Left

Things I will take with me:

a toffee muffin

mochas with marshmallows

a baby in the window

Wellies

nice people on trains

small talk in grocery stores

Hugh MacDiarmid

Margaret Oliphant

inaudible cab drivers

Uncle Ben's Curry sauce

makeshift sidewalks

cobblestone

romance

fresh fruit

exploding loaves of bread

bad teeth

cider

cheap soap

microwaved naan

a piggy mug

french press

creepy hairstylists

sexism

cute boots

faux fur

folk music

whisky

Twix and tea

small cars

fog

Christmas lights

Quality Street

big hills

bagpipes

vegans

"I can't sleep"

Aye

writing exercises

two journals

dim lights

train rides

maps

a perfect view

Things I will leave behind:

Broken umbrellas

A gym membership

free-for-all sidewalks

Quebecois

drunkards

fire alarms

ugly curtains

dry pens

red tape

unfinished books

4 euros

two pounds

accents

plaster

Irn Brew

Iron gates

Natural light

a cell phone

a time zone

Leaving

I just came back from Pico, my favorite coffee shop in Glasgow, where Gavin and Michael, my favorite baristos, gave me a Christmas card to send me off.  "Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" it says.  "Was a pleasure serving you coffee.  Remember to visit--weekly!  Much Love, Gav (xxx) and Michael (xxx)"  They told me to come in tomorrow to get a free cup of coffee before I leave.  I almost started crying there and then in the coffee shop.  Who knew that little old Caitlin, the shy American who used to whisper her coffee orders, would be missed?  It's so reassuring to know that I've accomplished my biggest goal here: to make a home for myself and to touch people's lives, even if it's just for a few months.  I think that if someone told me to, I could definitely do this for a whole year.  It's nice to feel like I have another home to come back to.  Maybe I'll be back here after I graduate.  We will see.

I will miss traveling so much.  Paris was beautiful, sparkly, wonderful--all the things people tell you it is.  I got an email from Steve Wright (my English professor/advisor/hero) this morning in response to a letter I sent him.  He told me about his travels in Europe that always made him feel like "the bravest person walking."  I have never heard a phrase that more aptly described the way I feel when I travel.  In Paris, I was all by myself, speaking French, navigating the subway system, taking pictures on frigid bridges, and ducking into cafés for good bread and good cheese.  I had no one but myself to guide me, and that was empowering.  I really did feel like the bravest person walking down the street.  It makes me feel like I could go anywhere and do anything as long as I have a map.

Now it's about thirty hours until I leave.  Haven't packed a thing, feeling overwhelmed with sadness and excitement.  My mom told me that she had a hard time studying in Switzerland when she was in college, but she vividly remembers crying on the train ride to the airport on her last day.  I have a feeling that's where I'm headed, but hopefully I'll be able to delay the waterworks until my plane ride home.

Clip From Dublin

Here is a video from Dublin, in case you wanted to know what an Irish, Spice Girls-themed drag show looked like:

Dreams

I've been having strange dreams lately about coming home and coming back to Beloit: either people don't recognize me in my dreams or I don't recognize them.  Usually my dreams are enigmatic glimpses into my subconscience that I end up picking over for days afterwards, but in this case, the reason behind them seems a bit too obvious.  I think my brain is mocking me.

I do not feel irrecognizable, however.  Maybe I'm a little smarter, a little cooler than I was four months ago, but not a completely changed person.  Yet for some reason, it feels like I'm going through some kind of premature culture shock.  I'm not really sure how Scotland is going to fit in with the rest of my life.  Sometimes when I wake up from my dreams about home, I think Scotland is a dream, and vice versa.  I'm afraid I'll come home unsure of where I was or what it meant and it will all seem like a four-month long coma.

I suppose I'll find out what it all meant soon enough.  I have exactly a week here, which is pretty unbelievable.  Amelia Buzzell put it well in her letter to me: "This has been the shortest and longest semester of my life."  When I think about saying goodbye to my parents in front of the security line in September, holding back tears and telling myself to be brave, it seems like eons ago.  The leaves were still green, the days were still long.  But I guess that's what happens when  you think about time in terms of seasons instead of moments.  Green leaves and long days seem worlds away from the brown and gray outside my window now.

Tomorrow I leave for Paris, and when I come back on Wednesday, I will have about two days in Glasgow to say goodbye.  Sarah and I made a list of things we want to do before we leave, but I doubt we'll get around to it all.  Today I was walking down Great Western Road, past all the restaurants I meant to go to, and I felt pretty blue.  I looked up at the rooftops because I remember the first day I was here when my cab driver from the airport told me that "people in this city forget to look up," and that the city is a whole lot prettier when you look at the skyline or the rooftops.  This little trick has helped me get through a lot of sadness in the past four months.  Every time I want to say "I hate it here," for some reason I always end up looking at someone's roof.

