Almost a month has passed since my last blog. I can summarize this period in one word: assignments! Lots of assignments! Nonetheless, I still make time to have fun. Starting with Halloween. I wasn’t planning on going out with Halloween, because of my many assignments but I couldn’t resist the temptation of experiencing Halloween in Glasgow. Since my decision to go was last minute I had to improvise a costume. I’m quite a beauty freak so with a bit of makeup and some nailpolish which featured as blood I became a vampire. A friend of mine was so nice to pick up some fangs on her way to our flat at Sainsbury’s. The fangs were horrible, but what do you expect for only 1 pound? They did look good on the pictures though. I thought the Glaswegians were crazy and this night really proved it.
The next big event I attended was Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November. Guy Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in England since 5 November 1605. His effigy is often burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a firework display. The movie ‘V for Vendetta’ is based on this story. I was amazed by the amount of people showing up in Glasgow Green! Surprisingly there was hardly any police even though Glasgow is one of the most criminal cities of Europe. Someone told me this after my arrival and indeed you do not want to go to the East End near the Barras Market by yourself. It’s the ghetto of Glasgow. Anyways, it was beautiful, the sky was clear, no rain and the fireworks lasted for 20 minutes. On the other side of the park was a fair and we stayed some time there before we headed back.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been very busy with assignments. I had two group assignments from Tilburg, and one group assignment and one individual essay from Glasgow. The assignment for the long-distance course Innovation and Technology Management was pretty easy to arrange through mail with my group. However the long-distance course Information Management is quite difficult to work on when you’re not able to sit in a group and discuss the assignment. Hopefully the University comes up with a better plan next year for these group assignments while you’re on exchange. The grading works quite differently here. You get a percentage between 0-100%. I expected that it would be similar to The Netherlands so I had to choose an expected mark for my individual essay and I’ve chosen 70-79%. Today I’ve asked a Scottish group member from a different course what’s average and when do you fail. She told me that average is 55% and you fail under 40%. Whoopsie! So my 70-79% was a bit too high!
I finally received my passport! Even though I haven’t been to London to apply for the passport it states ‘Embassy of London’ as authority, pretty cool I think. Now I can finally book a trip to Dublin. I would have gone to the Highlands last weekend, but unfortunately we cancelled it since many were doubting whether to go or not. Flying to Dublin only costs around 26 pounds with Ryanair and flying to Scandinavia is the cheapest! However, foods and drinks are very expensive in Scandinavia so we rather go to Dublin and check out the Christmas decoration.
Every week we’re having a dinner with a big group. I’ve eaten french crepes, italian pasta carbonara, german lasagna, italian tiramisu etcetera. Thursday is Thanksgiving and my American flatmate will cook a turkey! Looking forward to that! I also still need to cook and they want a Dutch meal. Any ideas???
If you’re thinking about spending a semester in Glasgow you can always contact me. The University will give my mail address to you or you can add me on Facebook and see my pictures!
See you next time!
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