It has been an eventful end of the semester around here with people getting into the Christmas spirit and then subsequently heading home. I, on the hand, and welcoming arrivals rather than saying goodbyes. Lisa has finally made it from Canada and although she had a few changes in flights and flight cancellations and her luggage had a slight delay in London, she made it safe and sound and it is great to have her over here. With the original flight plan being Halifax-Ottawa-London-Glasgow and the snow storm rolling over Ottawa in the middle of last week, she ended up catching a flight out of Glasgow a while later to Toronto. No problem except for the 40 gate dash she had to make in a matter of a few minutes at Pearson, but again she made it. And after a gentle ride across the Atlantic, a terminal change at Hethrow and short hop to Glasgow, she actually made it 3 minutes before her original scheduled time of arrival. I have done my best to show introduce her to the Glasgow Gang including having a few drinks with my Football coaches, joining in on our hallways secret Santa and accompanying me to my final varsity field hockey game. Amidst all this I am trying desperately to study for my final Law Exam but can't thinking of all the other things I would rather be doing.
As for the other big events of the week, first lets start with the positive. I wrapped up my field hockey career capping off a perfect 9-0 record with a 3 Nil win over the weekend. The opposing team was very good but very aggressive. It was an all Pakistani team and much of what they yelled was not in English which made the regular banter of the game a little more difficult. It was a "highly spirited" game in which a few of these men became disgruntled by the fact that they could not score. We had shots being taken at our players, we had their captain taking charges at us and we even had a few sticks being wielded in a malicious manner. Our coach/captain switched up the positions a little and I was granted the role of 'offensive defensmen.' It is a gentleman's sport and I played as much like a gentleman as I know how. All is all one of their players injured themselves by taking a swing at me and missing only to have swung so hard his stick came around to hit him in the knee, and as we shook hands after the game their captain told me "You very good player, very hard to play against." (That sentence is not missing any words, he just had a very very thick accent.) I was awarded Man of The Match by my team and given an open invitation to play for them anytime I was back in Glasgow.
The next positive event would be our hallway Christmas party. We did a secret Santa in which I was given a book on how to make paper airplanes from dollar bills and a ring that is also a bottle opener! It was great to see everyone all at once, the Christmas "cheer" was flowing and we all had a great night.
The small negative of the week is based on my future travel plans. Little recap to set this story up - My mom has sent me advent gifts for the days before Christmas that I will not be at home, one of those gifts was a map of Europe. Upon opening this gift Lisa and I spread the map out on my desk and I pointed out all the places we are going in the next three weeks. One portion of our trip involves us getting off a boat in Portsmouth England and later that day catching a bus from Dover England to Paris France. I had looked it up online to ensure this was possible based on the time we had and the time we had to check in for the bus and according to google we could catch the Route 2 Local bus from Portsmouth to Dover and it would take approximately 35 minutes. It leaves every 40 minutes which was perfect because we have 4.5 hours from when we get off the boat until the bus from Dover leaves. So no problem.... There was no problem until I looked at this map of Europe I now had and noticed that the distance from Portsmouth to Dover was approximately the width of Scotland or twice the distance from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Knowing how long Glasgow to Edinburgh takes I thought, "That can't be write, we must be leaving from a different Dover." After looking around online and checking out a few things it has come to my attention that the Local Route 2 Bus does travel from Portsmouth to Dover in 35 minutes, unfortunately that is from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Dover, New Hampshire USA. So with a little bit worry and a whole lot of frustration I started desperately trying to find a way to get to Dover in time to catch our bus. No such luck folks! I could either grab the 5 hour and 20 minute bus ride that goes through London first, or I could pay a small fortune to grab a 4 hour and 5 minute train that still did not get me right to the bus station and also has no guarantee I would make it or be allowed on the bus checking in that late. So, I started cursing a lot at myself and then I started making phone calls. Through some fancy talking a few white lies I managed to rearrange my bus tickets to leave from Portsmouth to Paris rather than from Dover, and instead of holding 25% of my original ticket as a cancellation fee the wonderful people at National Express have offered to refund me 90%. It always works out for the best, but let me tell you, if I had received a map of Europe this week it would not have been working out for the best when I started looking for the Local Route 2 bus in Portsmouth!
