comforting! Fortunately for us, there
wasn’t any oncoming traffic. Alright, this has gotten quite long, and sadly,
I can’t think of any vocabulary, I guess the Loch and Glen thing will
have to do! You will hopefully be seeing a bit of me in the next couple of
days, as it is my goal to get everything caught up before my parents
arrive on the 24th. I have just successfully brought you to the end of
March. Join me next time, when we manage to fit five people
comfortably into a one bedroom flat! Will Scottish wonders never cease! I hope life with on your side of the ocean is going well. I do still enjoy hearing from everyone, I haven’t forgotten you…have you forgotten me? ;-) Have a wonderful, exciting, lovely, gorgeous brilliant weekend, and I hope to
hear from you soon.
Love
Kristen

Hello there! Long time, no write, I know. It seems like every time
I’m just about caught up a month or so sneaks right by me!! The eternal
catch up game which most professionals out there will understand, and for
those students its affectionately termed procrastination. These things
happen,especially lately. On that note….on to the update!

After returning home from the very busy and active reality of our
London visit, we were both relishing the thought of sleeping in and a day of
calm and quiet laziness. Yeah right! First we flew home early Monday
morning, supposedly in time for me to get to class. That didn’t happen the
flight was delayed an hour, missed my class and prayed that my professor
didn’t notice. Luckily she didn’t. After a busy day at school I went home
looking forward to silly British shows and brainlessness. Thwarted
again, flip that switch and a sudden pop, zap, sizzle, and then smoke,
needless to say the television didn’t come on, but it did continue to smoke.
Our television exploded, and let me tell you, the smell was horrendous!
Burning electrical appliance, you know what I’m talking about here! So
much for that total vegetative state. Fortunately our television is
the archaic variety and the thing that exploded was some sort of transistor
thingy. This meant only the one piece to be replaced and we could
afford to fix it! However, Scotland isn’t used to impatient Americans and
they took nearly four weeks to fix the thing. On the bright side I was
still writing essays and the lack of distraction likely expedited the
process.However, at the time, we were not amused.

Beyond the exploding television episode, life was quiet for a while, I
madly worked on papers and Shawn worked on the database. Having on
computer for two technology dependent people trying to get work done
was a bit of a challenge, but we managed, for the most part. And every now
and then we would have a conversation with one another…oh yeah, there is
some one else here, huh?! The time crunch for work completion wasn’t school
deadlines (they don’t do deadlines much here) rather we were preparing
for our first guest. Crista was set to arrive in late March and we wanted
to give her our full and undivided attention, with no school or work
threateningly looming. Unfortunately neither one of us was entirely
successful, I completed nine out the ten essays and Shawn still had a
little to do on the database. However, after working so very hard for
the last couple of weeks neither one of us had any difficulties leaving
responsibility behind to travel and socialize.

In all of our infinite wisdom we decided to go to Ireland the Saturday
that Crista arrived, which to Shawn and I’s surprise happened to be
Saint Patrick’s Day. So we spent St Paddy’s day in Dublin Ireland in the
most crowded pub I have ever elbowed my way into. We met up with a friend
of mine, Carlye, who lives in Ireland and her S.O. Mark, who had the wrong
accent. He was English, and living in Ireland, which was confusing to
begin with. Now Carlye is an American, living in Ireland, dating and
Englishman, twitch, twitch…some things in life just don’t quite add up.
Regardless of nationality and respective accents we all got along
wonderfully. Apparently St. Paddy’s day in Ireland is usually a big
hoopla, go figure, with parades and festivals, and of course an all
night party/drinking fest. However, due to hoof, as the cabby informed us on
the way in from the airport, “Leave it to the fookin English to cancel
an Irish holiday.” (Insert cranky Irish accent here). If we thought the
Scots disliked the English, we were wrong! The Scots are anglophiles
compared to the Irish, who seemed to manage to blame the English for
everything beginning with hoof and mouth through to nuclear war. Mind
you the Irish never referred to them as English, none of them did, from
cabbies, to people in the pub, to the lady running the B&B we stayed
at,they were always affectionately termed the “fookin English.”

Having come from Scotland the Irish accents were both milder and more
charming. However, while in that crowded pub on St. Paddy’s day,
accents abound, from all over. Another cultural mix that you can only find on
this side of the ocean. Naturally we had the American sectioned
covered, but we weren’t the only ones, in a short while we noticed the people
next to us had a funny accent…they were New Yorkers! And one of the fellows
with them was from Long Beach California…the world shrinks again…don’t
any Americans stay home? Mark was there for the “fookin English”
contingency, brave man. I’m pretty sure I heard a Scots accents, and of course, lots of Irish, all drunk, singing, and eventually dancing. Don’t know how they can drink so much and then dance like that, must be a lifelong
cultivated talent. After we slept off Paddy’s day, Mark fixed us a traditional
“fry.” Let me tell you all of the answers are in the name, this was a
breakfast consisting of fried eggs, fried bacon, fried sausage, fried
mushrooms, and fried bread. Our arteries appropriately clogged and the
alcohol from the night before soaked up we wondered Dublin for a while,
poking our heads into all the cheesy tourist shops we could find.
Then, at night, traditional, live Irish music was always to be found! That
was one of the best things about Ireland, no matter where you went, there
would be a pub that had traditional music playing that night. The way
this worked was the pub would section off an area of the pub with a
handy dandy sign saying reserved for musicians. Now anyone with an
instrument or some sort of musical talent would sit in that area and play.
Eventually a group would gather and together they would rampage through
traditional songs, sometimes they would sing, but mostly it was
fiddles, borons, some smaller version of the bag pipes, flutes, tin whistles,
harmonicas, and squeeze boxes. Invariably they were highly energetic
and would use their feet to keep time, mind you in an old pub, of wood
floor, the floor shook in time. All and all it was very fun!

After being in Dublin for a bit we rented a car a decided to see the
other side of the island, which was only a three hour drive--can’t get
across California in that time! Anyhow the drive was beautiful full of
things I’m sure I’ve seen in the movies, the grassy hills, the
stonewalls, and surprisingly lots of very adorably sheep with even more lovable
babies. Yes, sheep are cute! We were headed for Galway, the coastal
town on the other side of the island. Galway was a lovely (aaccckkk, that’s
a Scots term and I just used it unintentionally) little town full of old
buildings cobble stone road, lots of shopping, (that was important for
Crista who was on a rampage for the perfect Irish sweater), and of
course the ocean. Mostly we roamed the streets and the shops until we found
our stomachs growling and our feet aching. Miraculously we also found
ourselves right outside of an interesting looking pub with a sign that
real “establish in 1491” we figured with all that time to practice the
food should be pretty good, so in we went. We all opted for the
homemade seafood chowder, because it was cold outside and soup will always cure
what ails ya. This soup was no cure, it was the answer to the
universe, absolutely, mouth wateringly, divine. Thick and creamy and made with the seafood that was likely caught that day out of the ocean only a mile
away. MMMMMHHHMMMM! Good stuff. That night we enjoyed the traditional
musicof Galway, very similar to Dublin and spent a night in a B&B by the
coast.


After roaming Galway we headed back towards Dublin, randomly stopping
tocheck out cool looking things and livestock…don’t ask. Instead of
goingto Dublin we went to Howth, also a very quaint and quiet coastal town.
With two perks, one is the B&B we were staying at all you had to do was
step into the drive way and you could see the ocean. A beautiful sight
even though it was storming and cold we stood and watched for as long
aswe could take the cold (about 2 minutes). The other perk was the
Mexican restaurant that Carlye recommended to us. Mind you we were warned
about eating ethnic foods in Scotland, we were told we would regret it if we
did it, so we didn’t. However, with a recommendation from an American who
knew what we wanted out of Mexican we dared to try it. Much to our
delight, and shock, it was some of the best Mexican we had ever had!
Finally, Mexican food, after nine months, we got our fix. We also
grabbed a card, because it was just too amusing. “Their name—The best Mexican
food in Ireland.” Something you would never expect to see in writing
much less on a business card.

Along with the great view of the B&B in Howth the owner were
exceptionally friendly and they man who made our breakfast and chatted
with us was name Shawn. Naturally he instantly fell in cahoots with
our Shawn. So Shawn and Shawn bantered with Kristen and Crista (name
variety is highly over rated!) throughout the meal. It was a great way to
start the day, unfortunately we were headed home that day, but all in all,
I’d have to say that Ireland was a blast!!

Okay, I’ve exhausted my writing motivation. One of these days I’ll
get you in the vicinity of the present…but not today. I only have one new
word for you, which is bumf. Kind of a cool word, my professor used it
to refer to a bunch of the reading we had to do for the course. Then when
I asked him what it meant he tried to skirt explaining. Eventually I got
him to spill and it’s slang for toilet paper, basically a bunch of
“crap.” Then he quickly amended that it was not a word to be used in polite
company. What am I? He hardly knows me, I’m almost insulted!!! Also
we discovered a soda over here called Lilt, which is made by Coca Cola,
but I’ve never seen it in the states. It’s a lime and grapefruit
carbonated thing, which if crisp and refreshing, and yummy! We also recently
discover Irn Bru, that mystery strange drink that the Scots are so
attached to was originally named Iron Brew until 1912 when the truth in
advertising laws came out and they couldn’t keep it because it didn’t
have any iron in it, nor was it a brew. The company creatively skirted the
dilemma through bad spelling Irn Bru. More useless information, aren’t
I handy, I just clogged up that brain cell you usually use to remember
your parents’ birthdays! Oh, and by the way, Happy Mothers Day, to all the
Mom’s out there, especially mine.

Hugz and Loves
Kristen

Shocked and amazed, at least I am! Here I am, only days later,
writing you another update. Yes, I have one more essay to write, but I am
procrastinating on the schoolwork and writing the fun stuff instead.
It seems all is right with the world, again. I don’t know who lit the
responsible fire under me, but it’s a nasty little habit. This culture
should have taught me to drink not to work! Sheesh, what was I
thinking?Something about grades, and degrees, and a career, but I’ve forgotten
now.

Well, lets get to what we are all here for…the update! There are kind
of two sides to the months of January, February, and part of March. On
the one side, I did spend all of my time doing research and writing essays.
Every now and then Shawn would wade through the notes and books and
knockon the other side of the laptop. Then drag me out into the world.
Good thing he did, because I would have absolutely nothing to say here. So,
in no uncertain terms, it’s only thanks to Shawn that those three months
aren’t entirely summed up in two words…wrote essays.

Instead you will have entertainment for at least the next ten minutes.
Unfortunately it took Shawn until Valentines Day to successful traverse
the great essay river. So that is where we begin. We spent the most
dreaded, hated, and loved holiday at home, together, as it should be.
However, there were no candles involved, no filet minion, no wine, no
classical music. We did manage to surprise one another with flowers
and presents, but for dinner…we did the oh so romantic pizza delivery. As
we have not eaten out in months and months, we both fancied (yes, I just
used that word and I’m not sure I’m happy about it!) a night where someone
else cooked and even better delivered it directly to our door. You can’t
even order pizza without culture shock! Dominos delivers…Donuts??!!!! Yep,
along with your large pepperoni and mushroom pizza, or even without the
pizza, Dominos will hustle a dozen little sugar donuts to your door any
time you want! Imagine the business opportunities if Krispy Cream
delivered, and the subsequent surge in heart attack victims. For those
of you who have never heard of or had Krispy Cream donuts, find one, have
some, and know that this is what cardiac arrest tastes like. Anything
that good really should be fatal. Anyhow, we spent a romantic night
together overeating pepperoni pizza, chicken wings, and of course
donuts…couldn’t pass up Dominos donuts.

