Flat Parties, St. Andrews and a Mean Girls Movie Night

     This past week has been one of the most fun since I arrived here! On Monday night the roomiez and I went to 90s night at Jackson's pub (which didn't turn out to be much of a 90s night; there were complaints about the volume of the music, so we didn't have our 90s music for most of the night). It turned out to be a great night despite the lack of Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys songs playing in the background. Afterwards we had cravings for (you guessed it) McDonalds, so we had a midnight snack there before heading back to our flat. On Thursday we got a new flatmate (Lori) so that was exciting! We all went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant that night. On both Wednesday and Friday I went to flat parties. The one on Friday night was super memorable and I made friends with the boys whose flat it was. It's cool to have a few guy friends here now, since I've pretty much only been hanging out with girls since the beginning of the exchange (not necessarily a bad thing, but hanging with boys is fun too!). At the party we were randomly chatting to the boys about chick flicks and they mentioned they love Mean Girls, so it was decided that we would have a Mean Girls movie night at our flat on Sunday night and invite all the boys. We didn't get back from the party until a little after 1am, which was crazy since Bethany and I had to wake up around 6:45 on Saturday morning for our St. Andrews Student Tours Scotland day trip.

     It was hard to get out of bed Saturday morning, and even after drinking a cup of coffee I still felt exhausted. The bus ride was around two hours, so we were able to nap a bit on the bus at least. The bus dropped us off at a beautiful beach right in front of the famous St. Andrews golf course, and we all hung out there for a bit to take nice photos. It was neat seeing a Scottish beach for the first time. Gary (our tour leader) then walked us over the the castle where we got to explore for a while. I loved the St. Andrews castle -- probably even more than Edinburgh castle. St. Andrew's castle is much smaller, and it is in ruins. Parts of it are really well preserved though, and there were so many cool dungeons/rooms to see. The counter mine underneath the castle was particularly interesting to explore. It was a cramped space and quite dark, and several people were actually getting claustrophobic and had to go back outside. We then made our way to the St. Andrews Cathedral (which isn't much of a cathedral any more, mostly just a big graveyard). It was beautiful though, and apparently there are some famous people buried there. Bethany, Vanessa and I went for lunch at a place called "gorgeous St. Andrews" afterwards, and I had a really nice panini with salad. After lunch we did a bit of shopping -- I bought a couple of postcards for family, and some golf balls with the St. Andrews crest on them for my grandma. I spent the last part of the afternoon wandering around St. Andrews University and the beaches/pier with Vanessa before going back to the bus. On the way back to Glasgow we stopped at Ravenscraig Park to see another castle. At this point everyone was so tired that they weren't too enthusiastic about spending an hour and a half at this park, but there were some nice ocean views and the sun was starting to go down so we got some nice photos. I was so sleepy by the time we got back to our flat, and I got to bed fairly early that night.

     Yesterday I got to meet up with Jessica and Marina, who are from UVic and on exchange in Aberdeen. They were visiting Glasgow for the weekend, so we went out for dinner at the Counting House with them, my roomiez, Alicea, Rebecca and Rebecca's friend visiting from Canada. I had scotch pie with chips, beans and gravy, and it was so good. It was a fun dinner and it was so nice to hang out with the UVic girls. On our way back to our flat we picked up some snacks at Sainsbury's for our Mean Girls movie night with the boys. I think we had thirteen people in total in our flat to watch the movie, which was insane because it's so small. We made it work though, and we had a great time. Afterwards, Bethany, Anna and I tried to stream the Oscars online but we weren't too successful. We caught a bit of the red carpet but by the time the show was going to start, it was around 1am and we were super sleepy. Before I went to bed I chatted with my parents and brother on Skype for a bit. I get to see them in London in under two weeks! I'm so excited.

     Now it's back to the grind. I have a paper due on Thursday so I probably won't be going out much this week because I have to be productive. I'm going to Dublin for the weekend though, so that's something to look forward to!

