Okay, all. Time for some good news and some bad news.
First, the good news: a few of us future-archivists have discovered that there is a movie-themed pub quiz every Thursday night at a pub near the university. The prize is the entire cocktail list, 26 delicious cocktails! We have been playing every week for about 4 weeks now and, amazingly, last thursday we won! Hurray! So we are looking forward to returning to The Lane on thursday for our victoriously delicious cocktails (and to possibly win the quiz again)!
Now, on to the bad news. I was intending to put up some pictures of us sipping our brightly colored victory drinky-poos, but I completely mangled my laptop last night. I spilled tea with honey in it all over my laptop. It squeaked and died. I cried. That means no pictures for a while until I figure out how to get it fixed. And of course this is all terrible timing because I have an essay due on Friday, which is also the day that I am heading to Madrid. So, no pictures of Spain either. Did I mention that I am supposed to be starting my dissertation now-ish? Anyhow, I thought you should know that this blog might become either extremely text-heavy or may cease to exist at all until I get my computer back. I'm going to go cry into some vodka now.
24 February 2009
11 February 2009
Winter Wonderland
There was tons of snow on Monday.
I almost thought it was pretty.
You can see for yourself! Snow Extravaganza
I almost thought it was pretty.
You can see for yourself! Snow Extravaganza
08 February 2009
Queen's Park v Celtic
We went to a football (soccer!) game yesterday and it was a lot of fun!
I'll try to start at the beginning: Football began in Britain in the mid 19th century ... okay, maybe not that far back! There are four football teams in Glasgow: Celtic (pronounced sell-tik, always singular); Rangers (no definite article); Queen's Park and Partick Thistle. Celtic and Rangers are a big deal in Glasgow, they are very wealthy professional teams with obscenely loyal fans. They are called The Old Firm, and you don't want to be anywhere near the stadium when they play each other. That is because their fans are deadly serious about their team loyalties. This is partly because, historically, Celtic is the team of Irish Catholics and Rangers is the team of British Protestants. Yep. You cannot go into a pub in Glasgow if you're wearing football colors. No matter whose team it is, it could be Barcelona and you'd still be kicked out of the pub because of all the fights that have happened in the past. I've heard rumors that the Starbucks located in a Rangers-supporting part of Glasgow changed their logo from green (Celtic colors, you know) to black in order to keep from being vandalized.
Queen's Park is from the south side of Glasgow (Cathcart, where Paul grew up). They're an amateur team, meaning they don't get paid to play, and they are in the Second Division. There are four divisions: Premier (Celtic and Rangers belong here), First, Second, and Third. I have no idea why a second division team played a premier league team, but it happened and I was there.
Anyway, the weather was great, the sun was out and the sky was clear, no snow to be seen! The game was at Celtic's home stadium, Parkhead, in Glasgow's east end. We were very close to the pitch (field) and had a good view for the match (game). Unfortunately, since QP is such a small team, there were only 1,000 seats allotted for the QP fans in the away stands - and they sold out almost immediately. So we had to sit with the Celtic fans and pretend to root for Celtic. The guy who sat next to me for the first half was so funny, he kept yelling instructions to the Celtic players and then, when they didn't follow his instructions, he yelled 'Tha's Dreadful!' I tried not to laugh.
The game was really good actually. Most people had been sure that Celtic would score at least six goals against Queen's Park, but in actual fact the final result was Celtic 2, Queen's Park 1. In the second half, Queen's Park was really strong, they scored a goal (you should have seen the away stands bouncing and shaking!) and attacked the Celtic goal with vigor. The Queen's Park keeper (goalie) was really good and he saved tons of would-be goals! In fact, Celtic was barely hanging on by the end of the match! Their performance was so poor, these professional millionaires against a bunch of amatuers, that their own fans booed them even though they won the game! Vicious!
I got some really good pictures too. (Yay for my camera!)
Jock Stein was manager for Celtic for a period, led them to victory at the European Cup in 1967, I believe. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong!)
Policing matches is serious business. There were so many security guards and police officers in the stadium, I've never seen so many police in one place before. Towards the end of the match, a helicopter appeared overhead!
Celtic are in green and white striped jerseys and Queen's Park are in blue and orange. Their home colors are black and white stripes.
The linesman, doing whatever a linesman does.
Hurray for nice fluffy clouds!
All in all, it was fun and I'm glad I went. It was a nice introduction to football matches, since there were no riots or anything!
I'll try to start at the beginning: Football began in Britain in the mid 19th century ... okay, maybe not that far back! There are four football teams in Glasgow: Celtic (pronounced sell-tik, always singular); Rangers (no definite article); Queen's Park and Partick Thistle. Celtic and Rangers are a big deal in Glasgow, they are very wealthy professional teams with obscenely loyal fans. They are called The Old Firm, and you don't want to be anywhere near the stadium when they play each other. That is because their fans are deadly serious about their team loyalties. This is partly because, historically, Celtic is the team of Irish Catholics and Rangers is the team of British Protestants. Yep. You cannot go into a pub in Glasgow if you're wearing football colors. No matter whose team it is, it could be Barcelona and you'd still be kicked out of the pub because of all the fights that have happened in the past. I've heard rumors that the Starbucks located in a Rangers-supporting part of Glasgow changed their logo from green (Celtic colors, you know) to black in order to keep from being vandalized.
