New Things!

As some of you may know, L and I are now dating! Well kinda. We spend most weekends together, play with each other's hair, and own a spoiled dog together.
So Friday night I was telling L how this expert in couples therapy conducted a study: he took 100 couples and divided them into two groups. In group 1 he told them to just keep doing what they normally do, and in group 2 he said try something new each week together. It can be something simple like try a new coffee shop or something bigger like go rock climbing for the first time. Group 2 showed an increase in overall happiness by about 20% after 6 weeks of trying this, and group 1 stayed the same.
So we decided who needs a relationship to try new things?! And so this is what we did on Saturday:

We all hiked in our backpacks!! I bought Sally-kins a backpack, so now she carries her own water and food, and looks like an expert hiking dog! (which she is not at all). We hiked around Lake Thunderbird for about 2 hours together.

 Then we walked around the lake a bit, and found this abandoned car in the forest. We ate our snacks with our feet dangling over a little ridge.

Then after the hike, we left an exhausted Sally to sleep in the car, and I had my first swirl! Yummers.

And on a different note, Sally tried something new this weekend too. Popcorn dinner!

So, they are simple new things, but it was a great Saturday. And our goal is to do a new thing together each week. Ideas?!?

HALLOWEEN!

So Sarah and I kept up with some american traditions and carved these bad boys. Mine is the one on the left, I decided to go classic halloween because they do not carve pumpkins here. Sarah's is Jack Skeleton-pretty awesome. Here they just buy pumpkins and set them out- no carving- lame!! One of my roomies came into the kitchen when we were doing this and asked for a picture with my pumpkin. 

Oh how I love dressing up! Me as America, Sarah as Cowgirl, and Mist as Saloon Girl. We are western themed. This was thursday night, we went to the international halloween party and there was some great dancing! They played 50's music all night- which I did not realize was incredibly fun to dance crazy to. We danced to "Respect" and "Aint No Mountain High Enough". They have a 50's night every tuesday at the buff club, and if you are up for it T we should go out that night- we will have to see how we are feeling! I also did some swing dancing with a drunk tiger, he would not stop twirling me all over the place. I have also decided that I will go as America to Sooner Coral when we return home! I did the Christmas puppies there and now I'll bust out America.

Saturday we took a train to Blair Castle to watch a bagpiping competition sponsored by a whiskey company- you dont get much more scottish than that! It was nice to listen to and I found myself staring around the room off in dreamland. I also realized how easy it would be for us to take a train up to Aberdeen for a day trip- a train goes straight there! So I was thinking of cutting my thursday classes and checking out Aberdeen with you T!

This was Saturday night- a 70's themed halloween party in someone's flat that I dont know. SO much fun! It was a night of dancing and meeting a bunch of randos. The dancing became a little too intense and I began to fear I was going to be trampled. I also have come to the conclusion that sunglasses at a party are a lot of fun! You just drink a little, put on the sunglasses and start dancing and somehow the glasses make you feel like you have had way more to drink than you actually have- it was a little trippy. So they are coming with me to more parties- 70's themed or not.

Just more dancing like weirdos as the 70's party! The only thing that was missing was Julien- he left this weekend to visit his gf, and at the end of the night I was thinkin "where's julien- i gotta tell him something!!" then realized he was not there- how sad! I think I will miss him most of all after this adventure, he is a good person to just talk about life with.

Well tonight is the actual halloween- I am gonna guess we are not going out, I think the days leading up to halloween were crazy enough

we've got the dreamers disease

" It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live." ~ Albus Dumbledore

So wise you are Albus, I feel like I am living a dream I came up with a year ago, I am so glad I am doing this!

Photos:

This is our beautiful city center in Glasgow! This photo does not quite give the city justice, I will have to try again to capture it. It has some great shopping and the best bath store called Lush

Glasgow is huge on live music, and having Misty as a friend you find out about all the good ones. They performed in the basement of one of our favorite local bars, there was an audience of only about 20 people and we met the band afterwards and had a little chat with them.

This past weekend we went on a trip with the international society to the isle of skye, on the way we made many stops to look at scenery. Scotland is absolutely gorgeous- rolling green mountains, some snow capped, huge lochs, and rivers cutting through so much of the country. The isle of skye was beautiful and so remote, I loved it but could never imagine living there, it was just so cut off from everything. If you weren't a fisherman then you were the local pub owner, there just wasn't much there.

Cheers! So what do you do on a remote isle at night? Go crazy apparently

In the bathroom of a local pub that we bombarded with our presence. I would not stop carrying this cigarette in my teeth for a longer period of time than I would like to admit. I was dumb yet again, and this night led to vomiting again! I now vow not to puke again this semester, I will be in control! This night led to Misty putting me in bed, and Julien emptying my vomit bucket for me. Good lord.

