what it means to head north

this is the beginning of a lengthy summary of my trip so far these past several days. i will break it up so as not to bore. also, i'm still in dublin and don't have my camera cord, so it'll be a bit before photos get on here. just use your imagination.

wow, i am looking at my notebook of points to include from the past week, and it is a bit daunting. here goes..

My dear friend Catie came to london last friday. our phones don't connect because she has irish service, i have british, so it was difficult finding her when she arrived in london, but she eventually showed up on my campus and we united in joy. We ate dinner at the pub, tried to make it to fireworks for Guy Fawkes night, but missed them completely, walked around parliament at night. Catie is doing an internship with the parliament in dublin, so she was curious about westminster and all. A few of her friends (americans) from her program in dublin were in london for the weekend, so we met them at a pub called O'neils in Leicester Square. For those who don't know about leicester square, it's mad. It's the area of Central London where much of the high end theatre (broadway type) and huge clubs are. Think loud, sparkling, shimmering, dancing, colors, chaos. so we went to this pub, o'neils, that i'd heard of but did not know what to expect. it was really expensive, three stories (one for traditional bar, one for jam-packed crowd and live band, everyone singing and spilling their beers, and the top floor for dance club and smoking deck. i was skeptical at first, but it was pretty fun. We managed to get home before the tube closed and got up early the next morning to catch a bus and a plane to Glasgow.

susan, my aunt jody's friend from childhood was waiting for us at the airport in glasgow with a sign. she brought us to her lovely home, we met her husband tom and their dog suto, which is closer to a human than a dog i think. the whole weekend, he would bark this deep growling and susan would yell at him to go away and he would just growl louder. so funny, it was like a child bickering with its mother. saturday evening, we just chatted with susan and tom for a while and they took us out for a nice curry in the west end of glasgow, the university area where susan went to school. when we got back, i watched a BBC drama with tom while Catie used the computer and then we went to bed. In the morning, susan had breakfast for us, so sweet, and then she drove us by my dad's old house in newton mearns. he lived there from about age 7 to 12, during which susan was good friends with his sister. it was strange to hear susan tell stories about my dad and my grandparents from years ago when they lived in scotland. strange to meet someone who knew my family long before i did. Then susan dropped us off in glasgow city centre, and we took a bus tour around town, walked through an old cemetery with beautiful view of the city, got off the bus at a pub, got back on, got off cause i had to pee terribly bad, went to use the bathroom at a gambling shop, watched a man watch a horse race on a tv screen, took the bus to the west end, went to a couple vintage shops, ate mac n' cheese, got a pint, talked to some nice scottish folks at the pub, got picked up by susan in the rain, showered, went to bed early.

well, i'm bout to leave here, so i'll finish this story later.

and i will get back to the theme that is the title of this post when i tell the rest of the story.

sorry no photos or visuals, no time. later.

x