Anyway, most of you are probably home by now, basking in post-exam relief and indulging in your mom's best cooking.  I hope to see at least some of you when I get back to D.C., but until then, hold down the fort.  I'll be there soon!

P.S. I found out what the deal is with Cheerios in the UK (prepare yourself, this may blow your mind): What the British call "Cheerios" in the UK, is actually what we call "Multi-Grain Cheerios" in the states.  "Cheerio Oats" most resembles the Cheerios we're used to, only with four more grams of sugar, as I came to learn this week.  I guess that's what you get when Nestle monopolizes the cereal industry.

Breaking News

The plain Cheerios here are sugar-coated.

FINALLY

I can finally, FINALLY say that I am happy here.

This comes less than a month before I leave, but I suppose that's how study abroad usually goes.

Hanna came to visit me for Thanksgiving, and it completely changed my morale.  Hosting someone when you're overseas is interesting when you're still feeling like a stranger yourself.  Scary to think that it was only two months ago that Hallie came to visit me.  I had a wonderful time with her, but it was a little bittersweet because it made me realize just how much I missed my friends from home, and it was especially disheartening to think I had so much time left in Glasgow before I would see them.  Seeing Hanna last week, however, was totally uplifting because I could enjoy spending time with her knowing that it wouldn't be long until the next time we would see each other in January.  

Having a guest can also make you re-appreciate all the qualities that make your study abroad unique.  I took Hanna to my favorite vegan restaurant in the city and afterwards we went shopping at my favorite vintage store.  It was fun to see Glasgow through her eyes because sometimes I forget about all the cute little restaurants and stores that I can call my own.

We spent Thanksgiving dinner at an Indian restaurant, and afterwards we went to bar where we made friends with Said, a guy from Kenya, who told us that we talked "like rappers."  It was an absolutely fantastic evening, filled with wonderful conversation and many a pint.  Said was cool, maybe a little creepy too, so when he bought Hanna and me cocktails, we poured them out on the floor for fear of getting date-raped (it happens quite often around here).  "We're smart women," Hanna said proudly.

Friday was mostly spent in Edinburgh.  There was a beautiful Christmas festival going on just off Princes Street, and Hanna and I rode the ferris wheel, bought warm hats, and drank German Christmas punch outside in the freezing cold.  It was absolutely magical.  Everytime I go to Edinburgh I end up falling in love with Scotland all over again.  For some reason, it just seems more authentically Scottish to me--probably because of all the pretty cobblestone streets and the gargantuan castle on a hill looking over it all.  While Glasgow can be pretty grubby-looking, Edinburgh is like looking at Scotland through rose-colored glasses.  It's so romantic (sigh).

We stayed in a youth hostel that night.   I swear, this was the coolest hostel I've ever stayed in.

  It was kind of like one big, trippy maze and we often got lost trying to navigate the place.  Every door and every hallway had a mural, and the dining room had all sorts of crap on the walls.  We ended up hanging out with some Spanish guys while they ate a late dinner, listening to classical music under a disco ball.  Went to sleep around 2, only to wake up at 5 when some South African boys barreled into our room, turning on all the lights and stumbling around drunkenly before passing out in their respective bunks.  One of them slept above me and kept me up even longer with his snoring.

Woke up feeling tired, but happy.  Hanna and I said goodbye at the train station and I headed back to Glasgow, which greeted me with bagpipes.  The music, the subway ride to my apartment all felt so familiar to me.  I finally feel like I live here.  I'm not just a homesick little American anymore.  This is a city I can navigate and fall in love with, just like DC or Beloit.  My sister wrote in a letter to me that she predicts that when I come back to DC, I'll wish I were back in Scotland and realize that I have two homes.  Then I'll wonder "what really is home if [I] feel disappointed in both?"  She also wrote this on a postcard of a morbidly obese man wearing a leopard-print Speedo, which may or may not have undercut the poignancy of her letter, but I still appreciate her wise words.

Had my last creative writing class that Saturday.  Afterwards, the class took me out for a pint and I got to say goodbye to some sweet old ladies drinking tomato juice.  One of the women in my class just got a book published about vampires and she gave me her card, shaped like a coffin that you can open to reveal her contact information.  Genius.

Everything just seems to be comin' up Caitlin. In the past week, I've done most of the things I wanted to do before I left: went back to Ediburgh, had some meaningful conversations with some cool people, and even took the time to check out some folk music on Saturday night.  Saw James Yorkston with a friend who just happened to have an extra ticket.  Music was beautiful, even if you could hear the toilet pipes sloshing around in the ceiling over the beautiful crooning.  Gotta love Glasgow.