Quote of the night:

Misty: So did you have fun tonight Julien?

Julien: Tomorrow morning I will eat cereals and milk.

Clearly I was not the only one super intoxicated. The next morning everyone piled back on the bus for home with massive hangovers. 

We stopped by Lochness on our way home! This is me summoning nessy to communicate with me. Shorty after this she popped up and said hello, sadly this was not captured via camera

Some photos of life

 Alrighty T,  these are just some rando photos taken from three very different days to just give you an idea of life here. Our days usually involve class and SO much walking, and our nights range from going crazy to just relaxing with friends, so here you go:

So this is from some night last week, we decided to tamper with the fire alarm and smoke hooka in the middle of the kitchen. So glad we did not get caught, found out not too long after this that it would have been a huge deal if the fire alarm had actually gone off.

This is from this past wednesday night, it started out as a nice wine and cheese party, in which Julien taught me how to properly taste a wine haha, and ended in a crazy dance party the took up 3 floors of a club with dancing on each. I told Mist that I look like a happy puppy in this photo. Funny story: at this party I met a girl who told me "if you party at all, you will meet this guy named Luis from Spain." I died laughing because I definitely made out with said guy about a week before she told me this.

So this is Julien and Clement at the wine party turned dance party. Needless to say both were very drunk. We ran into the Romanian at this party and Julien would not stop shoving me into him saying "go get your man" haha, could he be more like Brad? no. He did not remember this the next morning and kept apologizing- I just thought it was hilarious. 

So we are not always insane, I took this Friday night, we decided to stay in. Sarah and Mist busted out their instruments and we ended up sharing music and singing for a couple hours. It was so relaxing.

Gonna get by with a little help from my friends

So you know you have some truly great friends when they hold back your hair when you are vomitting...
So T after getting off of skype with you, I went out, and managed to make a fool of myself. Mist and I had 9.0 beer, which we did not realize was quite so much. Well we drank some of that before going out to a bar, at said bar I got another pint of beer, needless to say it was too much, but the weird thing is is that I did not really realize that until I got home.
Well apparently when I am in a foreign country I am a lot more bold, because at the bar I kept going up to randos, introducing myself, and chatting with them. I did this to 5 different groups- I did not even hang with the group I came with! We kinda all split up at the beginning of the night and met up when the bar was closing, it was great.
So on this particular night I chose to wear high heels, well on the walk home my feet started KILLING me, so Julien offered for me to walk home in his socks. So I sit down in the street take off my heels and put on his socks, only to stub my toe half way home and not realize I have bled all over the sock until I get home. Then Julien follows me into the bathroom, takes off the sock for me, and rinses my foot in water. So then we go meet everyone else in the kitchen to hang out and smoke hooka. Well after a little bit I start getting really sick to my stomach, and go sit in the bathroom. Julien comes in and sits with me for a little while, and right when he leaves I puke... that's right when Sarah walks in and holds all of my hair. So now I feel way better and go sit in the kitchen, only to somewhat fall asleep on the couch, like I could hear what everyone was saying, but I could not contribute. Then I put my head on Sarah's lap and rested there, only to have Julien carry me back to my room about an hour later, where Misty tucked me in.
So I have some great friends, I apologized the next morning, but all of them said it was a great night, and in Juliens words "I love drunk Carolyn" so I am glad I was not a huge pain! and it was a great night til the puking haha

Some Photos

This is the Peter Pan statue that Mist was dying to see, I think I like this photo of her taking a photo of it more than the one posing by it. 

This is the crazy tree I climbed, in a picture that Mist has you can see me poking out of the top of it. To me it looks like a bolt of lightning struck the middle of it, then all the branches arched over. A lot of them were actually touching the ground and you could walk through them and sit by the trunk of this tree.

Well this was taken on a one and a half hour hike in a nearby town, it was me, Mist, and Sarah. It rained on us most of the time, but it actually made it more peaceful and serene. I stumbled upon this little sheepy on my way up, and at first I thought he was SO cute, but then he would not stop staring at me and it kinda freaked me out once I saw he had horns! But he turned out to be harmless, he was quite the fatty and I dunno if you can tell in the photo, but he has black and white spotted legs.

