We found a place to live!!
This evening we moved into our new place in Glasgow. It’s in the trendy west end neighborhood of Kelvingrove. We can walk to the city centre in about 20 minutes and to the nearest pub in…well, it’s just downstairs really. We are just doing some cleaning here now (actually, Carli-Ann is while I sit here and write a blog entry J) since the place has been empty for six months. There are two other rooms that have yet to be rented. We are in an old sandstone building on the 4th floor, and after six months of hiking up four flights of stairs with our bikes on our shoulders, we figure our thigh muscles will be quite impressive. The building is between 100 and 150 years old like many of the tenements in Glasgow, our hall is painted a brilliant Barney purple, and the kitchen is an electric mint green, with black and white checkered lino. We’re on a busy main road with lots of food options around. Within a couple blocks are a few Chinese take-aways, a Thai restaurant, a Moroccan restaurant, a Korean restaurant and several Indian restaurants. No Scottish restaurants…
Last night was “Burns Night” a Scottish celebration in ode to Robert Burns, a famous Scottish poet. Burns Night is almost like Saint Patrick’s Day in Ireland. We were staying with some friends, so we made up the traditional Burn’s Night supper – Haggis (minced lamb’s lungs, cow heart and liver, and oatmeal cooked in a sheep’s stomach: we thought we had bought the vegetarian version and were sorely disappointed to see what appeared inside), neeps (turnips) & tatties (potatoes), and whiskey of course. Unfortunately we didn’t have a bagpiper there who could “address the haggis”. Although our friend did bring out his bagpipes later and play us a tune! Would you believe that bagpipes are made of Gortex!
We also took a few days to whip over 50 odd miles to Edinburgh to see its romantic and haunted alleys and cobblestone streets, have our SWAP orientation, and go to a flamenco party with our Barcelonan HC host, Gerard, and his Irish, German and Yorkshire flat mates. When his party ended, the guys from a few windows down crawled across the window ledges to invite us to theirs, so off we crawled, an opportunity not to be missed.
We are thrilled being in Scotland, and tickled pink with all things Scottish. Our Glaswegian HC lads are pulling out all the stops to make sure that we won’t miss any important Scottish experiences in our six and a bit months here. We are so impressed the way that their hilarious banter flows like water, probably even smoother with us giggling at everything they say. They have had five other couchsurfers not including us since we arrived in their place, and I think they are single-handedly supporting the entire couchsurfing expereince in Glasgow (couchsurfing is virtually the same as Hospitality Club). We’ve been shown around all the best parts of this working class city that Kathryn had heard described at Seattle in the mid-90’s, and there are gigs literally every night. I hope we get a chance to save a little money in the coming months.
No jobs yet...we’ll let you all know as soon as we’ve found some! Oh, and you are all invited to come visit us!
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