In the face of a horribly long, hard, and downright evil two and a
half months we planned a trip smack dab in the middle to avoid hari-kari, on
either the working or the completely ignored partners side. So, we took
advantage of ryanair’s disgustingly low fares, low until you see the
taxes, and headed once again to London. We bought 4.50 tickets each
way that’s a total of 9 pounds round trip, except for the 20 pound tax.
Still a better deal than we will ever get anywhere else. So, at some point
in those two and half months, no I don’t remember when exactly, this is
four months ago, we hopped a plane to London.

London was a very busy trip. The trip didn’t start well, we had an
eight o’clock flight that was delayed until nearly eleven. No, we didn’t
have anywhere to be on time, but we are reliant on public transportation,
which we had to run to catch the extremely overpriced and last train into
town. Funny thing about this country, the airports are invariably not in the
city, at least an hour away. Missing that train would have left us in
the airport for the night. Running again we caught the last train on the
tube further into the city and closer, but not quite to, our final
destination. We walked from Kings Cross to Queensway, which is in the middle of London(about 2-3 miles) at three a.m. (boy moms going to be thrilled, think I skipped that detail in the phone call).

Having survived our way into London, the fun began! First Stacey and
Christophe had the brilliant suggestion of something called the Players
theatre. What a wonderful show! It’s a live show of mixed skits and
songs, where the audience sings along and the actors heckle the
audience just as much as the audience heckles them. For my age group, just
think Rocky Horror only Victorian style. Pretty much sums it up. Also, we
expanded our food bubble; we ate pigeon, not directly from Trafalgar
Square, but the bred and fed variety. It was…interesting. Amazingly
enough we managed to procure tickets to The Lion King! I have been
drooling over this show for over a year and I was right to! What an
absolutely amazing, incredible, moving, inspirational, creative,
beautiful show. I can’t even begin to describe the costumes and the set and the music and, and, and…you get the picture. Also, by complete chance we
were offered front row seats to a show called the Complete Works of
Shakespeare. Now shock set in, not culture shock, plain, old, ordinary,
jaw dropping shock. Sitting there laughing, and thinking to myself,
boy those actors look familiar. Then thinking, I think I’ve seem this
somewhere before…on TV? No. On stage, if you can call it that, with
hay bails for seats. Yep, they were the old Northern faire crew who did
Hamlet, backwards, forwards and in under two minutes. Now on a London
stage actually making a living off of something that started at faire!
Will wonders never cease? Oh, for those who are wondering, they did
manage the complete works of Shakespeare in two hours, focusing mostly
on the tragedies because “frankly, they’re funnier!” J

We were able to tear ourselves from the London stages long enough to go
shopping in Soho and Oxford street. We wandered the amazing National
Gallery, which I highly recommend. Roamed the Tower of London, which
by the way is not a tower. It’s practically a village! The old tower, its
namesake, is a relatively small building a little off to the side.
Its completely enclosed in a wall and used to have a moat. All moats have
been drained because the mosquitoes were spreading malaria. Picky!
Picky! I think it kind of ruins the effect to have neatly manicured lawns in
front of these huge walls. There are historical re enactors that carry
the crowd through the story and history of Lady Jane, who was one of
the famous occupants of the Tower. I still feel horrible for Lady Jane who
was pawned onto the thrown for a total of nine days, before Queen Mary
returned with supporters and took it back. Lady Jane subsequently
spent the next two years in the tower until Mary had no choice but to behead
her. Really depressing and if you want to sprout tears for about an
hour straight you can rent the movie, Lady Jane and get a more detailed
account. Or, a little more expensively, you can visit the tower of
London and have the actors show/tell you all about it. One of which I might
add worked the California faire circuit for years. Is it me or is this
world shrinking? I could have sworn I was in a foreign country!

There are a couple of peculiarities of London, even after living in
Scotland. One of the most entertaining things I noticed was the
popularity of US brands. I saw more made in the USA labels in that one
week in London than I have living in the states for twenty years.
Also, after living in Scotland, London walks slow! Scotland speed walks, we
are not slow movers, but the Scots just zip right on by. London on the
other hand, we were walking all over everyone’s heels. Then there is the
tube, which is a wonderful, wonderful piece of work, even if people do keep
bombing it. Sitting on the tube is a social psychologists nightmare.
But the cultural mix is very amusing. Sitting there you hear different
languages being spouted rapidly and then out comes some English word
like Kings Cross. “Eu gosto realmente d aqui. O tempo é realmente
agradável, nosso batente está vindo acima? Nós não queremos o Kings Cross?”
Very,very strange. I really wish I was multilingual, many people here
speak, two, three, even four fluently. Closest I come to a second language is
Ebonics and I’m definitely not fluent.

Alright, I’m done. All worn out. Unfortunately this time I don’t have
any new vocabulary words for you. Instead I am going to relay the not
quite as PC advertising terms they have here. Around here they don’t
use “Toner” instead it’s, much more honestly put “anti sagging cream.”
Also bounty is not the quicker picker upper, it’s the quicker soaker upper.
Little things you notice. The commercials here are also into shock
instead of plain, old manipulation. For instance, a car commercial has
a drag queen jump into the car and drive the typical curvy wet roads, all
the while removing the wig, the makeup, the jewellery, until he reaches
that perfect scenic turn out where he gets out and promptly trips over
his high heels. The announcer pipes in “The Sophia Seat, because life
isn’t a drag.” Nuff said.


Hugz and Luvz
Kristen

Amazing isn’t it? Its Easter and I am finally getting around to
catching you up on New Years. Scary! On the bright side, as you already know, my entertaining duties have only been forsaken for school. In no
uncertain terms, I have spent so many hours in front of the computer writing
essays, editing essays, re-writing, re editing, and just a little bit more
writing. It is absolutely no wonder I have shuttered at the mere
thought of writing anything, even addresses on envelopes. I have avoided it
all!


To get out of the nebulous concepts I will tell you the essays I have
written…nine, in two months, and here are the topics: Is the blocking
effect found in both animals and humans? Does learned helplessness
affect humans and animals similiarly? What is intelligence? (In 1200 words or
less) Interaction of Nature and Nurture. Are infanticide and
abandonment two sides of the same coin? Why are the symbol stones, cross slabs, and other sculptured monuments of the Picts such a valuable source for
understanding Pictish society? Did World War I intensify or break down
gender roles? To what extent was delinquency invented to allow middle
class intervention into working class families? And a book review on a
book called Forgotten Children: Parent child relations from 1500s to
1900s. Sounds like fun, huh? Yeah, well, if nothing else I learned a
lot and if you are, for some strange reason, interested in any of these
topics, let me now, and I will certainly send you a copy of the essay.
I have one left to write and then I’m done, for this year at least.

While we are in the school vicinity lets consider grades for a moment.
I did receive the final grade for my biology class, which ended well
before Christmas. I received an A, UK standard and while I was looking at the
list I did see listed grades of E, G, and H, just in case I forgot I
was in a different country. As for my psychology class last term, I
literally had to corner my professor and force her to tell me the results. After this grand effort I was told that I had gotten a one. That’s exactly
what I said…”A one? A one what?” Alright maybe I’m being picky wanting to
know my own scores in my own language and expecting a psychology
professors to perhaps know the translation. She didn’t. She told me a
one was “quite good.” This didn’t fly with me; I was not about to
leave that office with “quite good” for a grade! With a bit more persistence
we narrowed it down to a one was the highest out of a count of three, but
there are different grade levels, with the one, two, three, thing going
on. Again, not horribly helpful, I would be really annoyed if the
grade was a C or D one. Anyway after one of those long drawn out
conversations where I begin to wonder if she is in fact speaking English and she is pretty sure I’m from a different planet we narrow it down to an
equivalent of one two three equalling plus, flat, minus on my grade system. Yay, progress! And finally discovering the entirety of the grade was a B
one. This may sound bad, that’s because it is! The psychology department
here has been amazingly useless all year, where as the history department
seems entirely on the ball. Strange, but true.

Moving away from the business sector, what about the fun stuff??? Well
last time I was talking about Christmas in London. Unfortunately I did
forget some small details, while there we did see some cool things,
even if London was unpleasant. We went to a Christmas concert in Saint
Martin in the Fields, which was classical music played by candle light in a
beautiful, old and famous church. If you have never heard of it,
because I never had, apparently it’s the sight for numerous recordings. That
does not surprise me; the acoustics in there were incredible. We also went
to see The King and I in a London theatre, which, of course, was
wonderful. Alright, that covers happy moments in London over the holiday season, back to Glasgow, with the most snow in two decades and New Years eve,
affectionately known as Hogmanay over here.

We didn’t get any tickets to anything, because you didn’t have to. They
had free entertainment in a blocked off down town. Naturally the
weather was being uncooperative. For the first part of the night it was
pouring. We waited in the torrential down pour for the bus and wondered if we
might just swim our way downtown. Finally the bus arrived and it was packed!
We found ourselves a nook where we were promptly offered a drink. The
Scots have a thing for singing, if you ever board a horribly over
crowded bus, they are bound sing. We didn’t know any of the songs, but I could
have sworn one sounded like “The wheels on the bus go round and round”
and something like 100 bottles of beer on the wall. Probably better off
not knowing. The entire bus unloaded at one stop and it was time for
culture shock because almost every single passenger wished the driver a happy
new year, or in Scots terms “all the best.” Down town they had five stages all with a different form of music or entertainment. We caught the women drum team, which was very impressive, almost forty drummers in one spot. It was enough to make the ground shake. On another stage area they were doing the cheesy Las Vegas weddings with your average over exaggerated Las Vegas host. Naturally Shawn and I hopped in line and had a shot gun Vegas wedding in Glasgow Scotland on New Years Eve. Woo Hoo! We even got the certificate,
valid for 24 hours. I think that’s about as close as I’ll come to marriage
any time soon. We wandered the area and stopped where it suited us. The
weather of course, rained, then snowed, and just for variety, hailed
once. Right around midnight, us and about 3000 of our closest friends
crowded around the main stage, some of us standing is shin deep puddles, to
watch Glasgow’s newest celebrity bring in the new year as Freddy Mercury.
You see, they have a show here called Stars in Their Eyes, which is an
adult version of Star Search. This Glaswegian won on the show so the city of
Glasgow gave him the stage show on New Years. He was lots of fun and
even looked like Freddy during his younger years, that was, until he spoke.
Our New Year was brought in to Bohemian Rhapsody in the rain snow and
hail. It was a blast! Hugs and kisses from random men, women, and
children accompanied by the Scottish, “all the best.” Now since the
Scots are such heavy partiers not only is everything closed for new years
day, everything is closed for the next two days. Really sleep off those
hang overs, and lots of companies stayed closed for the whole week. Why
can’t the US party and sleep like the Scots?? Sheeesh.