My final exam is tomorrow and I have to get back to the books, but tomorrow night we leave for Ireland and the start of our adventure! I will try to update regularly when I have Internet access, however that might be few and far between so until next time!
As for the other big events of the week, first lets start with the positive. I wrapped up my field hockey career capping off a perfect 9-0 record with a 3 Nil win over the weekend. The opposing team was very good but very aggressive. It was an all Pakistani team and much of what they yelled was not in English which made the regular banter of the game a little more difficult. It was a "highly spirited" game in which a few of these men became disgruntled by the fact that they could not score. We had shots being taken at our players, we had their captain taking charges at us and we even had a few sticks being wielded in a malicious manner. Our coach/captain switched up the positions a little and I was granted the role of 'offensive defensmen.' It is a gentleman's sport and I played as much like a gentleman as I know how. All is all one of their players injured themselves by taking a swing at me and missing only to have swung so hard his stick came around to hit him in the knee, and as we shook hands after the game their captain told me "You very good player, very hard to play against." (That sentence is not missing any words, he just had a very very thick accent.) I was awarded Man of The Match by my team and given an open invitation to play for them anytime I was back in Glasgow.The next positive event would be our hallway Christmas party. We did a secret Santa in which I was given a book on how to make paper airplanes from dollar bills and a ring that is also a bottle opener! It was great to see everyone all at once, the Christmas "cheer" was flowing and we all had a great night.
The small negative of the week is based on my future travel plans. Little recap to set this story up - My mom has sent me advent gifts for the days before Christmas that I will not be at home, one of those gifts was a map of Europe. Upon opening this gift Lisa and I spread the map out on my desk and I pointed out all the places we are going in the next three weeks. One portion of our trip involves us getting off a boat in Portsmouth England and later that day catching a bus from Dover England to Paris France. I had looked it up online to ensure this was possible based on the time we had and the time we had to check in for the bus and according to google we could catch the Route 2 Local bus from Portsmouth to Dover and it would take approximately 35 minutes. It leaves every 40 minutes which was perfect because we have 4.5 hours from when we get off the boat until the bus from Dover leaves. So no problem.... There was no problem until I looked at this map of Europe I now had and noticed that the distance from Portsmouth to Dover was approximately the width of Scotland or twice the distance from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Knowing how long Glasgow to Edinburgh takes I thought, "That can't be write, we must be leaving from a different Dover." After looking around online and checking out a few things it has come to my attention that the Local Route 2 Bus does travel from Portsmouth to Dover in 35 minutes, unfortunately that is from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Dover, New Hampshire USA. So with a little bit worry and a whole lot of frustration I started desperately trying to find a way to get to Dover in time to catch our bus. No such luck folks! I could either grab the 5 hour and 20 minute bus ride that goes through London first, or I could pay a small fortune to grab a 4 hour and 5 minute train that still did not get me right to the bus station and also has no guarantee I would make it or be allowed on the bus checking in that late. So, I started cursing a lot at myself and then I started making phone calls. Through some fancy talking a few white lies I managed to rearrange my bus tickets to leave from Portsmouth to Paris rather than from Dover, and instead of holding 25% of my original ticket as a cancellation fee the wonderful people at National Express have offered to refund me 90%. It always works out for the best, but let me tell you, if I had received a map of Europe this week it would not have been working out for the best when I started looking for the Local Route 2 bus in Portsmouth!
My final exam is tomorrow and I have to get back to the books, but tomorrow night we leave for Ireland and the start of our adventure! I will try to update regularly when I have Internet access, however that might be few and far between so until next time!
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