Buses, Botanical Gardens, and Begonias

On Saturday, I ventured into the Glasgow city center, as they call it (you get strange looks if you ask how to get to downtown Glasgow).  I must admit I find the bus system, which is the cheapest and most versatile public transport here, rather difficult to navigate.  The buses run frequently and I'm sure are very useful when you know where you're going, but for the uninitiated they are downright confusing.  The main problem is that the stops each have several different names.  For example, the stop I got off at today, which I'll get to later, was called simply "Glasgow," but was also referred to, separately, as "First stop on Renfrew St," or, "Renfrew St, after Cambridge Street."  So, if you don't actually know what your destination looks like, it's a bit hard not to miss your stop.  And since the bus doesn't stop unless someone wants on or off, you have to realize before you've passed it.  Some of the buses have a little LED screen that tells you what stop is next, and that's nice, but you still have to figure out what name they're going to call it.  That said, the bus drivers do try to look after you, if you tell them where you're going.

Once I got into the city center, I found one of those "hop-on, hop-off" buses that take tourists around to different places in the city.  You've probably seen the red buses if you've ever been in a big city, and it's the same company that does it worldwide.  Anyway, it's a pretty good deal, because you pay a pretty minimal flat rate and you can get ferried around a big loop all day, and get on and off whenever you want.  There are loads of buses, so they come by the stops every fifteen or twenty minutes.  While you're on the bus, they have a guide spouting information at you.  It's a bit funny, though, because they obviously have only a very loose script, and the guides on different buses sometimes contradict one another.

I stopped at the Botanical Gardens, which are small but very nice.  They have two pretty sizable glass greenhouses full of tropical plants, and lots of lawns and landscaped areas.  There's also a massive rose garden, and they have a contest every year for the best-smelling rose.  Unfortunately, most of them have stopped flowering by late summer, so I really only got to see the rose hip garden.  Oh, well.

 Some summer flowers on the green.  Lots of people walk their dogs here... I even saw a GSD!

 They were having a fuchsia contest.  I kid you not.  These are probably the top fuchsias in the UK.  They were all judged, and there were little cards next to the winners.  What a strange hobby.  They all just looked like fuchsias to me.

 There is also an entire ROOM full of begonias.  This is only a small part of it.  Who knew there were so many kinds of begonias (and did anyone care?!)?  Still, they do look nice all together like that...

 These are rose hips.  But you can imagine how lovely the roses must be in the spring.  Perhaps I'll put up another photo of them next year.

I did get to see two or three roses, though.

A Little Exploration

Today I took a rather long walk to the post office.  The Royal Mail people have an irritating habit of not leaving packages at the door if you're out and they don't fit through the mail slot.  Maybe people were stealing them, who knows.  But the point is, if you miss them, you have to go to the post office and pick it up.  That's all fine and good when you know where the post office is, but there are several, and packages don't always seem to go to the same one, for whatever reason.  Since starting school inevitably involves ordering things (scrubs, lab coats, etc), I have had a few packages already since I got here.

Of course, when I got the slip yesterday, it told me I had to go to a different post office than the one my flatmate took me to before, so I used my pocket map of Glasgow to find my way there.  I made it fairly uneventfully to the post office (meaning that I only walked about half a mile past it before I realized that the street name had changed... there wasn't a big sign saying "Post Office," which for some reason I was expecting... just a tiny red window with a very small "Royal Mail" logo), got my package, and didn't get lost at all on the way home.  Anyway, it was a nice walk because it took me through some residential streets with a bit more character than mine (we live in new-ish buildings that all look more or less the same, and right behind us is the subsidized housing that actually is all the same).  People have little front gardens, and some of the streets were cobbled, and the row houses all had steep little roofs.  Pretty.

I took another walk in the other direction this afternoon, towards the Garscube Estate, where the vet school is.

 This is the little canal you cross over to get from my house to the school.  There's a nice walking/biking path on the near side of it.

 Here it is again, a view in the other direction.  The school is about a five-eight minute walk from here.  I didn't get any pictures of it today, since there were lots of people walking dogs by the gate, and I was feeling shy, but I'll have some shortly.

 The internet tells me that this is a magpie.  The bird, not the car.  They're everywhere, and they make a ridiculous laughing sound that's very loud.  If you look closely at one, they have beautiful blue and green iridescent feathers over their wings.

This is a VW Golf Plus.  Just like the normal VW Golf, but bigger in all dimensions, and about the size of a station wagon.  In general, though, cars are much smaller here than in the States.  And my little VW Golf that I drive at home is a very popular car (even considered a bit fancy, ha!).  What I've been most amused by is that there are two common models of Ford here, both sub-compact and neither of which I have ever seen in the States.  They would look ridiculous next to one of the American Ford SUVs. 

This is the Ford KA, which you see everywhere.  It's about the size of a jelly bean, and looks pretty small next to a Mini Cooper.

