Next Up, or What I'm Spending My GPB*s On.

• Venice. With Genevieve. On November 28. Booked the flight already.
  
• The Western Isles of Scotland. By myself. On October 14.
• The Highlands on a two-day tour.
• Edinburgh.

* Great Britain Pounds. One is worth two of yo' dollahs.

Catch-up, or Less Blog Posts = Busier Life.

This is what I've been doing and where I've been since my last post. This might be a boring post, so I apologize in advance.

Kelvingrove Museum and Gallery (Hanging heads, best seen here.)

Pollok Park (Next five photos.)






Spiers Wharf (complete with face painting, kayak basketball, and ferry ride down the canal.)



Glasgow School of ArtI took this photo and was quickly reprimanded for taking the photo and drinking my cappucino. If I had known this was the only picture I'd get of the place, I would've taken a photo of something else. (But I did like this chair -- designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.)
This is the exterior of the Glasgow School of Art. Also designed by Mackintosh.



And this is the alley (or lane) behind our flat that I stare at from our kitchen window. I absolutely love this place. Owned by an 80-year-old man. (I don't know why it's relevant that an old man lives here, but I automatically love him because he looks like my great-grandfather.)



And on Saturday, Jo and I went through the lake district of northern England where I took absolutely no pictures. So, just for you to get an idea, I stole this one from the web.

Following that last post, I've been quizzing myself on world geography. Take a few quizzes yourself here. And let me know how you do, if you want. (I'm definitely the worst at locating African countries and even Eastern European countries. And forget about me knowing the capitals of them.)

I Think I'm Dumb, or What's the Capital of Australia?

Last night, I was trying to prove to Alfie (the 16-year-old) that Americans aren't as stupid as the rest of the world thinks we are. Then he asked, "Okay, so what's the capital of Australia?" And I had no idea. I guessed Sydney, which I knew wasn't right. Do you know the capital of Australia? Without Googling it? What about Brazil? Argentina? What about Canada even?

It's sad how little I knew. I consider myself fairly well-educated, but I have never been taught the capitals of most other countries. Have you? I mean, I can name the capitals of almost all fifty states in the U.S., and I can show you where, geographically, most countries are, but I've got some studying to do...

I try to be aware of current events around the world, and I generally know what's going on in other countries, but maybe I just know enough to be dangerous. How do you learn the history of every conflict that the U.S. has been in, let alone the rest of the countries in the world? It's an almost impossible task if you haven't been taught well throughout school. But I'm going to read as much as I can. Starting with All the Shah's Men which I've started about three or four times, but never finished.

If I ever have kids, they have to be more educated about the rest of the world than I have been up until now.

Who Knew?, or The English Aren't the Only Ones on This Isle with Rockin' Music

I didn't realize that I love so many Scottish bands; some of my favorite ones are even from Glasgow.

Here are more Scottish bands that I like, and most of 'em I didn't even know were Scottish:

• The Beta Band. One of my all-time favorite bands, and I didn't even know they were from Edinburgh.
• Franz Ferdinand (Glasgow)
  
• Belle and Sebastian (Glasgow)
  
• Camera Obscura (Glasgow)
  
• The Delgados
  
• The Fratellis (Glasgow)
  
• Idlewild (I figured they were Scottish because they have a song called "Scottish Fiction.), (Edinburgh)
  
• The Jesus and Mary Chain
• Mogwai (Glasgow)
  
• Snow Patrol
• Simple Minds, (Glasgow) one of the only '80s bands I actually like that's not punk rock besides...
• Annie Lennox/The Eurythmics

Too lazy to make links for all of these bands. Maybe later.

Couple o' Castles and ASDA, or Different Worlds

Yesterday afternoon, we went shoe shopping for the kiddos. Then we went to this park about 30 minutes outside of Glasgow -- Mugdock Castle, built in 1372. (There's also a derelict castle in the same park, pictured just below.)








Stove from newer addition to the castle (1800s).



Then we went to ASDA, a supermarket owned by Wal-Mart. Nicer than any Wal-Mart I've ever been to...

Photos!!

You asked for 'em. You got 'em. (Finally.)

These are just of the kids and the house. More to come.

Ross (3)

Ross in action

Gracie Face (17 mos)

Ross

View from our flat

Kitchen

Dining Room

Music Room

Kitchen

My Room (It's much brighter than this picture depicts. And now it's cleaner.)