Queen's Park is from the south side of Glasgow (Cathcart, where Paul grew up). They're an amateur team, meaning they don't get paid to play, and they are in the Second Division. There are four divisions: Premier (Celtic and Rangers belong here), First, Second, and Third. I have no idea why a second division team played a premier league team, but it happened and I was there.
Anyway, the weather was great, the sun was out and the sky was clear, no snow to be seen! The game was at Celtic's home stadium, Parkhead, in Glasgow's east end. We were very close to the pitch (field) and had a good view for the match (game). Unfortunately, since QP is such a small team, there were only 1,000 seats allotted for the QP fans in the away stands - and they sold out almost immediately. So we had to sit with the Celtic fans and pretend to root for Celtic. The guy who sat next to me for the first half was so funny, he kept yelling instructions to the Celtic players and then, when they didn't follow his instructions, he yelled 'Tha's Dreadful!' I tried not to laugh.
The game was really good actually. Most people had been sure that Celtic would score at least six goals against Queen's Park, but in actual fact the final result was Celtic 2, Queen's Park 1. In the second half, Queen's Park was really strong, they scored a goal (you should have seen the away stands bouncing and shaking!) and attacked the Celtic goal with vigor. The Queen's Park keeper (goalie) was really good and he saved tons of would-be goals! In fact, Celtic was barely hanging on by the end of the match! Their performance was so poor, these professional millionaires against a bunch of amatuers, that their own fans booed them even though they won the game! Vicious!
I got some really good pictures too. (Yay for my camera!)
Jock Stein was manager for Celtic for a period, led them to victory at the European Cup in 1967, I believe. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong!)
Policing matches is serious business. There were so many security guards and police officers in the stadium, I've never seen so many police in one place before. Towards the end of the match, a helicopter appeared overhead!
Celtic are in green and white striped jerseys and Queen's Park are in blue and orange. Their home colors are black and white stripes.
The linesman, doing whatever a linesman does.
Hurray for nice fluffy clouds!
All in all, it was fun and I'm glad I went. It was a nice introduction to football matches, since there were no riots or anything!
04 February 2009
Winter - Isn't it over yet??
It snowed again yesterday! I woke up in the morning to discover that there was a significant amount of snow on the ground, and it just got worse from there. I even got snowed upon for the first time ever! And, of course, I bitched and moaned about it all day, like the lovely person I am.
I took another snow video, because it's hard for me to fathom that this is happening in real life, you know? The video is from just outside the main building of the university. We were walking from one class to another and all of a sudden, the snow went crazy!
It kept snowing all day long, but nothing really stuck on the ground around the university. However, out in the residential neighborhood where my dorm is, there was lots of snow - which I discovered on my return home after cowering in the Postgrad Club drinking tea all afternoon! Even enough to make snow man! And here is the photographic proof:
Haha, one of his eyes fell off right after I took the picture!
Look at that HUGE snowflake falling right in front of my camera!!
I just hope all this snow business stops soon! We're supposed to be going to a football (that's soccer to the rest of us) game on Saturday and I don't want to have to sit in the snow and watch sports! Paul's team, Queen's Park, is going to be playing one of the most popular football clubs in Glasgow, called Celtic. This is a big deal because Queen's Park is an amateur team in a lower division than Celtic which is a very wealthy, professional club. Hopefully it will be fun, at least it's only 90 minutes!
Oh well, I just have to content myself with planning the many trips I have lined up for the next few months. I am going to visit Emily in Madrid at the end of this month (although, apparently it's been snowing there too!), and then she is coming to Scotland in March and we will take Italy by storm in April. The warmest of all will be June, when Paul and I will be in sunny, amazing California for two weeks!
For now, I'm just going to shut my eyes and keep repeating: Summer is coming.
UPDATE, Wednesday: So, it didn't snow yesterday when I had no class. But today, when I have class, it snows again. Boo. But, see, it was nice and sunny in the morning so I wore my converse. Even a child can see that I have no clue what's going on around here! Converse! That was dumb.
I took another snow video, because it's hard for me to fathom that this is happening in real life, you know? The video is from just outside the main building of the university. We were walking from one class to another and all of a sudden, the snow went crazy!
It kept snowing all day long, but nothing really stuck on the ground around the university. However, out in the residential neighborhood where my dorm is, there was lots of snow - which I discovered on my return home after cowering in the Postgrad Club drinking tea all afternoon! Even enough to make snow man! And here is the photographic proof:
Haha, one of his eyes fell off right after I took the picture!
Look at that HUGE snowflake falling right in front of my camera!!
I just hope all this snow business stops soon! We're supposed to be going to a football (that's soccer to the rest of us) game on Saturday and I don't want to have to sit in the snow and watch sports! Paul's team, Queen's Park, is going to be playing one of the most popular football clubs in Glasgow, called Celtic. This is a big deal because Queen's Park is an amateur team in a lower division than Celtic which is a very wealthy, professional club. Hopefully it will be fun, at least it's only 90 minutes!
Oh well, I just have to content myself with planning the many trips I have lined up for the next few months. I am going to visit Emily in Madrid at the end of this month (although, apparently it's been snowing there too!), and then she is coming to Scotland in March and we will take Italy by storm in April. The warmest of all will be June, when Paul and I will be in sunny, amazing California for two weeks!
For now, I'm just going to shut my eyes and keep repeating: Summer is coming.
UPDATE, Wednesday: So, it didn't snow yesterday when I had no class. But today, when I have class, it snows again. Boo. But, see, it was nice and sunny in the morning so I wore my converse. Even a child can see that I have no clue what's going on around here! Converse! That was dumb.
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