After New Years we took the pretty much forced vacation and relaxed.
Then I made an appointment with the dentist. You are probably wondering why
exactly I would bore you with dentist details, well, its not boring,
its actually just plain strange. I was headed for the dentist because I
have been grinding my teeth away for the last couple of months and thought I
might want the things later in life. I found a dentist close and made
an appointment. (That’s how it works over here) The dentist was this spry
and energetic older man with that lovely accent and a little more
familiarity than one expects. I got into his office and he took my
coat, no not just from my hands, helped it off my body. Then he chatted me
up a bit and finally poking into my mouth he exclaimed in a most excited
fashion that I had “Lovely teeth.” Some of the best work he had ever
seen. Boy my dentist is going to be pleased! Then he was mightily
impressed with the amount of grinding I had done. After commenting on
the lovely teeth a bit more, he furnished me this sexy little mouth guard
to wear at night. I’m really not old enough to have a prefabed set of
teeth! Apparently that’s just my opinion. Because I liked the dentist so
much I had Shawn ask them questions about getting himself fixed while he is
here. What a good idea! Turns out the dentist was fully willing to take
Shawn on and the price over here is maybe a quarter of what it would cost at
home. They have a fantastic medical system. Just as long as you
aren’t horribly attached to your kidneys. Don’t ask, just read the news.

Alright, well at least I have you into the right year. I’m going to
stop while I’m ahead, well, actually, fairly behind, but I am catching up!
No letter would be complete without the vernacular lesson. Draich is a
word for the weather here, it means, like it sounds, cold, wet, dank….draich
(pronounced drrrrAKe with that guttural thing on the K). That is a
singularly Scottish word as if you couldn’t tell. And manky, which is
a word the dentist used to describe the mouth guard after its worn for a
night. Yuck! You get the picture, lets not even discuss this. Well,
I hope the wait hasn’t been too horrible. I am going to try to write
some more of in my free time, if I continue to have some. Have a very happy
Easter!

Hugz and Lovz
Kristen

And then there was silence. I know, I know, I have been a major
slacker lately. I can admit that, in fact I have consistently admitted that to
everyone who asked me where that update was hiding. To which, I must
say, it isn’t hiding. Instead it’s looming and growing. Then I realized
that at some point the whole thing would tip and I would be trapped under a
months worth of information with no food or water for days on end. Not
a pretty sight! So here we are, at the end of January perhaps tracking
all the way back to the end of November or the beginning of December. It’s
been so long I don’t know! How sad is that?

Well, on the bright side I haven’t been ignoring my entertainment
duties for no good reason. First we were out of town, details of which will
follow and then the new term started. The new term was definitely the
deal breaker here. I have ten papers to hopefully complete by mid
March. What’s this got to do with your regular entertainment, you ask. Well,
you see, with so much to do the computer and I have acquired one of those
user-computer relationships, where I cuss at it loudly and it crashes.
In fact some days I just glare at it from across the room, thinking evil
things like “Macintoshes aren’t so bad,” or “all of your ones were
mistakes, you’re just a big old zero!” So, only the geeks will get
that last one. Oh, and by the way…I am not a geek! I’m just well roundedJ


How do I recount the details of the last couple of months, when I can’t
remember what I had for dinner? Luckily, (sneaky me) I write little
notes in my book as they happen; now the only thing standing between you and
a relatively accurate recount of the recent and not so recent past is
translation issues. I’ll do my best, and whatever I can’t figure out,
I’ll make up, give it to the Americans they believe anything! (Just
kidding, I’m in a mood so if I’m more obnoxious than usual then “you’re
welcome,” or “I’m sorry,” as the case may be. Anyhow, onto more
tangible things like life, love, and the pursuit of driving on the wrong side of the road and meeting celebrities!

Yes, you read that right; we have officially rubbed elbows with the
rich and famous. I never saw that coming either. Anyhow, we went to a
reading of J.K Rowling, for anyone who is confused she is the author of the
internationally loved Harry Potter books. She is indeed quite famous
and extremely rich at this point. In a reluctant announcement for one of
the magazines around here she admitted that her salary consisted of 56,000
pounds a day! The exchange rate is about 1.5 if you want the dollars
on that, its scary. Anyway back to the reading, which consisted of about
3000 children and the necessary parental supervision and about six
twenty somethings without rug rats. Regardless of being grossly outnumbered
we enjoyed ourselves and managed to get her signature on a book. We had a
good time, although 3000 small children was not our idea of a good way
to wake up.

From that reading we made our way to the car rental place. Let me tell
you something…I have never been so terrified in my life! Not when my
older brother was learning to drive and my mother’s knuckles were white
and clinging to the dashboard while she stomped on her personal brake
(which didn’t exist) and screamed. Not when my teenage friends decided
to see how fast their cars could go. And not even when you realize that
you are doing 70 and traffic is fully stopped up ahead (love those
shoulders). Mind you, we haven’t been driving any car on any side of any street for four months. Now the driver is on the wrong side of the car (the right side), traffic direction is opposite, and the road signs around here
don’t make an ounce of sense. It didn’t matter how fast we were going, it
was too fast! I was the one using my personal brake, the whole time! I
learned not to scream quickly, because it really seemed to upset Shawn.
So, I took to whining quietly like a caged animal facing impending
death while in traffic, and out and out praying at roundabouts. Oddly enough,
we lived. One very strange thing about driving here, aside from the
confusing signs, and the roundabouts, they have a yellow light both
before a green and a red. I see trouble here, but it seems to work.

As if we hadn’t had enough excitement for the time we headed to London
thefollowing week. First I’ll describe London, which is quite separate
fromthe visit. Yes, I know that doesn’t follow, but be patient and I will
show you what I mean. London is an old city that tries to maintain the
nostalgia of its history, while advancing with the latest fads. Do you
see the problem here? Yes, we saw Big Ben, the Thames, Saint Paul’s,
and Westminster Abbey, however, interspersed with the history, was, well,
sadly…neon. Red, blue, and pink neon, advertisements, and posters, all
of which made these historical sites look like a fabricated tourist
attraction. Quite aptly, Shawn stated, “London is kind of like
Disneyland, just not as happy.” Let me tell you, the Brits are not
friendly people, at least not in London. They are gruff, rude, and
just not pleasant. Thus, our “London” experience was a disappointment.

Now, to un confuse you, the visit was exceptionally enjoyable because
we went to visit Stacey and Christophe, who are friends of ours from
California. We got an American fix! (Applause!!) I can’t even begin
to describe how much we missed home mentality. We have not been around
people that we have a history with, understand, don’t have to translate
the language, and enjoy so thoroughly in several months. The strange
thing is we didn’t realize how much we missed home until we could
almost taste it. Thus we spent a wonderful week in London, give or take
London.

We had a beautiful Christmas dinner that consisted of utensils and
tableware that I didn’t have a chance of identifying. Yet, I knew all
of the food! Did you know that you are supposed to have a different cup
for your wine, your cold drink, and your water, all at once? You learn
something new every holiday. At least this year it wasn’t how to get
two inches of water off the basement floor. It happened, long story, don’t
ask.

Unfortunately, the week did eventually end and while we missed the
Scottish hospitality we didn’t want to leave our friends. While in
London the weather took a strange turn and snowed about a quarter of an
inch that melted quickly. However, on our train ride home we noticed
that the snow didn’t melt and was in fact growing deeper as we travelled.
Once we finally reached Glasgow what we saw was something privy to a winter
wonderland except the happy ice-skating thing and the snowman making.
Rather the population as a whole seemed to be baffled by the whole
thing. None of the buses had chains, which they needed, nor did cars. Turns
out the *country* doesn’t carry chains. What a foreign concept, for a
foreign land, I guess it works. Glasgow had received over a foot of snow and
was extremely panicked. Their idea of fighting traffic conditions was
salt. Uh-huh. We later found out that they haven’t seen snow like this in
20 years, guess I brought the weather with me.

On the bright side, once safely away from the havoc of Scotland and
snow, we had a small Christmas celebration waiting for us. Shawn and I had
full stockings and packages from my mom to open, which made for a happy
return. A really exciting discovery over here was the fact that Costco lives
here too. Yes, it is sad when this sort of thing excites you, but live on
UK’s version of food for a while and see how much you miss Oreos! We had
our happy Costco card; we grabbed our huge hiking backpacks and made our
way to American’s salvation land. Or at least that’s what we thought,
until we went in to discover that Costco was a wholesaler of everything over
here from electronics to washing machines to beds to office organizers,
and way, way in the back was food. They did give out free samples;
however, in true UK form it was alcohol. The food was kind of a split
between American and UK, but we did manage to find *real* peanut
butter, Oreos, and zip lock bags. Really strange what you miss, huh?

All right, I’ve managed to dig myself up to New Years Eve and this is
getting long. I think to get myself out of this hole I’m going to go
with instalments. Hopefully this will tide you over until the next time the
computer and I are on speaking terms. However, this would not be
complete without a vernacular lesson, bullocks is baloney…politely put. Also,
one can be knackered, particularly after writing something this long.
Lastly, gonnae, which we are not quite sure what it means, it’s generally used
in a highly articulate sentences like “You gonnae no do that.” (And they
claim to be speaking English over here.) My guess would be gonna, but
it must mean more because it always followed by “no.” It’s a mystery.
All right, well I’m off, hope all is well!

Love
Kristen

Hi all, it’s been a while, huh? Yeah well, its that
end of term rush and pretty much the entirety of the
world is based on papers, one after another, and for
the life of me I couldn’t logisize spending any
superfluous time at the computer. Especially since
Shawn and I are negotiating an agreeable timetable for
each of our computer needs. One of the major
downfalls of having two computer literate (and
dependent) people in the house and one laptop that is
having a coronary over all of the use it is currently
getting. The laptop is really quite upset at us,
can’t blame it really, it went from the random last
minute papers every couple of months to use everyday,
and the creation of major databases. I’d be upset
too! Anyhow, enough about computer abuse, how bout
them Scots?

The flat we have is working out wonderfully, comfy,
cozy, and that television is insight into their
culture that we were definitely missing out on. The
down side of the place is location, while we may not
be any further from the University, we are no longer
quite so centrally located, which is nice because its
quieter, but not because we are a long walk from the
store, the bank, and pretty much everything we had
become so used to walking around the corner for. Also
the walk to school is not quite as easy, actually its
evil, its uphill both ways!!! Backwards, barefoot, in
twenty feet of snow, in the pouring rain, in the
middle of a blizzard, for twenty miles... and we were
grateful! Ooops, sorry, parent flashback. The walk
does have some truly evil hills, though!

Anyhow, on the actual academic side of things,
as I said term is ending and most everyone is running
in circles trying to get everything done in time.
Myself included, I have two essays due this week and
they are written but not quite right. Speaking of
essays...I was finally given one back! Heh heh, I
recieved a 72, and when it was handed to me I sat
there and thought to myself.."alright, I was warned
about this. Thats not a bad grade, I don't think. I
think its a good grade. Actually I'm pretty sure its
a good grade. What grade is it?" Well I had to look
it up on my handy dandy reference thingy for their
grading system and it is a flat A by THEIR standanrds!
I'm very pleased, was worried that my bsing ability
during my previous 3 years didn't hinder my ability to
write a somewhat informed paper. My professor was
very impressed, in fact, she told me a pretty funny
story. You see, she went to get here Ph.D at Harvard
and while working on her doctorate she taught a
course, required an essay, and went home and graded
them all. Yes, you can see this coming, she graded on
the british system and this poor class! The highest
grade was in the 70s and most everyone else 50 or
60,...gave the entire class a coronary! There was
such an outburst that she had to recollect them and
have a colleague translate. That must have been an
eye opener for everyone involved!

