December Daily Meme - Day 9- er, 10

honscot asked: I'd love to hear about your experience of living in Scotland. Do you think you and the wife will stay there longterm, now that you have the gorgeous apartment?

Okay, but be warned, this post is basically going to be WHY I LOVE SCOTLAND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS.

So, um, the first time I ever set foot in Scotland was when my parents dumped me off at uni in St. Andrews - I accepted the offer from a place I'd never visited because it had a very good reputation, had pretty pictures on the website, and somehow wanted me to come there despite not exactly having stellar grades. I didn't fall in love with it at first, but eventually I became very fond of the people (the few actual Scottish people I came across, because St. Andrews is 98% rich Americans and English), the sea, the lovely grey and solid architecture, and even the weather wasn't as bad as I'd expected. When I left four years later to join the Wife in Manchester I cried all through the bus journey, but staying wasn't an option because St. Andrews is tiny and it was time to move on.

Three years later I decided fuck it, I hated Manchester and I hated being away from all my friends who lived in various parts of Scotland, so I moved back by applying for a PhD in Glasgow which had seemed like an interesting city the few times I'd visited. I know some people think Glasgow has a bit of a bad reputation, but they are people who have never visited the West End - it is gorgeous here, full of parks and museums/art galleries and little independent shops/cafes and hundreds of really good restaurants (food is very, very important to me), and there are some lovely old grand buildings and charming Victorian tenements (architecture is also very, very important to me). Edinburgh is an hour away on the train, Hadrian's Wall is not too far away, and a half hour drive gets me to Loch Lomond and the countryside there is spectacular - I have not actually gone much further north than there, but I hear it's even prettier as you keep going up! I certainly hope we end up staying here long-term - I would be happy if we were here for at least another 3 years, hopefully 5, but I suppose that all depends on jobs. If we have to move we will, and I suspect eventually it'll happen because neither of us are settling-down-for-the-rest-of-our-lives people, but as Scotland is the first place I've ever felt at home in I really hope that's not any time soon.

(also yes, my lovely (and as I am currently appreciating, WARM) flat! I certainly would not be able to afford something so nice and in such a perfect location in most other cities. And I haven't even begun to decorate it properly!)

I was planning on taking a photo to go along with this post at the weekend, but as it was dark and grey and rainy I wasn't too keen on leaving my sofa and my hot chocolate. Here is one I nicked off google of the university tower from Kelvingrove park (everything is called Kelvin-something here, it gets very confusing):




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