Loch Lomond, Edinburgh, and a Perfect Valentine's Day

     Ahh I'm so late making another blog post! I should have done one Sunday night because I had a pretty eventful weekend. Last Saturday I took the train to Loch Lomond with Anna, Michelle, Bethany, Kirsty and Laura. I had no idea how convenient it was to get there; only £5.80 for a round trip, and the train trip takes less than an hour. The weather wasn't awful that day -- cloudy as usual but it didn't rain thank goodness. We spent a few hours walking around the loch (I saw my first Scottish castle!) and got lunch at a pub. That day was the first time I had gotten out of the city (besides the Paris trip) since arriving in Scotland, and it was so refreshing to see green everywhere. In the National Park all you could see was rolling green hills, trees and loch. We took the train back to Glasgow around 3:30 and just had a lazy evening because we were going to have a busy day on Sunday. 

      We woke up pretty early Sunday to be at the bus by 8:50, and just after 9 we started the bus trip to Edinburgh. It only took about an hour! We already could tell that the weather wouldn't be in our favour that day though; there was practically a blizzard on our drive there. I'd say that was one of the most miserable days in terms of weather I've seen since being here. It was so cold and there was constant rain/snow throughout the day! We still managed to have a good time though. We started off the day walking up a hill for an amazing view of the city and took some nice photos. Next we walked to the castle where Gary gave us our tickets to get in. We had 2.5 hours of free time, so the girls and I spent about an hour exploring the castle and reading about its history, then looked around for a place to have lunch. We actually ended up at the Elephant House, the café where J.K. Rowling would have coffee and write much of the first Harry Potter novel. My flatmates and I are huge Harry Potter nerds so we were excited to say the least. The café itself is pretty cute but we all decided that the service was crap. It was disorganized and it took ages to get our lunch. The food was decent though and it was entertaining going to the bathrooms and discovering tons of Harry Potter related graffiti/messages on the walls! After lunch we met back up with Gary and the group to walk around the city some more and hear stories and history. Towards the end of the day we were given some more free time, but it was so cold and rainy that we just found a café to buy some hot drinks and warm up. By the time we had to head back to the bus, we were exhausted from all the walking we had done and were looking forward to getting back the our flat. I'm definitely going to try to go back to Edinburgh in the spring and explore the city and the castle some more!

     This school week has been a bit of a blur and I actually can't remember much of what happened. Mostly just class and tutorials, and spending time with my flatmates. Yesterday (Valentine's Day) was super memorable though! I checked the mail after waking up and came to the conclusion that Canada Post sucked and I wouldn't receive any Valentines for a few days. I was a little bummed but it wasn't a big deal because I knew I had a couple coming. I spent most of the morning lounging around in my PJs, and Michelle made us cheddar and bacon keish for lunch. Yum! While I was still in my pyjamas, there was a knock on the door and Anna said it was for me. I went to the door to find a delivery guy who asked me to sign for a huge box I was receiving! I opened it up in the kitchen with my flatmates to find a dozen red roses and a really sweet Valentine's card from Cyrus. It was incredibly thoughtful and it made me so happy :) Needless to say, I was in a crazy good mood for the rest of the day. Later on, I got dressed and went out to buy some groceries for our Valentine's girls night. I bought chocolate (a Valentine's Day essential) and some drinks for our "Love, Actually" drinking game. The girls and I also decided we wanted pizza for dinner (obviously it was a going to be a very healthy day...) so we ordered two large pizzas from Pizza Hut. To top it all off, Michelle made us peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. She's pretty much the best person ever. At around 7:30, Rebecca and Alicea came over and we started our Love, Actually drinking game. It was crazy and we had some good laughs. I'll attach a photo of the rules for anyone who wants to attempt it. We had to change "whenever characters from different story lines interact" from taking a shot to taking a sip because we realized that happened way too often and it was getting ridiculous. After the movie, we topped off the night by playing a game of I Never. Later on I had a Skype date with my Valentine and didn't get to bed until about 3am. So worth it though! All in all I would say it was the best Valentine's Day I've had so far. I spent it with amazing friends, and had a really sweet Valentine's surprise delivered to my door. Today I received my Valentine from my family in the mail. There was a message written from each my mom, my dad and my brother, as well as red paw prints from my pets (apparently my mom somehow got red sharpie on their paws and had them press them on the card? Hahaha so cute). My parents also sent me some British pounds so I could buy myself a Valentine (aka go shopping! Woo). 