Anyway, it would still hurt to be run over by, so I'm remembering to look right before I cross the street.

Food

Those of you who know me know that I like food.  I like to cook it, and to eat it, and to look at it, and think about it and smell it and touch it...  So an important part of being in any new place is exploring the grocery store.  Morrison's, about a fifteen minute walk from the house, did not disappoint.

My wonderful boyfriend Matt teased me for weeks before I came about how all I'd be able to eat was rice and beans, especially since food would be so expensive.  And, while he's right that probably all I should eat is rice and beans, being a poor college student, I was pleasantly surprised to find that lots of the things I buy (like fish, cheese, and produce) aren't actually all that outrageous over here.

 These are all the things that cost £1 or less.  A whole box of peaches!  And berries!  And a Toblerone (it's a full-size one, too, not one of those puny ones)!  Not to mention McVitties, but I'll say more about them later.

I think it is absolutely hilarious that on the back of the salmon fillets (that's right, just plain old pieces of salmon, nothing else) it says "Allergy advice:  Contains fish."  Really?  If you can't figure that one out, we can chalk up your anaphylaxis to natural selection.  On a happier note, salmon is really cheap here.  About the same price as beef or chicken.

They also sell happy meat at the grocery store, and it's not terribly more expensive.  I'm still trying to figure out what all the labeling means... It seems like over here, "organic" meats aren't just organic, but also have certain humane farming practices required, unlike in the US, where it doesn't refer to animal welfare.  But there's also the Soil something certification, and also the RSPCA stamp on some of them, so I suppose more research is required.

In short, Morrison's gets a check plus for grocery shopping.  Except that it's so full of small friendly old people that it's really quite hard to move around in.  They all spend so much time picking out their groceries...

Some Photos

I was overcome with a stroke of technological genius just now, and realized that, in fact, my external hard drive uses the same kind of cord as my camera!  It looked the same, and I tentatively plugged it in (waiting for a muffled explosion as I blew all the fuses in the house, and realizing with dread that I don't know where the breaker box is).  And it worked!  So, to make a long story short, here are a few photos after all.  Nothing terribly exciting, I'm afraid.

 This is the little sunroom where my desk will be (it's there on the bottom right).  You can see the tiny garden outside.

 This is the kitchen, which is actually pretty big, it fits a table and everything.  The stove is gas (ha!), but it has a confusing ignition switch.  I think I have the hang of it, but I might be filling the house with gas as we speak, you never know.

 And the living room.  You can see Midas, my flat-mate's three-legged dog, lying on the rug.

And, oh excitement, the pantry.  No, the I heart vodka sticker isn't mine.  But the open door is where Alice's groceries live!

Why Proofreading Matters

Well, I made it to Glasgow.  I flew out of Asheville and had a long layover in Newark, NJ, so the family came by the airport to say hello, which was nice.  Then a little over a seven-hour flight to Glasgow, on the driest airplane I've ever been on.  They had the air vents blasting like crazy, and everyone got off the plane with a sore throat.  Not a bad flight otherwise, though.  The real hitch came when I arrived at the customs desk.

I think everyone gets a little nervous when they go up to the customs desk, whether or not they are trying to smuggle in their favorite pickled meats or illicit liquor.  There's something about the way they look at you that makes you feel like a criminal.  But I strolled pleasantly up to the desk and gave the man my passport and entry card, upon which I had listed my occupation as "student."  He asked me if I was a student in Scotland, and I told him I'd be starting in September.

"Do you have any documents to prove that?"  he asked.  Fortunately, I was prepared with proof of my federal loans and my university acceptance paper, and thought I'd be just fine.

"Hmmm.  Have a seat.  I just need to check some dates,"  he said, getting up from his desk and disappearing behind one of several doors.  I was left sitting to the side of the line for customs, along with some poor bastard having a similar problem.  He worked with a company that set up booths at conventions, and was only staying for the weekend, but they wouldn't let him in without some confirmation or something.  Dunno, but he looked pretty miserable.

Anyway, I waited for close to an hour, watching the clock and flinching whenever someone came in from the employee doors, wondering what had become of my bureaucrat.  When he returned, several years later, he called me up to his desk.  He took my fingerprints on a little electronic pad, told me that he'd sorted things out, and was really quite nice (can't fault the border control people for that, anyway).  Opening up my passport, he turned to the page where my (fancy, holographic, and very expensive) visa was printed.

"Look at the dates," he said.  And sure enough, in tiny, 9-pt letters, it said that my entry date was 08-09-13, and my departure date was 08-09-13.  Effectively, I was permitted to stay in the UK for less than a day.  So much for my $500 visa.  Anyway, he had to cancel that visa and stamped a new one on my passport, writing in the correct dates.  He also gave me a number to contact his office, and warned that I would probably have this problem every time I entered the UK.