On to more lively topics like
eating...errr...Thanksgiving, that is. Well, I’m sure
most of you are aware that its not a holiday
celebrated over here. So we had our own pseudo
thanksgiving, which didn’t in the least involve that
poor turkey. Its amazing that they are not an
endangered species. Although around Thanksgiving and
Christmas they probably feel like it! Nope, for our
holiday we terrorised a local cow, well, not
personally we didn’t, we got the meat from the market.
Come on, I’m in Scotland, not the South where the
hobby of cow tipping is so prevalent. Nope, nope, we
are in the country where the men are men and the sheep
are scared. That’s us! Back to that dinner... we had
a Taco day instead of a Turkey day. I know most of
you think we are nuts, but, well, Mexican is both
insanely expensive over here and probably not what we
would consider Mexican. If American Mexican food is
referred to as blue-eyed Mexican, what would Scottish
Mexican be called? Anyway, we made a truly Mexican
meal, home made and very tasty! We also invited Elisa
over for dinner, now she is a story in herself!

When I asked her if she wanted to join us for
thanksgiving she had a momentary blank look and then
something clicked and said "turkey and stuff, yeah?"
She said the picture that she conjured for the
holiday was a cooked turkey wearing a pilgrim hat next
to a red Indian. She has personality that’s for sure.
Anyhow, after explaining the holiday in general, I
had to explain that we weren’t doing the traditional
meal, we were doing Mexican. Interestingly enough,
she has had very little experience with Mexican and we
had to identify a number of things which you would
never think such as taco shells, tortilla chips, and
tortillas. Then she thought that the sour cream we
had out was yogurt. The clash of the cultures, huh?
We also spotted brie in the market when shopping for
Thanksgiving and decided that would be a great
appetiser. So before our not so traditional Taco day,
we had brie and bread, which Elisa had never
experienced either. Deprived woman! She looked at it
for a while and repeated after us with that suspicious
look "that’s cheese?" When she finally braved that
first bite she practically melted into the chair, once
she finished chewing she popped right back to life and
had another. This continued until the three of us had
all but devoured the entire thing, and this was no
little triangle, larger than most. Dinner was just as
enjoyable and we made a Mexican fan of a person who
lives somewhere where it doesn’t really exist, how
cruel is that?

On the travelling side of things we visited Sterling
this last weekend, saw the jail with an actor for a
tour guide. This one guy took on about six different
personality in the span of twenty minutes, and I
thought my friends had multiple personality problems!
Whatever the case, he definitely interacted with the
group, actually scared a lot of them and complained
constantly about "colonials." Then he up and decides
to pick on Shawn and starts referring to him as
‘monkey boy’ which is ironic as many people at home
call him that. My mother was however very indignant
about the idea when I told her, repeatedly saying, "I
don’t see the resemblance." Then we hiked up to the
castle, which was monstrous and old and beautiful.
You know how you read all those books that describe
the size of a castle, the feeling of the stone, the
draftiness, the smell of age and dirt, the defences
and you have to imagine it because in your mind
something like that could not possibly still exist.
Well, it does and strangely enough, what you imagine
is likely very close to what it is. Mostly cold and
stone, but breathtaking in its immensity. In royal
chambers everything is elaborate and gigantic...Shawn
and I have slept in tents smaller than their
fireplaces! Its kind of surreal, yet its so old that
its more realistic than most of the building in San
Francisco.

While there we purchased these handy dandy little
cards that would let us into 60 such attraction
including Edinburgh castle and of course back to
Sterling. There is no way we could have seen
everything in one shot even if we had a whole day,
luckily we have the majority of year...perhaps we’ll
manage by then. Next weekend we have a car rented,
that should be a very entertaining story in
itself...our first experience on driving on the wrong
side of the road. Stay to the left, stay to the left,
stay to the left...

Then there was the other interesting movie
experience. Ever feel like you are traveling back in
time? I do, here, on a regular basis. This time we
went to the bigger theater that is downtown. The
place was packed and they shuffled everyone through
quickly. When we purchased tickets, we were told they
only had seats in first two rows. That wasn't that
strange of a thing to hear, it happens at home,
however, once we said we didn't care he printed out
tickets, with row and seat numbers. To catch you up,
cuz I would be really confused if it hadn't happened
to me, they were assigned seats and he knew for a fact
that only the front two rows were available! Odd.
Shawn and I kinda raise our eyebrows at each other,
shruged it off, we are in a foreigne country after all
and moved on. Once in the theater there were two
ushers on either side, who took you tickets and
escorted you right to your seat, flashlight and all!
Accckkk. This is pushing that strangness threshhold.
Anyhow, now we are seated, relaxing, trying to shake
off the oddities of the last five minutes, it goes
dark, the curtain is pulled (which is apparently a
standard feature here) and the, errr, commercials
begin?! We went through cell phones, alcoholic
beverages, candies, clothes, the whole shebang. Once
they had gotten that out of their system...fifteen
minutes later...the previews began equally lasting
fifteen or so minutes and finally after much ado we
made it to the feature presentation. Very, very
interesting. I think I'll form an opinion about it
once I've accepted it actually happened. By the way,
the movie we saw was Charlie's Angels, which just came
out here and it was quite fun, silly, and lots of sex
appeal doing impressive fighting moves. A movie a
friend of mine adequately described as the Matix's
teenage sister.

There is one thing that this place has killed any
desire for. I will never, for the rest of my life,
ever even vaguely consider in the most kidding of
terms a facial piercing. I have seem no many bad ones
in the last couple of months there is no way I would
ever want one. Now, I’m no stranger to interesting
piercings, and in general they don’t bother me.
Likely a generational thing. However, its the ‘bad’
ones that are killing me, the rings that are too big
for the face, too many piercing in one face, silver
poking in and out of places that are just not
flattering! Uuuuckk. On that note, I know that my
mother is practically jumping up and down at home
thankful that she will never have to whisper to her
friends about a nose piercing or some piece of metal
sticking from my face, "it’s a phase." And I know
that she would! Am I still going through phases? Or
have I outgrown that by now?

Is it a bad sign that I have this undeniable urge to
relay to you the antics of television on this side of
the ocean? I can’t see how its a good thing. Lets
see, we ran into Jerry Springer over here, in fact, he
is literally over here, in London. And its not the
kind of tear him apart with your bare hands show he
was running in the states. Rather he is a kind of
demented version of Jay Leno. Sitting pretty behind a
desk interviewing guests and making fun of the news.
That was just plain odd. Last night with Jerry
Springer was the lead singer of Soft Cell, for those
of you who don’t know he was a popular artist of the
80’s. Anyway at some point they got to the
interrelations of all the artists of the 80’s and the
guy, whose name I can’t remember, described it as
"handbags at fifty paces. What an image! Other than
that, the advertisements are just wrong, but we like
them, lots of nudity and innuendo. The shows range
from relatively mellow to just plain strange. The
strange side was something privy to mad tv or Saturday
night live, only in exceptionally thick Scottish
accents and lots of humour that flies right over our
heads. Maybe we’ll get the joke by the end of the
year. They also have an amazing amount of quiz shows,
one that’s on late at night is called 100 percent sex.
Which is literally 100 questions about sex asked in
about 30 minutes. Some seriously obscure questions,
needless to say our useless knowledge is skyrocketing.


Well, I would have to say that about covers it for
the moment. I do have lots of vernacular this time.
Actually I misinformed you last time, misunderstood
the Scots accent....on the duff is actually UP the
duff. Still doesn’t make an ounce of sense, but this
time I have it right. Anything labelled toffee over
here is actually caramel. A slang term for a
promiscuous woman is a slapper, whoa what an image,
huh? Bogin means gross and curvy bits...well you can
figure that one out. They also have this affection
for the terminology of "a bit," as in "a year and a
bit," "a bottle and a bit," "a pound and a bit." You
get the idea. Alright, you have thus been
enlightened! Hope all is going well on your side of
the ocean, holiday rush and all. Have fun

Love
Kristen

Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Boy do I have a lot
to tell you! Where to begin is a serious dilemma, so
much to say and so little time…well, what’s say we
start with the big stuff. We have moved! Aha, you
think, I knew that was coming. Yes, well, the
migration patterns of the Shawn and Kristen this year
have been quite erratic they seem to have abandoned
their usual westward migration to California and gone
quite the distance east where they settled for only a
month and a half. They have since picked up once
again and moved south east about a mile and seem to be
nesting there. Yep, you read that right, a mile away,
but the important part is that we no longer have the
smokers lounge below us which means we now reside in
the free breathing section! I feel much better, Shawn
is still coughing up whatever made itself at home in
his lungs (was that too much information?) and I have
a whole flat to describe to you! But first the basic
location, not that this will mean much to you if you
never actually come to visit, but some lone soul out
there might get to say “Hey, I know where that is!”
We were in Partick, don’t know if anyone knew that but
it’s a district or at least the UK version of a
district. Whatever the case, if Glasgow were some
version of a circle and the university the centre of a
clock we only moved about fifteen minutes on that
clock. Did that follow at all? Basically we are
about the same distance from the university just on a
slightly different side of it and in a more
residential area which is nice for the noise factor,
but now it’s quite a walk to go shopping.

Yes, the flat itself is quite beautiful, we are in
the only remaining building of a close, which gives us
a pseudo backyard with grass, shrubbery, trees and of
course clothes lines. I still haven’t figured out how
you dry clothes in the rain, must be a local talent.
We still have the lovely tall ceilings. The living
room has three of the huge, taller than me, windows
that just barely look out over the city. Just barely
cause we are right at roof level with most of the
buildings around us so if you stand on your tippy toes
or climb the furniture it’s a great view. Must be a
Glasgow thing, but the pink curtains are here too!
However, they don’t seem quite as intrusive, less
bright, and tastefully ceiling to floor. We have two
comfy chairs and a love seat; they are covered in
muted brocade, which doesn’t hurt the eyes or head.
That means all our extra covers can be used for their
intended purpose! We also have a functional coal fire
with red brick tile surrounding it and a mantle,
perfect for stockings. We considered hanging some
socks, but thought it wouldn’t look much like
Christmas, but more like laundry. There was also a
television in here, but to get into that would be an
email in itself. Lets just say they are weird in an
interesting sort of way, particularly the advertising.


The bathroom has quite the set up as you walk in and
the sink is to your right and next to it is the tub
that runs lengthwise and at the very end of this great
hall of a bathroom (really feels like it because the
ceiling are so high) is the toilet. It’s all wood,
with a version of a shower. You see, the shower is
electric and old and tired so it doesn’t heat water as
fast as its younger counter parts. So when it comes
right down to it you have to decide if you want hot
water or water pressure. Not a happy decision for
those of us with long hair! The kitchen has no
drawers but a bigger freezer, which means we can
actually have ice cream! I’ve missed Ben and Jerry,
you know. The bedroom would be hard for me to explain
since I can’t name most of the furniture in this flat,
because we have no closets. We have a bed, I know
that one, and a desk and windows, but the stuff
holding our clothes is not a closet. The smaller of
the clothes holders has this nifty little feature
where you pull on the metal thing and everything
hanging comes out so you don’t have to go digging. We
also have the door that will keep anyone from America
either from getting in or getting out. There is no
doorknob on the outside and two on the inside. You
pick the wrong knob on the inside and you lock
yourself in. Heh heh, trapping tactics for our
visitors! This place is considerably more elegant
than the last. The other flat had personality, an
affectionate euphemism for funkiness, just like when
one guy was teased about the gutlessness of his
motorcycle he replied, “It’s not gutless, it’s shy!”