     As for this weekend, it probably won't be too exciting -- my schoolwork is calling for me, but I'm sure I'll have something else to post about within the next week!

A Weekend in Paris and Movie Nights with the Roomiez

     This past week has been so much fun! A few weeks ago, two of my friends and I booked flights to Paris for the weekend of February 1-3. Our flight on Friday was at 12:50pm, and we got into Paris in the late afternoon. We bought metro passes at the airport, and took the train into the city. While Michelle and Rebecca checked into our hotel, I went to a bar/café because the hotel thought there was only two of us staying in the room, so we couldn't all go in together. I ordered a coffee in French, and then this middle aged guy sitting next to me asked to buy me a beer in French. It was pretty amusing. I said no thanks, and we had a brief conversation. Surprisingly my French wasn't too rusty so I was able to understand most of what he was saying and speak back to him. He was actually pretty friendly and just asked what country I was from, what I was doing in Paris, etc. Rebecca and Michelle then came to the café to meet me, then we started looking for somewhere to have dinner. We ended up going to the Hippopotamus and had caesar salads, and calamari with fries and onion rings. I asked our waitress how to get to the Eiffel tower from the restaurant, and she was super helpful and told us which metro to take and what stop to get off at. We took tons of pictures in front of the Eiffel tower, then saw the light show at 8pm. Even though I've seen the Eiffel tower at night multiple times, it never gets old. We decided to get dessert crêpes afterwards (yum!). I got a banana and nutella one. It was so good. It was getting somewhat late and we were tired from our travels, so we took the metro back to our hotel and just chilled out and watched a French movie. There were three of us in a queen sized bed, so it was a bit "cozy" but we made it work haha. 

     In the morning, Rebecca and Michelle went downstairs for breakfast and brought me back up a croissant, jam, and some fruit. We left the hotel and about 9:30am and went straight to the Eiffel tower, and bought tickets to go up to the top. While we were up there, we were trying to estimate how many marriage proposals per day/week/year happen at the top of the Eiffel tower. We noticed there was a champagne bar, so we figured there must be a pretty high number. Afterwards we made our way to the Champs-Élysées to admire the Arc de Triomphe and all the expensive shops. By that time the weather was starting to brighten up, and we had some sun and blue skies which was really nice! We headed over to the Louvre and decided to have lunch at a café across the street. I had a croque-monsieur, which is basically a toasted sandwich with melted cheese and ham. Before going inside the Louvre, we wandered through the "Louvre des antiquaires". I had never been inside there before, but it was so cool! We pretty much spent the entire time admiring antique engagement rings, and in Rebecca's case, super expensive walking sticks hahah random. We spent about half an hour in there, then went to check out the Louvre. We found out that we got in free with our student cards so that was a huge bonus! First off we went to see the Mona Lisa (of course), then I wanted to wander around the section for classical Greek art. It was really cool because I saw a lot of sculptures/pottery that I had learned about in my Greek and Roman studies classes. We left the Louvre at about 4pm, then went back to the hotel to have a nap before dinner. For dinner that night we went to a little diner by our hotel that specialized in "moules et frites". I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to order mussels, but I tried one of Rebecca's and they actually weren't bad! After dinner we took the metro to see the Moulin Rouge lit up at night, and had dessert at a little café across the street. We had dessert crêpes again (no surprise there) and just sat and chatted/people watched for an hour or so. We were super exhausted from all the walking we did that day, so we decided to call it a night at around 9:30 and head back to our hotel. We watched another movie in French -- this time it was that really bad Disney channel movie with Aly and AJ called "Cow Belles" haha.

