"Heritage and stuff."

Hello friends!

Well it has been over a week since my last blog so I have things that I need to catch you all up on. I had weekend full of success. Friday night my flatmates, Alex and Gordon and I had a party in our flat. The first one this flat has had all school year.

Some pictures of the aftermath:

Close up of our lovely broom sculpture: The sign reads "**** Off".

Yup, the party was a success. Happy to say that we will no longer be known as the "Geek Flat" of Lomond House. haha. As soon as I heard about that I was all for having a party. I wasn't around for the whole thing, but it was good to actually talk to these people while they were still sober. I had my first taste of Absinthe that night. My impression: tastes like black licorice and it's disgusting. Although, I was told by Emil that it wasn't prepared correctly. But, that doesn't mean I'm going to try it again. It made a bad first impression on me. lol. Also, someone fixed our fridge that night. YAY! There was a huge chunk of ice in the back and one of the drawers would not shut and we resorted to using tape to keep it closed because no one could get the iceberg out. Classy.

Valentine's Day was also a success. I was able to spend time with Luke through Skype. I love the invention of webcams. :D I had a delivery of a beautiful flower arrangement on Saturday morning. The delivery man said, "Someone must like you." I laughed and replied, "Just a little." My flowers came in this ridiculously huge box that is taller than the height of the back of my chair. :P A little excess if you ask me. Oh well. I am a very lucky and extremely happy girl.

Here is a picture of my lovely flowers:

Jealous? You should be.

We have a thing called "Reading Week" this week at the Uni, so my Celtic Civilsations class is cancelled. Meaning, I don't have class at all today or tomorrow. Annie, Liane, Charlie, Amy, and I made a trip to St. Andrews by train on Sunday morning. As I was leaving my flat I realized that I forgot to charge my camera, it was dead. :( So, I don't have any pictures of my trip, but everyone else got plenty of pictures and Liane let me steal her camera when there was something that I wanted to take a picture of. :D Anyways, we arrived in St. Andrews around noon. We stopped by at the Tourist Hostel to make a reservation and drop off our stuff (Liane, Annie, and I.. Charlie and Amy didn't stay overnight with us). The room that we stayed in at the hostel had 4 bunk beds and a couch. So, we shared our room with 5 other lovely people, of which I think 3 of them had been staying there for a while. We headed straight over to the golf course and took our pictures on the famous bridge of the very first golf course in the world. Unfortunately they were not open to play, but this way we actually got to walk on the fairways.

We then went to the beach of the North Sea. I got to put my hand in the water, get a couple of shells and even wrote my name in the sand. :) After that we took a walk up to the castle, it was 4 pounds to get in and tour it, but it was in ruins enough that we were able to see just about everything that we needed to through the gates. Charlie and I went back down to the sea in search of seaglass. He explained to me what to look for and told me, "It'll be your lucky day if you find a blue one." I looked down, picked up a piece of seaglass, smiled and said, "You mean this color?" The look in his eyes was priceless as he shouted, "KEEP IT!" :D My first piece of seaglass was a rare one. :)

We went to the Cathedral ruins and this is where my title comes in, Charlie said "I love little towns like this because of the heritage and... stuff." We all laughed. We stopped and had ice cream at Cafe Janetta to tide our stomachs over while we continued to explore the city. We made our way through the streets and visited some of the St. Andrews' University. As much as I love and adore this town, the main building of Glasgow University is much more impressive. We had an early dinner/late lunch at a little Italian resturant where I had a 4 meat pizza that was delicious. Charlie and Amy left to return to Glasgow after that. Annie, Liane, and I stopped at the movie theater and bought tickets to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at 7:40pm. In the meantime we went back to the hostel and chilled out on the couch in the living room for until 7pm. I loved this living room. There was a huge bay window, yellow walls, and white crown mouldings. The people there were extremely friendly and they were playing a trivia game and asked us if we wanted to join, but we were so exhausted that we all took a short nap before we left. One of the reasons why I am in love with St. Andrews is that everything is literally just right around the corner from you. You don't have to walk 30-45 minutes to go do something. Anyways, my impression of the movie: terrible. It was a really awkward love story. I'm not going to spoil anyone on the story, you'll just have to see it yourself. Although, I'm not really even sure if it's even worth your money to see it.

We crashed when we got back to the hostel. The next morning Liane and I had planned on going to see the sunrise over the North Sea. I woke up to a tap on my back from Liane... "Ashley, it's 8:30", I laughed. The sun rises here now at 7:30ish. Oh well... it was a crappy day and there wouldn't have been much of a sunrise anyways. :P We got ourselves ready and walked down to the next block to Tesco's and bought bagels and cream cheese and found a little local coffee shop where we ate and got drinks, I had a hot chocolate. Afterwards, we went around and looked at some of the shops, then went to the bus station to take us to Leuchers to get on the train back to Glasgow. Since it was still early by the time we got back, we stayed down on Sauchiehall (pronounced Sockey-hall) Street and went shopping at Primark. CHEAP CLOTHES! YAY! We also used the restroom at the McDonald's there and boy is that the fanciest McDonald's I have ever been in. I'm going to have to go back there to take pictures of the inside. It was a little extreme.

That ends my trip. When I got back, I took a shower and talked to Sabrina and also Gordon for a little while. Gordon is in the midst of cleaning up the kitchen right now. He said, "This is so gross." I replied, "Yep, that it is." lol. At least it's being cleaned! :D

I just want to say that I got an email from my mom telling me that my Great-Grandpa Bernie passed away yesterday morning. He lived a long and happy life. In the words of my mom, "He just turned 97. Long life with no regrets! Just think what a grand party there is in Heaven today! Whoop! Whoop!" RIP Papa Bernie, you will be missed. But, I know in my heart that you are enjoying being with Grandma Inez again. :D I will forever remember you playing the spoons with such excitement and also the set you made for me when I was a little girl. You were always happy and always smiling, just enjoying everything about life.

As soon as the others post pictures of our trip I'll post the links on here so you can take a look at them. Until then, I hope you are all doing well.

Cheers