Alright, that’s the much happier flat. Now for more
good news; for the one who asked my why Shawn couldn’t
make a living off of creating databases I am eating my
words…chomp, chomp, chomp, mmm, needs salt, but not
bad. Yep, Shawn is now making his living off of
creating databases. The Hawaii-Scotland coop has now
included a company down in Mexico. He is building
this massive database that is way over my head and
earning a decent sum. That means our major money
stresses can relax, only now we have to sign up for
use of the computer, as we only have the one and he
has work and I have papers. Not to mention really
long update emails.

The new flat has an amazing heater system, which I
couldn’t technically describe, but the first night we
were here it up and decided to shut off! We froze!
Shivering, cold, brrrr! Then the next day the repair
guy gets it going and boy did it go. Slowly,
throughout the day we kept shedding clothes piece by
piece as we kept turning down the radiators. Very
toasty day, wondering why they worked so well and
wondering how on earth we should complain to the
repair guy that they heater works too well? Talk
about an oxymoron, luckily, somewhere along the way
Shawn remembered that the temperature was also
controlled by the big rumbling thing that makes it all
go. We are just showing those blond roots aren’t we?

Outside of moving school plods on in the stressful end
of term kind of way. I have one more paper to write
and two to put the finishing touches on and then I can
technically breathe. At least until January when I
have a final or two. I have been a mad essay writer
for the last couple of weeks and I’m hoping that I
haven’t lost my happy writing edge because of it. Oh
well, it will work out, always does. I took my first
test last week! It was pretty hard considering the
subject matter…it was biological clocks, everyone
remember the keys to longevity? Yep, they can
actually test on things like that. I found out only
two days later that I got a B. Which normally I would
be a bit pissy about, however, when its transferred
home it becomes as A, because their grading system is
wacked. They go from A to H and they don’t skip E,
very strange, so A’s are quite unusual. Yay! Some
proof that I am surviving their school system. Sadly,
I don’t have anything horribly interesting to relay
from my classes.

On to the peccadilloes of the Scots, do you remember
the red bull being served in bars? Well, they didn’t
stop there; they have actually bottled red bull and
vodka. The really upsetting thing is that it doesn’t
taste nearly as bad as it sounds. It seems the vodka
takes the bite away from the red bull and vice versa
so it tastes like an unidentified fruit drink. That
is, until you try to stand! I have to hit the
television, just for a second, because it’s insane.
They have full nudity in the commercials, except for
the male frontal thing. The shows are just as weird
as at home, they have their version of the price is
right and even who wants to be a millionaire. Pretty
much the same give or take the accent and some of the
cultural questions. However, those silly dating
games, where they do the question answer and decide
whom they want to date without seeing them. Well,
they are very, very bawdy. For those who work faire,
just picture the trio from Sound and Fury (you know,
the ones who did Testiclees and the Sac of Rome) on
the receiving end of a question like “if my body is a
temple how do you plan to worship?” Yikes! It was
really funny! The UK also seems to have the Virgin
infestation. You could sit on your Virgin couch,
drink Virgin cola, and book a Virgin flight on your
Virgin laptop, while listening to you Virgin CD player
and doing your Virgin make-up. They seem to have a
hunk of every market.

We finally made our way to the movie theatre here and
saw Bedazzled, which was pretty good. The theatre
reminded me of the Grand theatre in Oakland, if anyone
out there has ever been there. It’s old with seats
that are covered in the deep red velvet and a huge
curtain covers the screen. They did have one stroke
of genius that never would have crossed my mind! They
have the bathrooms in the theatre, that is in the very
back or front of the room is the girls and boys
restroom respectively. That way you can at least hear
whats going on. The only other difference was they
show no previews, not one. Started with the Fox logo
and moved right into the movie. Haven’t decided if I
like this or not.

Alright, I think that covers life in the cold, grey,
and short dayed Scotland. Sunset is now around 4 pm,
which really screws with your mind, sitting in lecture
watching the sunset is just not right! No email would
be complete without the vernacular lesson! This one
is strange and I don’t know the logic behind it so
don’t ask but “on the duff” means pregnant.
Toffee=caramel. Neds are people who dress like a bad
80’s flash back, socks one the outside of pants and
all, and they are considered trouble makers. Wanker
is an insult, but I think just from the sound of the
word I wouldn’t have been pleased with anyone calling
me that. Do you feel appropriately educated?

I have one new addition to this email…survey time! I
have heard that these emails are travelling far and
wide to friends, relatives, and co-workers. I really
don’t mind this at all, but I am interested to know
who my audience is. So, if’n you are sharing this
with anyone let me know who, or how many, which ever
would be shorter and a general age range. Also I
would like to know how your vicarious Scotland
experience is measuring up. Am I hitting the things
you are interested in, am I missing anything? Likes
and Dislikes? That’s it! I’m done, until next time
at least. Everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving and
remember that with a little bit of logic I figured out
why they didn’t celebrate that here! Silly girl!

Hugz and Lovez
Kristen

Ooops, new info for new place would be a good thing,
huh?
The address is:
54 Nairn St. 1/1
Glasgow G3 8SG
UK

And the phone number, if you are that brave!
11-44-141-357-3643 that’s exactly what you plug in!
k? BYE!

Alright, that settles it! I’m cold! Cold! Cold!
Cold! Brrrrrr. It appears that we have hit winter;
Scotland style and it ain’t pretty. I have already
broken out the heavy artillery, silk long johns, polar
fleece liner to my coat, and my very lovable wool
sweatshirt. Much to my chagrin it only makes a dent in
the chill. The cold here is the creeping wet chill
that climbs into your bones and makes itself at home
regardless of what you do to warm up. I’m seriously
thinking about stealing Shawn’s polar fleece hat, but
I’m afraid he would fight me for it and I would not be
the one left with the cap, only sore muscles and
shortness of breath. You know its bad when Shawn is
shivering and putting on sweaters and even *gasp* a
jacket! We better check the sky for pigs; hell has
frozen over causing millions of people to keep
promises they never intended to!

Since I’m kind of on a complaining spree I might as
well move right into the mad chain smoker from hell we
have living below us. You see, apparently even the
Scots noticed that it was a wee bit chilly outside and
decided to actually shut their windows. This was a
rude awakening to the non-smokers on the first floor
(they call the bottom floor ground here). The very
old building is wonderful for nostalgic purposes and
the beauty of old architecture, but as it is old it
has the flaws of the time it was built. The worst
being the lack of sealant between the floors, thus,
the equation goes as follows…cold weather hits=people
downstairs shut windows=smoke can’t go out
windows=smoke goes up to next floor through
ceiling=really unhappy non-smokers upstairs as we were
effectively living with a smoker. Yuck! The place
reeked, it was completely infused and as the toxin
wimp that I am I was ill for four days straight. Now
the logical thing would have to been open the windows,
but you have no idea how cold it was outside. No
friggin way! So, we suffered and went up to the
accommodations office to look for a different place as
spending the winter sick was not a pleasant prospect.
They can’t do much for us, I might just have to
suffer, but they will look for somewhere else to move
us. In the mean time we open the widows whenever
possible and stay in areas of the house that aren’t
too horrible. I guess there are some major downfalls
to this particular culture; one is the prevalence of
smoking!

On a new and happier note--we made friends! *Wild
applause* Yep, we finally managed to find people in
our age group that we got along with! About time too,
I was beginning to think that we smelled funny or
something. Interestingly enough, however, we met
mostly foreigners. The first is Elisa who hails from
Dubai (for those geography majors out there its near
Saudi Arabia) and is, as she puts it “mad.” Which is
in many ways a fairly accurate description. I met her
in a seminar for my biology class and we ended up
hitting it off and talking for five hours in a pub.
She is almost my height with this short platinum blond
hair and dark eyes, quite beautiful. She is extremely
energetic, almost bouncy in a non-childlike manner,
she talks a lot and very quickly with some sort of a
cross between a Scots accent and her native tongue.
She will talk to anyone from the person behind the
counter at the chippy to the bus driver, to some
random stranger on the street and seems to have an
inviting air to her as they all just up and tell her
their life history. Everything to her is “fantastic!”
and she is exceedingly open-minded almost in a
Californian kind of way, thus, we all get along
swimmingly.

During our five-hour stay in the pub, which was up at
the University, a few more people came along. (Yes,
the university has its own pub, three in fact.) Elisa
naturally waved everyone she had ever met over and
some she had not yet met but thought looked
interesting. Trekveh (pronounced trrreeg vay, you got
that?) from Norway, sat down with us. He had brown
hair that was short, but in desperate need of a hair
cut, a goatee and a slight build. He was 23 years
old, which is quite old for here as they start college
at 17 and generally finish by the time they are 21.
Yep, that makes me a fogey! We sat and compared
countries for a while and came to find out that you
could go to college in Norway for 20 pounds, but it
cost 5 pounds for a pint. Four drinks and there goes
your college education! Wonder if that is a difficult
choice for some people. Eventually, Hazel came around
and she became our token Scot for several hours. She
was this itsy bitsy thing with enough energy for three
people and pants that could fit three people. She was
very cute, and very fascinated with me. She kept
asking me questions about America, most of which I
have forgotten by now. However, she also seemed under
the impression that Americans hate Canadians and vice
versa, which I had never heard of until I moved here.
She thought I was trying to be nice when I said it
wasn’t the case and attempted to drag a confession out
of me by describing the oh so affectionate
relationship between the English and the Scots. After
a long tirade of the evils of the English she seemed
rather disappointed that I didn’t fess up to an
inherent dislike for Canadians. She also enquired
about the drinking age in the States, as she was
seventeen and well into her third pint (which was
impressive since she couldn’t have weighed more that
100 lbs). She was very solemn about the drinking
age, saying that she was going to go there for a year
of school, but couldn’t deal with being under the
legal drinking age. We also discussed food with her
and there are these sinfully delicious chocolate bars
here called Crunchies, which are chocolate covered
honeycomb. The best thing I have ever tasted! Hazel
thought it was scandalous that America didn’t have
them and frankly, at this point, I agree with her!
There are a couple other eating habits that are quite
interesting here, the need to deep fry everything is
pretty apparent as there is such thing as a deep fried
mars bar and deep fried pizza, which is really,
really, good!

Along the same social lines, during the weekend, we
got in touch with a couple that some friends from the
states pointed us towards. That was a very odd first
telephone call, I must say. “Hi…I’m Kristen, I’m
friends with….and they told me to call you, so that we
could have some friends here…” However, they were
quite friendly and volunteered to take us out sight
seeing for the day in their Jaguar, pronounced here as
jag-ear, which confused me horribly. Their names are
James and Morvin Cope and they were a lot of fun! We
were picked up early afternoon and they drove us along
the coast sight seeing and talking. The very
incredible part was the fact that James was a tour
guide in every sense of the word. He knew where we
were, the history of it, the politics, the myths and
legends, throwing in some of his own opinions and a
silly joke every now and then. We went all the way
down to Largs and then up and around. It was a
fantastic day and a great week, this was the same week
we met Elisa and crew. Although I did find that after
spending quite a bit of time speaking to people with
the accent it kind of rubs off. Which is not a big
problem except when I talked to my mom that night, she
not only made fun of me, but couldn’t understand most
of what I was saying!