Fortunately, my new flatmate didn't give up on me, so I was able to meet her at the airport and get back to the flat once I got my bags.  Things have been pretty smooth since then.  I slept most of the day yesterday, and then I got up and found the grocery store, called Morrison's, today.  Food in Scotland is pretty cheap, actually, and I had fun in the cheese and smoked fish sections.  The store is only a ten- or fifteen-minute walk from the house, so not too bad to do with groceries.

This afternoon, I took a longer walk to Anniesland Cross (the little neighborhood I'm in is called Anniesland, and is very close to the vet school), where my big excitement was buying a packet of tissues.  I have a cold.  There was also a bathtub in the middle of the sidewalk, which was silly.  But it was nice to find my way there, since that's where the closest banks and pharmacies and other important things are.  Now I'm back at home, thinking about taking a nap.  I never had this much trouble with jet lag when I was a kid...

Just a side note that I've forgotten the cable that connects my camera to the computer, so there will be no pictures until my wonderful boyfriend Matt sends it, or I get another one.  So apologies, but I am taking photos, and will post them as soon as I can.

Boiler Suits: Or, the Trials of Being Reasonably Petite

We've finally received a "packet" (in the form of an email) about the first week of classes and what our transition period will be like.  This included our "kit lists" from the veterinary school... the long-awaited document that details the books, odds, and ends we'll need for the practical and academic sides of vet school (and allows us to estimate the financial damage).

So, being a naive American, I was somewhat confused when I first noticed that a "boiler suit"--specifically, a blue one--was required.  Boiler suit?  The name conjures up coal mines, railroad employees, or old people's basements.  Do we even use boilers anymore?  Fortunately, Wikipedia came to the rescue again, and clarified that a boiler suit is simply a pair of coveralls.  You can read more about them here (although I don't believe they're very interesting).  Might be worth it just to look at the silly picture of the boiler-suited old man, actually.

Having defined the boiler suit, I set out to purchase one of my very own.  Tractor Supply Co. seemed the logical place to go, since they carry a wide variety of coveralls, overalls, and rain gear.  Assuming, that is, that you wear a men's large or larger.  Browsing through the abundant supply of coveralls, the smallest size I could find was a men's MT (that means medium-tall, which I am not).  Naturally, I asked the cashier if they ever stocked coveralls in smaller sizes, to fit people like me.  "Nope," she said. 

Hmm.  "Well, do you think you could order some in my size?"

"Probably not."

We weren't getting anywhere, so I extended my search to the internet.  Where all size small boiler suits in the universe were out of stock.  I found one pair, but it was an attractive slate grey... not blue.  Now I'm not big, but neither am I unnaturally small.  I'm 5'4 1/2", which is above average for a woman.  And I'm not skin and bones, either.  So I didn't think it was very unreasonable to think that someone, somewhere in the world might think to manufacture a pair of coveralls to fit me.  Women need to stay clean, too!  Women are air traffic controllers, and mechanics and yes, large animal veterinarians.  What about Rosie the Riveter?  She wore coveralls!

In the end, at a trip to the far-away Tractor Supply (where they also only had size-gigantic coveralls for 8-foot-high giants), the nice man told me about a uniform store where coveralls were sold.  Sure enough, they had one pair of size small coveralls in the store.  Low and behold, they were even a dark blue!  And on clearance (which makes me doubt my previous assertion that there are other small people desperate for coveralls)!

I'm sure I'll have greater trials to come, but it's nice to focus on the small ones sometimes.  It obscures the bigger picture delightfully.  Four more days in NC...

About the Title

We are all familiar, in some way or another, with the generally beloved James Herriot, nom de plume of James Alfred Wight.  The animal-lovers among us grew up reading his children's books and, a little later, his adult memoir-novels.  Those of us interested in veterinary medicine are inevitably asked what we think of him, if we've read his stories, if we could possibly ever measure up to his humility and compassion for the four-leggeds among us, and so on and so forth.

What you may not know is that Mr. Herriot was a graduate of the University of Glasgow's veterinary college, class of 1939.  I'm sure that the Garscube campus, where the vet school is currently located, didn't exist in '39, and I know that many things about the program there and veterinary medicine in general have changed dramatically since then.  In some ways it's irritating, being followed around by the quaint memory of Herriot's stories.  But it's also lovely, being a new student, to have the fatherly (if sometimes sentimental) character in the background, to imagine what lambing was like in the '40s, and what it will be like for me in a year or two.  To know that the animals haven't changed, although the way we interact with them certainly has.  Herriot was dealing with mastitis, gastroenteritis, and poorly-presented lambs, calves, and foals seventy years ago, and as vet students (and later veterinarians), we will face the same set of challenges in the years to come.

So, to make a long story short, my title is a salute to James Herriot.  That's all I'll say about him.