After returning from London on the 2nd of February, it was just two days before I was off experiencing my first "football" match in Europe. AC Milan was in town on the 4th for a friendly match against Rangers FC who are based in Glasgow. The end result was a draw, 2-2, but it was great to see some of the best players in the world out on the field (Beckham, Ronaldinho and Kaka to name a few).
That weekend (February 6th-8th) was relatively uneventful. On Friday the 6th my friends Sean, Ben, Maddie and I went out to Strathblane (about 45 minutes outside the city by bus) for a tour of the Glencoyne Whisky
Distillery. It was great to get out of the city for the afternoon, especially to taste some of the world's best whisky (in 2007 Glengoyne was awarded with the world's best whisky). The rest of the weekend was filled with the library and paper writing. Normally this would have bugged me, but several of my friends were in London for the weekend, and those that weren't in London were on a two day trip to the highlands to see some castles and lochs. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't get my work done ahead of time and had to stick around the university. It was good to relax a bit though.The past couple weeks have been somewhat of a blur since then. Last Sunday I went on a day trip to St. Andrews with some friends from Glasgow. It was a nice easy 2 hour train ride, and definitely a good idea for a day trip. I think it was in St. Andrews that it finally dawned on me that I'm in Scotland. Glasgow is
pretty urban, but to get out of the city, taking the train through rolling hills and out to the coast really woke me up to the fact that im not in Boston. St. Andrews is a great little town. We first walked along the 18th hole at the Old Course in St. Andrews, over Swilcan Bridge and up to the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse. I think I now know why my Dad is so obsessed with golfing. From there we walked down onto the West Sands, a 2 mile long beach that reminded me a lot of Drakes Island, and made me yearn a little bit for June to roll around. But then I remembered I'm in Europe on what is essentially an extended vacation and any nostalgia seemed to fade away... From the beach we walked up along the cliffs to the ruins of St. 
Andrews Castle. To be honest I wasn't that impressed, probably because I can't imagine a castel more impressive than that of Edinburgh. Directly across from the castle ruins are the Cathedral ruins. It really seems like the people of St. Andrews don't pay too much attention to the upkeep of their buildings. The Cathedral ruins were pretty cool. It was crazy to imagine the sheer size of the cathedral that used to stand on this massive bluff looking out over the North Sea. All that is now left it two sections of one of the towers and the foundations. Last on our list of sights to see was the University of St. Andrews. The univeristy is pretty small in comparison to Glasgow, with only about 7,000 students. With this smaller size comes much smaller architecture, which may not be as impressive as our main building but was distinct in its own right. That wrapped up our tour of St. Andrews. (I should mention that on this trip, I bumped into two more BC students... I really don't think I will visit a single city where BC has not already invaded).Aside from traveling, I've been making good headway in learning the bagpipes (we've moved onto "grace notes" which are proving difficult, but with practice I should be able to master them). My other classes are going well too. This Thursday is actually my last day of class for Environmental Impact Assesment which is weird because I feel like I just started the course! Tomorrow afternoon I'm going on another field trip with Exploring Scottish Culuture. I think we're going to be learing about the urbanization of Glasgow? Not sure though. Politics has been ok as well. We've recently been discussing US Foreign Policy which has been very interesting, but high pressure! I think everyone expects me to know every point of US foreign policy but to be honest, it seems like they know more than me! Oh well.
Getting away from academics for a second, last Monday night we discovered "quiz night" at one
of the small pubs near campus. About 9 of us decided to try it out, and after about 2 hours of questions revolving around Scottish sport, history and culture we were awarded with a bag of candy for our LAST PLACE FINISH! I guess we got an A for effort. On Wednesday a small group of us decided we wanted to make a big dinner, so we divided up the nights meal and made a nice dinner of mac and cheese, chicken and a finnish pastry role for dessert. All in all a great meal. Thursday afternoon, it was the nicest weather we've had so far in Glasgow so I decided to grab my camera and go for a run along the river clyde. This was probably the best way I could have spent my afternoon. Over the past decade the riverfront has seen a lot of redevelopment and has some of the city's most interesting builldings and bridges, including the Science Center and the "Armadillo" conference hall. Thursday was a great afternoon.
This past weekend I was in Dublin, but you'll have to wait til I have more time to type to hear about that.....
Hope everyone is well!
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