It’s interesting what you find yourself missing when
you are thousands of miles away from home, aside from
the people, that is. Shawn and I were lying in bed
one night fantasizing….for you adults about to avert
your virgin eyes, don’t….we were fantasizing about
nachos! Mexican food is findable here but exceedingly
expensive, equally, to make it at home all the
ingredients would cost about ten pounds for one
sitting. That’s a bit too much at the moment, so we
are left to our fantasies. I’ve also found myself
missing the peanut butter. They have it here, but
it’s very granular and tastes quite different. Mind
you this is not a request to have anything sent to me!
Lots of people found out the hard way that shipping
is not economically efficient. Don’t do it!

We have been trying to follow the presidential
elections from over here, not wholly successfully but
close to. The sad thing is, our best resource for
news on the subject is yahoo. How pathetic. I’m
really quite impressed at the whole thing, but I don’t
need to describe any of it to you as you are probably
being inundated with the happenings. However, on the
radio station we listen to they have some DJs that
talk about American politics and in particular the
presidential elections. To put it bluntly they are
constantly capping on Bush quoting him in the worst
possible way like “I believe we are on the road to
greater freedom and democracy, but that could change…”
Whatever hell they are giving him, from what we are
gathering they are actually afraid of him winning the
election. Can’t say I blame them, but in the interest
of not stepping on any political toes I’m gonna change
the subject.

School! That’s a nice safe subject. What have I
learned in school this time? Well, that’s a good
question and I am about to answer that in detail
because I am Kristen, relayer of useless information!
The most amusing thing that I learned was from
biological clocks. These are the 6 keys to living
longer according to studies done within the field.
1. Have parents that live long—a little too late of
that one, but the logic is so you get genes for long
life.
2. Eat very little—yeah right, not with ice cream and
Crunchies out there! The logic on that one is that our
body is aged by the radicals that we take in through
our food. Eventually, as we age, we get tired, and
stop fighting the radicals quite so much. The less
you eat, the less fighting, the less tired, the longer
you live.
3. Exercise minimally—the lazy American in all of us
loves that one! Again, it’s the radicals in the food,
the more you exercise the more you eat and eating is
not good!
4. Don’t breed—sorry mom and dad! Studies have shown
that humans and animals that don’t breed tend to live
significantly longer.
5. Take your vitamins and eat your vegetables—yes mom!
These help to mop up the radicals so that your body
doesn’t do all the work.
6. Get a good degree—I think she just threw that one
in there for job security. However, studies have
shown that educated peoples live longer, likely
because they lead more cushioned lives, if you will.
They don’t stress as much.

There you have it, your education for the email! Do
you feel enlightened or just amused like I was? I am
going to be tested on this on Tuesday. Equally
entertaining is the fact that Shawn has sort of found
an occupation, in a really round about kind of way.
Don’t get too excited, this is not any sort of way to
make a living. We encountered my brother on line the
other night who was in dire need of help building a
data base, actually, he was basically in need is some
butt saving. Whatever the case, Shawn has done that
before and offered to help. It was a Hawaii/Scotland
group project—gotta love technology. No distance to
great, no mountain too high, no ocean too large for
the abilities of the Internet! They stressed together
over the span of about four hours, Mike hid while
Shawn got it done and sent it to back. Yes, you too
can bail out a friend 9000 miles away! (I sound like
an infomercial) Unfortunately we found out today that
it was the wrong kind of data base (would have been
nice to know that in the first place) and it has to be
completely rebuilt, but this time they have the
specifications. Yay!

I think that about cover it, I have spent the majority
of my time trying to write essays and not necessarily
succeeding. It seems that if I actually research the
subject I become confused and can’t write. If I don’t
know a thing about it I can fill the word quota and am
quite coherent, if I do I have a lot of information
but don’t make an ounce of sense. Kind of a dilemma.
Finally, no email would be complete without a
vernacular lesson. This lesson brought to you by the
traffic reports on the radio, they don’t have car
accidents here, or wrecks, rather they are called a
smash. Equally, traffic, when it’s stopped up is
called a flood. And courtesy of the Harry Potter
English edition, nutters which is a word describing
the majority of my friends, also known as “mad,” or
“crazy.” Also starkers, which refers to a lack of
clothing…as in none! Alright, that’s it! Hope all
is well and hope to hear from you soon!


Love
Kristen

This time it is one of those lengthy entertaining
> variety emails. Decidedly its very hard to get going
> in a relaxed and fun manner after I spent the last few
> nights under six over sized books attempting to write
> their version of an essay. I’m still not sure as to
> whether or not I was successful. Dry, dry, and drier,
> boy I don’t know how the professor could read twenty
> or so of those and not consider alternative
> occupations like bus driver, or bell hop. My head
> hurts and that’s only the first! So you will have to
> forgive me if I sound a little strange, suffering from
> brain strain. This is the price I pay for no busy
> work. Well, since we are in the school vicinity, what
> say we delve right into the strange world of the
> university. The one thing that has really baffled me
> is that I have history mostly and psychology, but I
> did brave one biology class. Now the strange thing is
> sciences, to my experience, is the harder subject and
> attracts the scholarly types. You know, glasses,
> combed hair, pocket protectors, and in America, palm
> pilots. Not here, oh no, rather this is the only
> class where the number of facial piercings are greater
> than the number of students. Lots of facial hair,
> long hair on men (which I haven’t seen much of at
> all), torn clothing, that looming smell of pot…er
> cigarettes. Really backwards, now I’m really kinda
> scared of that medical system since these are the
> people that populate that occupation.
>
> You do realize as I have a captive audience (so to
> speak) I’m bound to relay relatively useless
> information, but I’ll keep it to the more amusing
> stuff. The one truly odd thing I learned was in Women
> and Gender relations where I discovered a little bit
> of history on hysteria. It comes from a Greek word
> meaning wandering womb, yep you read that right,
> apparently 200 years ago the things took coffee breaks
> every once in a while or a hit a pub. I digress, they
> actually believed that the womb did not necessarily
> reside in the body, rather it up and left at times.
> Naturally, leaving the women with such ailments as
> freethinking, incessant talking, having an opinion,
> asking questions, and of course that whole fainting
> thing (which naturally had nothing to do with the
> corset). Now whenever I hear the word I have this
> picture of an ill formed version of Slimer from the
> ghost busters following the woman around. The word
> will never be the same and now I have shared the image
> so that smirk that crawls across my face when someone
> says it will be understood by a few. Less
> entertaining, but equally interesting facts (I
> thought) is that the Torc was a Celt defining piece of
> jewellery. Did that follow? What I mean is that in
> writings and pictures from 600bc to 200ad a Celt was
> identified by that piece of apparel. Along the same
> lines it was the Celts who invented chain mail in
> 600bc. I also found out that my Celtic Civilizations
> professor is from the Bronx. I didn’t even know he
> was American! I guess I can be forgiven as he did
> have an accent—he’d been here for 14 years. That’s it
> just thought it was interesting.
>
> Now you are a few facts wiser lets move right into the
> educational experience of a weekend in Edinburgh.
> Silly Americans spent most of the day walking the
> wrong side of town! We were on the new end and
> couldn’t seem to find our way to old town. Little did
> we know, but should have realized, that it was on the
> other side of that really big hill that we didn’t want
> to climb. However, on the side of town we were on
> there were shops of the modern variety and we wandered
> about ohhing and ahhing, as it were until the foolish
> Americans thought it was safe to wander into a store
> of Italian leather “just to look.” There is a
> definite trend over here that is the logical
> equivalent of the total lack of logic in the states.
> You lost? Well, you see the Italian leather store was
> manned by (drum roll please) Italians! Italian
> restaurants have the Italians; kilts makers are
> Scottish, Indian food, prepared by Indians! Makes
> sense, back in the states you have the Chinese making
> you donuts, a black man fixing the Chinese food, a
> Mexican in McDonalds, and the Indian arming Clancy’s
> ice cream parlour. I’m not even going to start on
> those donuts slash Chinese food places, I never really
> want to know. Whatever the case, we wander into the
> Italian run, Italian leather shop and Shawn barely
> looks at a jacket and *poof* a snazzily dressed
> Italian was holding the same style jacket in Shawn’s
> size out for him to try. Shawn hesitated, but the
> guy coerced him into saying we don’t charge for try
> ons as he pulled a full-length mirror (conveniently
> wheeled) over. Well, five or six jackets and three
> different styles later, Shawn was in love. He smiled
> at his reflection, stuck out his chest, sucked in the
> stomach and even checked the butt and looked to the
> Italian and myself for the appropriate amount of
> approval. I must admit, it looked damn good, YUM.
> The Italian was pleased with himself and pretty much
> was ready to wrap it up and take our credit card.
> Shawn took it off and handed it back to him with that
> little bit of a pouting “we’re just looking.” The guy
> was horrified! From that point he used every sales
> tactic in the book, first commenting on how good it
> looked to the point where I was wondering about his
> sexual preference. When that proved ineffective, he
> moved to telling what a great product it was and that
> we would never find it again. Still no luck, finally,
> left with no other option, he started reducing the
> price. This was actually a tactic that damn near
> worked, that jacket went from 375 to 250 to 195 and
> finally to 150! Amazingly enough we didn’t walk out
> of there with the jacket…just barely! But it was an
> excellent lesson in bartering! I think I’ll go back
> when I do have money and act poor again!
>
> We eventually did venture over that hill, but not
> until we had explored the entirety of that side of
> town and the sun was headed down. Up and over the
> hill and low and behold—The Royal Mile! Damn! Most
> of it was closed, but we spotted a coffee shop and
> Shawn needed his fix so we headed for it. Upon
> leaving the shop we noticed that a lonely shop across
> the street was actually open, so in we went. It was a
> kilt shop and they have the funniest thing here, you
> know how kids clothes are sold more according to their
> age than their size, well they have these baby kilts
> that are sized for up to three years! I pulled one
> out and was showing it to Shawn when the own called
> from the back “Won’t fit him, ma’am. Would have to
> sew six of them end to end.” That was an interesting
> opening to what was about to turn into a very
> entertaining conversation. He pulled us over to the
> real kilts, which he also had second hands, Shawn was
> naturally drawn to the absolute ugliest thing in the
> whole shop. It was this bright orange with puke green
> running through it and much to my dismay it was in his
> size. He tried it on and the two of them tried real
> hard to convince me that it was nice…they were wholly
> unsuccessful—it was UGLY. Whatever the case this guy,
> to me, looked like some kind of cross between Santa
> Claus in the face with the friendly smile and eyes and
> a hyperactive Regis on that Millionaire game. He kept
> popping off with random Scottish/American trivia
> spoken at warp speeds, but he never once asked if that
> was our final answer. He did ask if I was Scottish
> when I told him yes, he asked for my last name and the
> answer of Spinola seemed to baffle him. I explained
> that my mother’s maiden name was Duncan. So, as the
> Scots seem rather prone to do, he tossed out that
> confusing piece of information and referred to me as
> Miss Duncan for the rest of the night. He was highly
> amusing, we only got one question “Who was the
> greatest thing to happen to California that was
> Scottish born?” Do you know? Shawn did, John Muir.
> He also asked for the eight Scottish presidents of the
> US, I could come up with Grant and Buchanan, do you
> know the rest? American Car Company owned by a Scot?
> Buick. Glasgow University started William and Mary
> University in the states. And many many more things I
> can’t remember. He had two other tirades, the first
> was McDonalds, he said he was scared of the place cuz
> Mc meant son of and you had to go in and order Mc
> Nuggets. You really don’t want to eat “the son of a
> nugget,” do you? Sounds kind of insulting if you ask
> me, say it out loud, it does! The next tirade was
> naturally politics, surprisingly enough while being
> adamant he wasn’t unpleasant about it. Like all Scots
> he wanted separation from England, but he kept
> referring to the people in government that were voting
> it down as “Dumbos.” Now you have to picture it to
> know what I’m talking about, this Santa Claus looking
> guy, in plaid pants and red suspenders, rocking back
> and forth heel to toe, doing that thumb thing with the
> suspenders calling people dumbos right and left. It
> was very amusing, finally after picking on his
> government for a good twenty minutes or so he turned
> to us with this glint in his eye and said, “Well, at
> least we’re not the worst off. That dumbo Clinton,
> doesn’t even know what sex is, how do you expect him
> to run the country?” Enough said, the idiocy of our
> government summed up in one sentence.
>
> Soon after another man and woman wondered in and they
> were even more entertaining. The man from what we
> could see was either crazy or a bit into his cups. I
> was headed for both, as he was pretty coherent for
> intoxicated and very chatty. He wandered right in and
> decided he wanted a kilt and spent the time while the
> guy was trying to find the right tartan and the right
> size talking to us about what a Scotsman wears under
> his kilt. Finally the kilt was found and he went and
> changed. He returned, thrust his hips forward, raised
> one eyebrow in a sly kind of way and asked in that
> Scottish accent “Do I look sexy?” The girl who was
> with him blushed and voicedly disowned him, saying
> they were not together he was a friend of her
> father’s, they never saw each other and anything else
> she could come up with to make herself less
> associated. He was, however, wholly undeterred by her
> disclaimer and started asking for the entire kit, he
> always wanted one and tonight was the night. After
> many more antics between getting him appropriately
> into the kit (he couldn’t figure it out) him scooting
> around the shop asking about the sexy factor and the
> argument that ensued between him and the girl about
> garters that he wanted them to be red, but the kilt
> was green she argued. He had been off and on talking
> to Shawn and I and kept telling Shawn how good he
> would look in a kilt and then was so impressed with
> the size of his arms he asked if he could feel.
> Hmmmm. Anyway, his credit card a little lighter and
> dressed in the whole outfit he asked us to have a
> drink with him next door. “Say yes, because you can’t
> say no.” he told us and interestingly enough we
> couldn’t really argue with the logic.
>
> The pub next door was really comfy, not too dark, not
> too light, music was just the right volume, enough
> people to feel like the place was alive but not so
> many as to be crowded. We were able to snag a table
> and eventually figured out that the spaz of a Scot
> that we were having drinks with was named David. Now
> after sitting with him for a couple hours I was very
> much starting to believe that it was just him, not the
> drink. In over three hours he had a pint and a half,
> wearing his brand new kit, the kilt pleats still sewn
> and the tags still on. David was a dark haired,
> relatively thin, with a distinctly European nose, but
> that wasn’t his most errr, prominent feature. He had
> very large ears that flapped when he spoke and
> especially when he smiled. He was also a very
> animated man who talked a lot and quickly making his
> ears equally active. Thus, our highly entertaining
> introduction into the mind of a Scot began. He was
> fount of useless yet interesting information. He told
> us the do’s and don’ts of PDA in Scotland. It seems
> that we could kiss, neck, hug, and cuddle, but the big
> don’t was for him to have his hand on my thigh. It
> would mean I was a loose woman. We found out that
> Shawn was not very likely to have a fight picked with
> him because he was with his “wife”. We told him we
> weren’t married, but that Scot habit kicked in, he
> tossed out the confusing bit of information and
> remained with married terminology. Then we moved
> from Scots to Americans, who by far seemed the
> stranger when he started talking about them. “I don’t
> get you Americans,” he said, “you come all the way
> over here and you look at piles of rocks. You been to
> stone henge? Well don’t, it’s just a pile of rocks!”
> Okay, so looking at it from that point of view I guess
> we are a little odd. Then he went into the times he
> has been to the States. Turns out we had met the
> manager of the international network for G.E. He’s
> travelled. A lot. And he was a serious spaz, so I
> can see why New York didn’t take too kindly to him and
> neither did SF. Americans and their guns, every
> American has a gun. Of course when you won’t let
> yourself get pushed around and as a foreigner you’re
> likely to, Americans tend to bring out back up.
> Miraculously he survived every American encounter and
> lived to tell about it. After several hours and we
> had all exchanged information and he invited us to
> Kent (where he lived) for a week, saying that his wife
> would love us. Then we were told, for the first time
> in our lives, in a truly affectionate manner to “fuck
> off, and enjoy and the night.”
>
> Well, I think I have conjured quite the novel at this
> point! Hope you enjoyed our trip to Edinburgh! And
> always our vernacular lesson: pissed is drunk and a
> pisser is a drinking binge. Also for those of you
> spending you time in front of that PC for a living you
> are not a geek, that is you no longer bite the heads
> of chickens for entertainment purposes, which is the
> definition is you ever dared to look it up. You are
> now a nerd, which means a person who is single-minded
> or accomplished in scientific pursuits but is felt to
> be socially inept. Congrats! Have fun and don’t
> forget to tell me all about it!
>
> Hugz and lovez
> Kristen