This is the view from the top! And that is Loch Lomond below us. I am at the highest point and was the only one who went this high (mist and sarah stopped about 5 minutes back). I told them I would be right back and ran (literally) off to the very top, I suddenly got a burst of energy realizing the beauty I was about to behold and the feeling of being alone with it. amazing

love

First Night On The Town

Okay so back to the dancing subject, let me explain. The first day we were here we talked to a scottish guy who was telling us about the clubs and what not, about this place called The Viper where apparently all the upperclassmen go, it's a dance club. It's really weird their bars here close at midnight, then at midnight everyone goes to clubs to dance which close at 2. So I ask this guy how they dance here, and explained how we dance back home, and being european I thought all the girls would dance super slutty and it would be grinding galore. I mean a lot of the girls here look like baby prostitues and their adds are more risque and what not. But no, he explains that if a guy just came up behind a girl and started grindin that she would probably punch him in the face, that apparently they have to "get to know each other" before they will start dancing anywhere close to that. and by get to know each other he means dancing facing each other about a foot away for about 20 minutes. Okay so by this point im thinkin this guy has to be exaggerating! surely it's nearly the same as America, oh i was wrong

So last night me, misty, and sarah (new friend who is so much fun!!) go out on the town (BTW: sarah is also from OU, but we didnt meet her til we got here, so she is also american and dances like us) So we hang out at a bar down the street from the Viper where I have alcoholic cider (delicious!! GL you have to have it) and a Guiness (best tasting beer ever!) well i didnt realize how high their alcohol content was so i was feelin it pretty good when we got to the club. So we all start dancing, you know what we consider normal, and im not too aware of my surroundings at first, i just assumed they were all dancing like me (by the way this place is PACKED!) oh how wrong i was. they just kinda bend there knees and bob there, it's very odd and rather boring. so i continue dancing the way i do, and my hands are in the air and everything. well people just start staring at us like no other. and other girls are trying to mimic us, but they just kinda look awkward and guys were pointing at us and calling there friends over, IT WAS SO STRANGE! so then i see a ring of like 5 cute guys, so i grab sarah's hand, who grabs mist's hand and i start dancing in the middle of them. not grinding just dancing funny and weird with maybe a few pelvic thrusts and these guys freak out, put all there hands up in like a cone over the 3 of us and start chanting "EIFFEL TOWER EIFFEL TOWER" what the hell??
so i lean over to one of the guys and say "do you guys not dance like this here, we're from america" and he assures me that no one dances like that here, but i guess they thought it was funny or amusing. well he was super attractive so i start dancing with him. well while im doing that mist leans over to a girl that's near us and says "we're american, i guess thats why we dance like this" and the girl says "thats no excuse" i guess how we dance is really looked down upon by some of the girls?? i dunno, still trying to wrap my mind around it and i would look at couples who seemed really into eachother, and realize they were a good 6 inches away from eachother, even though the girls arms were around the guys neck.
So after I posted this to Cassie, Kassey, and Gaby, they all said I wonder if Eiffel Tower means the same thing there as it does here, I had no idea what they were talking about, so I urban dictionaried it...gross. But when these guys were all standing around us they were not even touching us at all, like not even touching hands to dance, so in reality very innocent. Once I get a good guy friend here I am going to ask him.
Anyways, so this same night before all of this happened, we were walking down the street trying to find a cool pub to drink in till it was time to go to Viper, but unlike in Norman a lot of way older people go out to drink here right along with the young folk, but certain bars are more populated with younger people that others, so we wanted to make sure we went to the right place. So mist walks up to two rando guys on the street and asks them for a suggestion, they are super helpful and name several good places. So then we just get to talking with them for about 15 minutes, then a car full of guys pull up and they look like they have to go talk to them so we say bye and thanks. Well the next night (saturday) we are walking down the street trying to decide whick pub to go into again, when we run across the same 2 guys on a different street. This city is very big, so it's really suprising. So we say hi to them and get to talking, in about the first five minutes you can tell everyone is a little uncomfortable because we didnt know if they wanted to get onto where they were going and vice versa, but then all of us come to the realization that we all like each other, so we chat there on the street for a good hour. We wanted them to go to a pub with us, but everyone here dresses up really nice, and they were not at all. Plus they had just purchased beer to go have a small party at their flat, which they invited us to. But we thought 3 girls alone in a foreign country at night with some guys we basically just met, that going to their flat was a bad idea. But I explained that to them, and told them to meet us at Viper tonight (because apparently monday nights are a BIG party night here) so I am hoping that they come and we can find them!!
They were actually not Scottish, one was Lithuanian and the other Romanian, and they were both very cute! but i especially liked the Romanian. His accent sounds like he is a vampire from transylvania, it's pretty nice. They were also so funny and interesting, like we found out that apparently the UK is pretty racist toward people from eastern europe, so I would like to ask them more about this and what not. Anyways ill let you know what happens!
I cant imagine the response you are going to get, when you shake your huge butt in one of these clubs, cant wait!
Love you T