I even saw snow on Sunday, which just felt like the icing on my cake of a weekend.  Got some hot chocolate with Sarah and got cozy.  On the way back, I noticed the surly Glaswegians didn't hesitate to scribble profanities into the windshields of unassuming cars, but I just sort of smiled to myself because really, I would expect nothing more from this beautiful, angry city.

Saturday, I'm headed off to Dublin to see my friends Bailey and Emily from Beloit.  I can't wait, especially because I'll have more than two days to balance the touristy stuff with the partying, unlike my trip to London, which seemed so short.

I'm hoping that by the time I get back on the 20th, I will be relishing in a semester well spent.  Can't believe that after all that grief and homesickness, I'm actually going to miss Glasgow.  I'll leave you with this video from Friday night when Hanna and I stopped by a pub that was playing folk music on the way home:

 

Please note the red coat lady's attempt at hipness.

Kaileyard = Cabbage Patch

I am scared to come home.  I am excited (boy am I excited), but the idea of coming home and having nothing to talk about except the negative aspects of Glasgow really keeps me up at night.  It's not like I totally hate it here.  In fact, I appreciate Glasgow's rough edges.  It's not afraid to be ugly, and if you can't handle it, well then you can just f*ck off to Edinburgh.  

In that way it reminds me a lot of my adjustment to Beloit.  You just make the most of it and embrace it for what it is, or else you'll get spit out with the rest of the uppity white people.

We read a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid yesterday in my Scottish Literature seminar, called "Scotland Small?", which turned out to be pretty eye-opening for me.  Here's the poem:

Scotland small?  Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?

Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliché corner

To a fool who cries "Nothing but heather!"  Where in September another

Sitting there and resting and gazing around

Sees not only heather but blaeberries

With bright green leaves and leaves already turned scarlet

Hiding ripe blueberries; and amongst the sage-green leaves

of the bog-myrtle the golden flowers of the tormentil shining

And on the small bare places, where the little Blackface sheep

Found grazing, milkworts blue as summer skies;

And down in neglected peat-hags, not worked

In living memory, sphagnum moss in pastel shades

Of yellow, green and pink; sundew and butterwort

And nodding hareballs vying in their colour

With the blue butterflies that poise themselves delicately upon them

And stunted rowans with harsh dry leaves of glorious colour

"Nothing but heather!" --- how marvellously descriptive!  And incomplete!

This poem is so emblematic of my skepticism towards this country.  Sometimes I feel like I am the fool.  I'm the one who ignores the intricacies and simply focuses on the grey skies and drab buildings.  But then on days like today, I can take it all in: the punk kids in their tartan school uniforms, the colorful fruit stands, the wind in my hair.  I don't understand why every day can't be like today.

I think a lot of the reason why I'm unhappy here is because I'm not a part of any structured exchange program.  I applied to this university like any international student would.  I was dropped off on campus like any other international student: alone, directionless.  I have the other Beloit College students to keep me company, but it's hard to see them consistently when there's no professor here with us to organize trips or dinners out.  Sarah sees her friends from Dartmouth at least a couple times a week.  There are some people from Beloit that I haven't seen in months.

I make up for this lack of structure by creating my own: I have my favorite coffee shop, I go to the gym, and every Friday I go to the grocery store.  I also joined the International Society, which turned out to be a waste of money--that Loch Lomond trip was lame and I'm pretty sure they lied about all the various discounts at bookstores that our IS card entitles us to.

I just get really bitter when I hear about everyone else who is studying abroad.  While Keara is swimming in the Ganges and Sandy is studying dance therapy in the Czech Republic, I am brooding in pubs and dark cafés.  I suppose that's Scotland's culture, though.  It's part of the heather.

I just don't want to come home feeling angsty.  My best friend from home told me not to worry about it, that if I don't like it, I don't like it and it's nothing I can really help.  Believe me, I've tried.  Part of me wishes I could travel all the time and do tons of fun stuff every day, but my budget can be very limiting.

Sarah just left with her fam-o for some gorgeous castle on the coast of Scotland.  I am beyond jealous.  We went out to lunch today at a very posh Italian restaurant and it felt so good to just sit with an American family.  Sarah and her mom have the funniest mother-daughter relationship I've ever seen.  Anyway, made me miss my own parents, but I guess not seeing them for another 29 days will make my homecoming all the sweeter.

Now I am alone in my apartment until Monday.  I suppose this will give me time to work on a paper and be emo.  I was going to take a trip to Edinburgh, but I think I'll just wait until Hanna gets here next week.

Hanna's visit will be a good thing.  I'm also going to Dublin and Paris in December before heading home and that's another thing to look forward to.  Traveling makes a world of difference.