And now for another "hey USA, we're having more fun
than you are," letter, as Alicia so blatantly put it.
So, here I sit in Glasgow, the Dear Green Place as it
translates from some language, Gaelic or Scots, I'm
not real sure which, but it holds true to its
name--its green, everywhere, the trees, the bushes,
the grass, and the buildings. And I thought that only
occurred in uninhabited places. Speaking of
uninhibited places, I just got home from a pub and I'm
quite sure someone's cigarette was laced with
something that was not tobacco so you will have to
forgive me if my typing is slurred.

Every time I write one of these things I have a hard
time deciding where to start, but since we were
already in the pub vicinity I will go there first. I
have noticed one thing for sure around here and that
is the importance of alcohol, as a meal, a social
tool, a means of survival, a friend, and of course an
enemy. They drink alcohol here like we drink soda
there, but then again I imagine they come over to the
states and say that we drink soda like they drink
alcohol, thinking us just as strange. I am rather
impressed with the walking abilities of the highly
intoxicated around here. It seems that standing may
be a challenge, that would be when they waver or trip
but walking, they clip right down the road with no
problems at all. I guess necessity breeds ability,
have to get home somehow and walking is the main mode
of transportation around here. Also they sell red
bull all over the place here, particularly in pubs.
In fact, it seems that its just another drink to the
local population, they have an ale, then pour a red
bull, drink that and have another ale. Must make for
an interesting buzz, but the hangover can't be any
fun. On the other side of the spectrum the water here
is phenomenal. You can't get water to taste that good
if its bottled filtered and then run through a brita.
Although it took a while to get used to the fact that
you turn on the facet and just put the cup under it
and drink...no extra steps and it tastes that good! I
should bottle the stuff and send it back to the
states, make my millions and live the lifestyle I plan
to become accustomed to!

Unfortunately I don't have anything horribly fun or
exciting to report, we have spent the entire week
trying to get the whole school thing figured out and
believe me, that's no small task. You see, I needed
to find some paper work, so we went to the
international students building for advice they told
me to go talk to administration, across the street and
on the top floor (they don't believe in elevators in
this country). Administration told me to go to the
registry, on the other side of campus and up more
stairs. They told me the international students
building should have my information, back to where I
started. They told me to find my adviser. The adviser
is the one who is the head of my department, my
department is social sciences, that's where I went.
Over the hill and up the stairs...they told me that for
my major my department on this side of the ocean is
arts. Back over the hill and up more stairs to the
art department where I was informed that I was a North
American (never thought about myself in quite those
terms) and I had an adviser entirely devoted to that
particular continent. This time only across the
campass, but of course up more stairs, he was on the
top floor. Although a very friendly chap he said he
couldn't do a thing for me, by now I kind of figured
as much, I just wanted to know how long the walk was
and how many stairs were involved. Turns out he sent
me back to....yep, you guessed it, international
students building. This time I discovered that if I
took the stairs they led to an adviser who actually
knew something. Now that I know who to go to for
advice I have become somewhat of a regular there. Not
to mention whenever asking what I am assuming are
stupid questions for the area, they all tend to look
at me in that sympathetic manner with "you're an
American, aren't you," on the tip of their tongue. I
guess out of all the countries that attend the school,
our system is the furthest from theirs and in turn
Americans are the most confused, no wonder we have our
own adviser!

I did have one relatively successful day, yes, only
one, the rest of the week was pretty much like what I
just described. That was Wednesday on the day of
matriculation, the day you give them all your money.
They had us show up at nine am and wait in this line
that went all the way down one of those massive curled
stair cases with the thick red carpet that you expect
only to see in movies. They armed us with our
information sheets and herded us slowly into this
large room, Moooooo. Once in there you were told in
which line to stand, I was directed to the shortest
since I was paying the whole sum in one painful shot.
I'm 22 years old and I have managed to avoid having
either a checking account or a credit card my entire
existence. I don't like someone else having my money,
it just doesn't seem right. I'm a more conventional
girl, if I have extra cash its probably in my
underwear drawer. But I've been a starving student
for a long time and cash in general is a rareity. So
this card is brand new, and me a debit card virgin.
The girl in front of me, her card was rejected and she
looked as if she might burst into tears. They quieted
her with those cooing Scottish accents and sent her
out. I was praying that the machine wasn't on some
sort of serial rejection spree and I was its next
victim. The lady snatched that card and turned
around, funny printing noises from the old machine and
a long tense pause, then more grunting noises from the
machine and apparently everything was kosher. She
handed the receipt to me and I saw the numbers,
shouldn't have looked, that kind of thing will make
you go blind! I had just signed away 7000 pounds, for
you math majors out there that's $10,500, that's the
kind of reality that will make your teeth sweat and
your mouth go dry all at once.

We did find out that they play botchy(sp?) ball in
the parks here, full on tournaments it looked like.
You are also allowed to play croquet, setting it up in
the grass, they come out in their Sunday whites, suits
and dresses and play a friendly game of croquet. Both
activities are quite the spectacle as they seem to
draw from all age groups and even different walks of
life. Now, another thing here is the advertisements,
they are, ummm, bold compared to the States. Naked
women are everywhere, on the billboards, in
newspapers, and in store windows and the really
surpriseing thing is these are not the stick figures
of the model circuit. Nope, the advertising agents
have braved the wide world of women with a curve of
the hip, and even, ohmigod, breasts! Its actually
very refreshing, some even have a small (still very
small) pooch. Then there are the written implications
for instance there are a bunch of signs up by the
university that read, "Foreplay. You will come!" it
was advertising a club. Then there has been a bunch
of advertisements for something called Shag Tag, with
a picture of stick figures in compromising positions,
it was for a singles club. Also, a picture of a male
chest with a nipple piercing and a female breast with
the same and a small chain linking the two, it was
advertising an email service so "you never lose
touch." They are very bold here! I'm likein it!