Sitting Room

View from Sitting Room

View from my window

Another view from my window

My own kitchen

Foyer

Sitting Room (with Ross)

Scottish Cuisine, or I Ate Haggis

So, you know, Scottish food is... interesting. Anyone that's seen 'So I Married an Axe Murderer' has heard of haggis. Know what it actually is? Ground lamb lungs, beef heart and liver, mixed with oatmeal and traditionally stuffed into a lamb's stomach to cook. (But they wouldn't eat the stomach after cooking it, so it's not that gross.)

Well, I ate haggis a few nights ago, and some of you know that I wasn't eating meat at all before I left the US. So not only was I struggling to eat meat, I was struggling to eat the organs of a cute little baby lamb. I managed because I ate a huge amount of mashed potatoes -- mixed the haggis right in with it. Wasn't that bad, if I didn't think about it.

What I like most about eating here is breakfast. Or more specifically, Chelsea buns. Which, by the way, are English not Scottish. The dad in the family I'm staying with is English, and he makes amazing Chelsea buns. They're kind of like cinnamon rolls, but not quite as sweet or cinnamony. I'm bringing the recipe home and baking them for breakfast on Christmas morning.


And I absolutely love that it is perfectly normal to drink coffee and/or tea all day long. And I love that the family I'm staying with has two espresso machines. That'll be my first purchase when I get back to the States.

Caledon, or Donny Osmond's Naked Butt Cheeks

Tonight I saw, hmm, how do I even explain this one?

I went to a Caledon concert -- "Scotland's Three Tenors" -- with Bill (the dad who works at BBC). I went in thinking, "Okay, tenors. Expect opera." But Bill had told me (warned me?) that there would probably be kilts involved, so I totally took him up on the invitation when he mentioned that. Just for the novelty of it. Not because I wanted to see naked man buns. But saw 'em, I did.

So the first half of the concert was generally unassuming and measured. Pretty good voices, if you're into that sort of thing, and they sang some Scottish folk songs that were kind of nice, though I couldn't understand a word of it. And the middle tenor looked just like Donny Osmond to me.

The second half of the concert, after intermission, was markedly different. A couple of songs in, the pianist started rocking out (Does one "rock out" on piano?) to... I can't really remember. Annie Lennox? Rod Stewart? Anyway, some Scottish pop songs. Then the tenors came out in neon orange kilts. They did a medley of Scottish pop songs, including my favorite, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand -- pelvic thrusts for "take," "me," and "out" in the chorus. (If you know the song, this might be funnier.)

At some point, the dudes did twirls, and yes, my friends, I saw Donny Osmond's naked butt cheeks. Not altogether a bad thing, but definitely more bad than good.

Who would go to a show like this, you ask? Old women. And by old, I mean in their seventies. As Bill put it, "Those old ladies were all but throwing their panties on the stage. Well, their hideously long, large knickers, anyway."

They ended their set with a lively rendition of The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" which I will, undoubtedly, be singing for days on end.

Don't you hate it when you see you have tons of new emails in your inbox, and then you realize that they're from Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or ebay, or Crate and Barrel (or, in my case, fifteen fiction submissions to read)?

Really? Does NO ONE have Skype? Add me as a contact if you do. Right now. Go.

Campaign 2008

I might alienate myself from some of my readership with this post, but you know, it's my blog. And when have I ever been known to censor myself really?

Right now I'm watching the Republican National Convention on the British equivalent of C-Span (and getting more pissed off at the Obama-bashing by the minute, by the way), and I thought I'd let you all know that Europe is even more obsessed by this election than we are. Which is both sad and intriguing. I just spoke for about an hour with the 16-year-old son in this family I'm staying with, and he knows more about American politics than probably half of American adults who vote. The newspapers are chock full of articles about the election.

And guess who they want to win...

As far as I'm concerned, that's one more reason to vote for Obama. I've said it the whole time, and I'll say it again: I think Obama would bridge a lot of gaps with our international ties. Apparently Europeans agree.

(Another reason I'll be voting democrat is because Sarah Palin just said that she wants to lay more pipeline and drill offshore, and the crowd went wild. Grrr. I am so adamantly against that, I can't even articulate it. It just seems so fundamental and obvious to me that we don't need to drill domestically.)

I just took tons of photos of the house and kids, and then I realized that I'd packed the wrong cord to attach my camera to my laptop. I'll have to get my mom to send it to me.

But I got in late yesterday, and everything is wonderful. The kids and rest of the family are amazing, and I can't wait to see more of Glasgow.

Thanks for all of your comments on that last post. And since there will be no photos immediately coming to this blog, send me your addresses, and I'll send you postcards! Just as soon as I venture out of the house and find postcards/stamps...