new flat and new friends

i'm soo sorry. I've been a bad blogger. shame on me! The last week here has been busy and inconvienant for blogging - as my new flat doesn't have internet. :( why did I think that would be ok? Well, it has other amenities that make up for it, but more on that later.

I'll start with last weekend. One of my supervisiors at work, Becs is from South Africa and she's lived in Glasgow for 4 years. Within that 4 years she's been home twice! She hasn't been home in 2 years, so in a few days she leaves to go home for Christmas for 3 weeks. Because we all love her and are going to miss her, we got all our friends from work together for a night out on Friday. A true Glasgow night out!! We went to a really swanky, trendy bar for drinks and then to a club to dance. It was all so new to me because even though I've been dancing before, I didn't know any of the music they play over here since it's mostly British singers (except for J.Lo...that was a big hit!) It was nice to go out with a group of girls (and a few guys) for a change. It made me feel a bit more at home and reminded me of a night out with friends in Seattle. At the end of the night, on the way home we got chips and cheese ( thick cut french fries with cheese on top), which is a necessity for a Glasgow night out. Everyone was asking me what Americans eat after a night out and I think either we make a stop by Jack and the Box or we go to someones house and make nachos!! You gotta have some greasy food after a night out drinking, right?

Sunday was moving day! It was the easiest, least expensive and stressful move I've EVER had, and probally will ever have. Since I moved here with 2 peices of luggage and I haven't accumulated much more than that in my couple months here, thats about all i had to move into my new flat with. But with the lack of things to move in, came having to go out and buy all the home necessities that I left in seattle, such as towels, groceries, clothes hamper and all that other stuff. Thankfully my flatmate Linda and her brother Paul (who owns the flat ) have given me loads of sheets to use so I don't have to go out and buy that. I'll tell you a little about my flatmate now. Her name is Linda and she's a 33 year old Irish girl whose a physical therapist. My first impressions are that she's shy and a bit reserved. She loves to cook, is clean and tidy and quite close to her family, as her brother has been over a few times since I moved in. We even have alot of the same music, film and tv taste! As i was looking through the dvds and came across all 6 seasons of sex and the city, friends and films like Chocolat, Love Actually, and The Godfather trilogy. Even though I don't think I'd hang out with her much outside the flat, she's a great flatmate thus far. The flat is 2 bedroom, one bath with beautiful views of the city. It has a huge kitchen, with everything I need to make fancy dinners, and a cozy living room with cable tv. Even though i don't have internet, it's given me time to read, relax, and find some British shows to get addicted to! All in all, I couldn't be happier with the place I picked and I can't wait for someone to come visit me so I can show them what I mean!

Last night, Linda and I took a trip to Ikea. Every Ikea looks the same. Once you enter into the store, you don't have a clue what country or city you're in. I didn't over-spend, as I usually would in an Ikea, but I bought the necessities. As most flats in Britain don't have clothes dryers, everyone hangs their clothes up on a line. I bought the biggest clothes dryer rack I've ever seen. Its the big-daddy of drying racks. I think it could hold about 3 loads of laundry on it, and it looks like a spaceship. After our Ikea adventure, we came back home and decorated our Christmas tree! Its one of those fake, bendy-branch ones, but the ornaments on it are red, gold and burnt-orange round bulbs and tiny boxes of wrapped presents. With the sparkly lights on, I'd say it's the best tree in all of Britain! :) I'll take pictures soon to show you all.

Something I've grown to love and appreciate about the British is that they are extremely conscious of their health and our enviornment. For starters, everywhere makes you pay for plastic bags, which encourages people to reuse the bags they are given or put your groceries in those canvas bags. You know, the ones they sell at PCC in seattle, but i never got around to buying one, but i'm sure that once PCC and whole foods starts charging for thier bags, they'll sell alot more canvas re-usable bags, and really begin to save the enviornment. Even last night at Ikea I asked for a plastic bag, she told me they were 10 pence( about 20 cents) and instead of me paying that small sum, I realized it's not about them charging more money, but encouraging people to use less plastic and make due with what they have. So i carried the clothes drying rack i bought and shoved the candle and cookie jar in my purse. :) Also, at every electrical outlet in the flats here there are on/off switches. So when you're not using the lamps, cell phone charger, or computer, you can switch off the outlet, instead of wasting energy as, even though your lamp is not in use, energy is still flowing from the wall through the lamp, in case you do want to use it. It's simple, but saves soo much energy. Even at night, we turn off the switch with all the plugs for the tv, dvd, cable box, etc. because having that on would use up as much energy as if the t.v. was left on all night. Along with energy saving, the organic health food stores are in abundance here. In Britain, it's cool and trendy to eat organic and fair trade, which is an independent guarantee that disadvantaged producers in the developing world are getting a better deal for their products.

Today is a lazy day. I don't work until 3pm, so I rested in the flat this morning, as I'm trying to kick this cold that came on a couple days ago and then I came out to a cafe to read, use the internet and journal. As my camera broke soon after I arrived, I've been carrying a notepad around with me everywhere (that's nothing new, if you know me! ) and writing down images I see and beautiful things to remind me of this time, so I've been journaling quite a bit.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, as I have saturday off and I'm hoping to get to the cinema to see that new film "Holiday" starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Looks like a girly, rom-com with a Christmas twist - just what I need!

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