I think that covers it for the week. Other than that
our entertainment has been your emails; you are pretty
much our TV. No, we don't have one and we won't for
the whole year. Shocking I know, we could be some
sort of medical experiment...humans taken off of
television. Anyhow, keep them coming, I'm loving
every minute of it, and those of you not replying, you
know who you are...don't think I haven't noticed! I
know you are out there, reading this, in your quiet
American home, with three televisions and maybe even
some pets (we miss our kitties L) and you think that
since this goes out to so many people I won't talk to
you specifically. But I will, in fact I have some
very worthwhile conversations going on (slowly) with a
couple of people. So, talk to me, I miss everyone
sooooooo much! Alright, I'm gonna go hit the sack
just as I know most of you are getting off of work and
probably headed to faire. Have a wonderful weekend.
Loves and hugs
Kristen

Date:	2000-10-03 09:39
Subject:	Scotland 2
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

Greetings and salutations from the land of the not so
wet, turns out every now and then the sun shows up
here and I have to admit its no longer quite so color
coordinated...gray of stone with gray of sky. The blue
kind of offsets the whole décor. Whatever the case,
how is life over there? Yes, I do want to hear about
it! Life I'm sure is going on without me *pout* and
if I can't be there to witness it I could at least
read about it. Living vicariously, as many of you are
experiencing a different culture through me.

I'm pretty sure that I am writing more than anyone really
expected me to. Part of that is because I type over
sixty words a minute so its not all that time
consuming, part because I'm not in school yet and as a
result not yet sick of my computer and the biggest
part is there are so many interesting and new things
happening to me daily that the mad writer in me would
have a coronary if I didn't get it down somewhere.
With that in mind, here we go....

I think that most recently I'm noticing language
differences and the smaller stranger culture
differences. I had to have this explained to me in no
uncertain terms the definition of dearer, its commonly
used here in fiscal terms, basically saying more
expensive, I just thought that was odd. Not to
mention around here you are never hit by a car, rather
you get knocked down. I would have to say if you get
hit (and you might as they speed up and aim if you are
against the light) around here getting knocked down is
the least of your problems, it's the getting back up
part that I would be worried about.

The pubs, as I'm sure you are all aware are the social
spot of the hour and this town is in no way shy in
that aspect. You can't go a half a block without
finding one. That might talk a couple of you into
visiting right there! We spent last Sunday night
soaking up the local social life in the pub down the
street that instituted a dress code on the weekends of
no football colors. Man they take that sport
seriously here! It's not just picking a team it's
picking a religion, literally, one is catholic and the
other protestant. If you cheer for the wrong side it
gets ugly. I'm remaining a nice safe neutral.

Back to the pub, they print the labels on the larger
bottles upside down so that they can be turned upside
down onto a dispenser behind the bar. I want to buy
one that way, send it home and confuse someone! Not
to mention Jim Beam whiskey is top shelf here and
Johnny Walker is not, that is, to say that Jim Beam is
dearer than Johnny Walker. Also, while out that
night, some man came up to Shawn and asked if he could
find a "nickie" there. We still don't know what that
means, but we were thinking "nickie" "nookie," perhaps
a hooker? If anyone knows let us know.

Unfortunately the pubs close at a pathetic 11 pm. On
the bright side they sell cider in two liter bottles
in the stores for only 3 pounds! On the not so
bright side, in our wanderings we have found that
sodas as we know them don't exist here. I know some
of you are thinking, "I'm sure I saw coke." Yes you
did, however, after realizing it tasted funny and upon
further examination of the can it is indeed Coca Cola,
not Coca Cola Classic. It's that new coke that lasted
all of six months in the States. Yeah, well I guess
they weren't about to lose that money, send it to
Europe..."they'll drink anything." Yuck, don't do it!
The alcohol factor is quite different here, in fact,
at the freshers fayre, which is a place to find clubs
and sell products to students, they had two crazy
scots well into there cups by 11 am, who sat Shannon
and I down and demanded we take a shot from the little
statue that, errr, relived itself into your glass.
This is of course on campus, which is completely
illegal in the states. Oh and after our little
alcohol umm, demonstration we found out what they were
there for, football. Oh no, they don't play it; they
just watch it and get drunk. Every single club had a
pub-crawl organized in the near future. Is it me or
does an organized pub-crawl seem like an oxy moron?

Speaking of school, orientation was this week. That
was an experience. I would have to describe the whole
thing as culture stew, because the different cultures
travel in chunks and all of the accents are thick and
chewy. I sat next to some Germans today that had the
nerve to tell me that I had a "thick American accent!"
Now that's a line I never expected to hear, I though
we were the anti-accent! During orientation we were
introduced to the chief of police that said in no
uncertain terms that drugs are illegal in Glasgow, but
he didn't really care what we did, "just don't get
caught." I'm sure the DARE program would be tickled
with this guy. Their presentation was actually quite
amusing, you see, the chief was in a suit and tie
looking all respectable give or take the thick accent
that rivaled the cabbies and, dare I say it, the bus
drivers. With him was his Lieutenant or some such
title in the uniform, hat on, hands held neatly in
front of him, staring straight ahead, with a stone
cold expression. The chief introduced himself; I
didn't understand it, and his colleague. He went on
to say about his friend, "and this is his happy face."
Still the same lifeless expression, "and this is his
angry face." Not a movement, the man didn't blink.
"If you are really nice to him perhaps he'll smile."
No change. "But if you really want to see him smile
you'll buy him a drink." The man absolutely lit up,
showed an entire mouth of teeth, and bobbed his head
up and down like a five year old agreeing to chocolate
ice cream. What world!

There was a social last night where they fed us their
version of food and of course alcohol and the point,
of course, was to socialize. As I said the cultures
stick together, we ended up at a table with a bunch of
Americans, New Yorkers no less. This one guy, Lenny,
has this little patch of facial hair growing solely
from a half-inch strip right under his lip. That
little strip has been grown out to the bottom of his
chin. He was actually a very personable fellow;
however, he played with that little patch like someone
would a lip piercing and every time he bit his lower
lip the damn thing pointed at me. It's very hard to
have a conversation when someone's facial hair is
pointing at you, damndably hard! You keep trying to
maintain eye contact, but you can see that thing
pointing and you can't help but wonder what exactly
it's pointing at! Oh, this is going to be an
interesting year!

I'm working very hard to understand their school
system, but its just baffling me. You see, there are
three terms and you only take classes on the first
two, the third is for finals and what not. Makes
sense until you realize you take a test in May or June
on something you were taught in October or November.
Kind of painful. Now the day of matriculation is the
third, that's the day you give them your money, after
that everything starts, until then we are kind of at a
stand still. Nothing happens till you hand over your
life savings, I guess some cultural values are
universal. Then you register for classes, and no,
this does not involve a web page or a telephone! You
have to motivate your little tooshy out of the house
and go find the professor of whatever class you are
interested in and get your name on the list and get a
schedule. Walk fast or you won't get into the classes
you want. I guess that's one way to encourage
exercise! I've met the deans of almost every
department already and I've only been here for a week,
I've been at UNR for three years never saw one. I
thought they were something along the lines of a
Sasquatch until now. Quite the change!

Also this week we walked down to what they call
here, the "tall ship." It's called the Glen Lee and
is one of only five Clyde-built ships still alive. It
was built in 1896 after they had trenched the Clyde
River so that the ships could get all the way into the
city of Glasgow to trade. Its said that Glasgow made
the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow. Basically the
trade made Glasgow the big and famous city that it now
is. Whatever the case, the boat, err, ship, tall
ship, yes, that's it, we were able to walk around the
museum as well as go look at the ship. Unfortunate
for us we are poor and couldn't afford the tickets to
board but we examined lovingly from afar. It was
really quite impressive, huge in all respects, once
you got close to it; it was kind of like looking up at
some of the buildings around here. I'm sorry I don't
have many details, I'm not much of a boat guru, sorry
Alex, it was all wood and polished, shiny and proudly
flying the Scottish flag. I speak boat as much as I
speak car...you turn the key, magic happens and you can
go places. But I do know how to make computers go!

We also went to Perth, which is a quaint little
town where we walked from one edge of town to the
other in about twenty minutes. Did you notice this
walking verb keeps popping up everywhere, apparently
its what people do when they don't own a car, I think
I have a vague recollection of such a thing from child
hood. Anyway, the legs are now the magic and they
require no key, but boy are they cranky. I think it
will take a little while to get used to walking
everywhere, but hey! I'm gonna come back with some
great legs! In Perth, or rather on the train to
Perth, I was braiding our local tour guides hair...she
was here the year before us and showed us the ropes
before she scampered back to sunny California (I
imagine we would still be searching the university for
the accommodations office if it weren't for her....thanx
Jen!) Anyway, another American came by and commented
on the braid and disappeared into the train. We ran
into her again at the train station and she saw the
final product, and said to us "You know, there are
places in California that will pay you for that."
Turns out she does faire, of course, and was directing
me to Tresses Entwined with talent such as that.
Uhuh, small world, huh? We've only been here a week
and already the faire folk are popping out of the
woodwork! While we were there we wandered into the
old church (this is going to be a common occurrence
here) it was quite fantastic. The first foundation
set in 1242 and of course it was rubelized during a
war here and there, and of course the reformation, but
the last time it was altered was 1542, I believe.
It's still being used as a church by a small
congregation within the very small town of Perth. We
also had the opportunity to explore the Black Watch
museum that was fun; they had pictures and painting
dateing back to the 1200s. The entire history of the
black watch and all kinds of mementos, newspaper
articles and what I really liked is the fact that in
mentioning that so and so died in the war, they say
how. Like this one doctor was killed because he
covered a patient with his body (don't know if the
patient lived) and this one general was severely
wounded in the very beginning of a battle, but fought
the entire day and was finally killed in the last
raid. All the gory details, and every one of them in
a kilt. Woohoo, what a country!

Well, I think I have typed your eyes off enough.
How is faire going this year? Anything new and
exciting? How goes life on your side of the world?
OH, before I forget, in the last email there was a
slight error in the mailing address, hopefully no one
was motivated enough to get anything out that quick.
If you did, don't stress it, it will most likely find
us, but I do want to correct it just in case we cause
mass confusion in the local post office and they up
and black ball our flat! That would be bad, no Mac
and Cheese! And we have a phone number (applause).
Here goes, got a pen and paper?

1/1 26 Stewartville St.
Glasgow G11 5PJ (that was the error)
UK

Phone number if you are brave enough to call please
remember we are 8 hours ahead. While we will never
complain about getting woken up by a phone call from
home, we would appreciate missing the period of the
"what's that noise," confusion when awakened in that
manner. Anytime before one am GMT and after 9am GMT
is best. We will love to hear from you, but we don't
necessarily expect to, it's expensive.

0141-337-3823

To dial international add a zero to the beginning and
Scotland's country code is 44 check with someone less
confused to see which comes first.
Alright, that's it for now, hope all is well, and more
importantly hope to hear from you soon.

Love,
Kristen

PS...Anyone who is interested in piercing jewelry its
very affordable here, a titanium ring is 4.95 or an
elbow or dumbbell for 8.95. They also have unique
decorative rings, like with Celtic knots hanging from
them. If you are interested we will purchase it for
you and send it home when we can, if you act now (boy
I sound like an advertisement) we can get it soon and
send it home with Shannon who will be leaving
Wednesday the 5th. Okay, talk to you soon!