     When we woke up in the morning we packed up our bags and were able to leave them in the hotel luggage room after we checked out so we didn't have to carry them around all day. First off we went to LaDurée to buy some macarons because everyone raves about them. I got pistachio and coffee and they were so tasty! The coffee one was my favourite. Now we're trying to find places in Glasgow that sell macarons but we sadly aren't having much luck... While we were eating our macarons, we walked along the Seine and took pictures on the bridge of locks, then went to a famous bookstore called Shakespeare and Co. I picked up a hardcover edition of Les Misérables which I thought was a nice souvenir of our time in Paris. It's pretty heavy but I figure I'll keep it in my hand baggage when I go back to Canada to avoid my checked bags being overweight haha. We also saw Notre Dame cathedral, then made our way to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur and get some lunch. I managed to find a restaurant that I ate at with Crystal, Lindsay and Kaitlyn on our school trip to Paris in grade 12, so that brought back really good memories. Like the last time, I ordered escargot. It's actually really good, although the texture is a bit weird. We had some time to kill before we had to go back to our hotel and get our bags then go to the airport, so we just wandered around Montmartre, and somehow ended up at the Paris Opera House (Palais Garnier). I'm a huge Phantom of the Opera nerd, so even though this was my third trip to Paris and I had already seen the Opera House, it was exciting. 

      We still had some time to kill and wanted to rest our feet, so we tried to find a little café where we could have coffee and free wifi. All of the cafés we found had ridiculously high prices for coffee (around 5 euros!) so we settled for Starbucks. It's funny that Starbucks is considered the expensive coffee back home, but the cheapest we could find in Paris. It was finally time to go back and get our luggage, so we picked it up then went to the train station. For some reason the trains to the airport weren't running Feb 2nd or 3rd, so we had to take the train to the final stop then transfer onto a bus to the airport. We weren't too inconvenienced by it because we left ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport, but lots of people seemed like they were in a rush and were complaining/stressing out. Our flight was at 9pm, and by the time we got through security and to our gate, it was 8pm so we just relaxed for awhile. The plane ride was pretty smooth, and I spent most of the flight listening to heartfelt music and looking at all the old photos on my phone. I actually got pretty homesick seeing certain photos, especially ones of me with my pets: 

     We finally got back to our flat at about 11pm Glasgow time, and I had a skype date with Cyrus which was really nice. All in all it was a really memorable weekend, and a great third trip to Paris for me. I realized that I have now been to Paris during three of the four seasons; when I was 11 I went in the summer, when I was 17 I went in the spring, and now I've been there in the winter too. I guess I have to go back during autumn! 

     In other news, my flatmates and I have gotten into a routine of having movie nights together! Last week we watched Crazy, Stupid, Love, and last night we watched the Inbetweeners Movie, followed by two episodes of Skins. It's been really fun, and we are planning on having a cheesy chick flick night on Valentine's day (not watching the movie Valentine's Day though. So bad. Love, Actually perhaps). Tonight we're all going to something called the International Students Sub Crawl. It's basically a pub crawl, but everyone is divided into 4 groups, and we all take the subway to different bars/pubs. There are seven stops we have to get off at with our groups, and there are recommended drinks at each stop to buy. Afterwards we get free admission into a club. It should be fun! Hopefully I'm not too exhausted tomorrow. 

     ALSO, we've booked flights to Dublin from March 1-4! It's me, Michelle, Kirsty and Anna who are going (Bethany is going for St. Patty's Day) and we're so excited. I've wanted to go to Ireland for a while so I'm happy we've planned a trip.