Moving Day.

This is a bit strange: tonight is my last night in my Glaswegian flat.

Tomorrow, I clear out of here and head to the Holiday Inn at Glasgow Airport for the night. My flight on Saturday morning is at 6:35am, and there was no way at 4am I was lugging three enormous suitcases down four flights of steps or doing a final walk-through of the flat. It wasn't happening. £42 for a lot of sanity and a relaxing night before my flight seemed like a fair price to pay. Plus getting to sleep an extra hour! And lest you scoff, the difference between an alarm going off at 3:30am and 4:30am is huge. So I will spend my last night in Scotland holed up in an airport hotel, sipping on leftover champagne from my birthday, and watching television, which I'm actually really excited about, since I haven't had a TV this entire time. Then going to bed early, because of said 4:30am wakeup call. I'm okay going out that way.

I think it's all happening so quickly that I'm not really processing it all, which is good because it's not giving me much time to be sad and dwell on just how much I'll miss the city and the people. I'm just so focused on MOVING. And getting rid of stuff. And making sure my three suitcases are exactly at weight, since I'm already paying to check a third and don't want to pay for extra weight too. It's a tedious process, praying that the cheapy scale I bought at Tesco is right, hopping on and off of it with massive luggage. The stress of it all is tremendous, just the packing and the luggage. Once the bags are checked though, I can breathe easy. Until then, I live in fear that both Virgin and BMI will charge me hundreds upon hundreds of pounds for my baggage.

I really, really just can't believe it's all over, that I'm heading back to the States. I feel like I just got here. I feel like I was just packing up to come over here. And now I'm leaving. Granted, with a bushel of new friends, many more passport stamps, a lot of new clothes, and Master's degree in tow. It's been a crazy fifteen months. Good, but crazy.

29.5 hours until I board BD01, bound for Heathrow...

RUGBY!

It's official: I am a rugby convert!

And apparently, watching the Scottish National Team lose is a rite of passage that every wannabe Scot must go through. So I'm one step closer!

Murrayfield in late November is brutally freezing. Lovely, but freezing.

I think it is safe to say that I'm now pumped for 6 Nations.

A blurry view of Scotland winning in the first half; we were so very close to the field, and for only £10!

A blurry view of me (numb and frozen, but totally having a blast) at Murrayfield.

Twas the night before turkey...

Thanksgiving Eve here in Scotland, and while sadly there are no evening shenanigans planned for the biggest bar night of the year like there would be in the States, there is, more importantly, an uncrowded and calm grocery store.

This is one of the big pros of celebrating the holiday expatriately: you don't need to resort to throwing elbows or pulling hair the day before in order to get a bag of cranberries. And if you need something tomorrow at the last minute? Everything is still open as normal, and you don't have to resort to going to 7-11, cleaning the place out of Big Bites, then removing the hot dogs so you can have the "rolls" you forgot to buy the day before, but promised to bring to dinner.

But everything being open and normal because there isn't Thanksgiving here? It's also a con. Said bag of cranberries? Doesn't seem to exist. At least not at the Maryhill Tesco. Which makes baking a pear-cranberry pie a bit challenge. Same with canned pumpkin. There is none! Last year, Lupe Pinto's, the "American" store in town, sold out of canned pumpkin at the beginning of fall. So me trying to snag some the day before is unlikely, and very unworth a 3.5 mile round trip in the miserable weather. So I have to improvise on the pie front.

I actually have to say though, I really like Thanksgiving abroad. There's something really special about celebrating with other Americans when you're all away from home. Corny, yes. But really nice at the same time. Plus, I appreciate the irony of having Thanksgiving in the UK!

It's the final countdown...

I have just submitted my final workshop story of possibly my academic career, and while getting a 4,000 word beast out of my dreams and into my car my laptop and into our web-based classroom file-sharing utility thing, it's surreal to know that this is it.

As one of my final big leaving activities, I'm going to see Scotland take on Australia in rugby this weekend at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. The weather is looking phenomenal for standing outside all night: cold, wet, and super windy. Still, I will take lots and lots of pictures through the driving rain. I can think of few better final memories of Scotland to have than sweaty, muscular men in tight shorts running around after a ball that looks slightly like an American football, but really is nothing like it at all. And I am not being facetious! I'm really looking forward to it!

Plus, a national match! It doesn't get better than that!

I realized today that my birthday and St. Andrew's Day coincide. A sign, maybe? Scotland and I are MFEO? I overlooked it last year because I was in Paris. But this year, I'll be soundly on Glaswegian soil.

My leaving Glasgow countdown is T-minus 23 days. Talk about surreal.

Countdown.

In exactly five weeks, I will be back on US soil for "good," or at least the foreseeable future, which for me usually means about six months. The reality of leaving Glasgow and Scotland is starting to hit me hard; this is now my home. This is the base of my existence. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that when my plane takes off from Glasgow Airport on December 12th, I won't be coming back. Not for a long while at least.

For all of Glasgow's flaws -- the weather, the grime, the crime, the neds, the weather, the social issues, the weather, the weather, the weather -- it's still a fantastic city, with fantastic character, and people who are maybe some the best I've ever come across. I cannot stress or underline enough how much I love Glaswegians. And Scots. But really, Glaswegians. They're a special breed, and my heart's breaking thinking about how five weeks, I suddenly won't be around them anymore.

Yes, this move is my doing. Yes, this is the responsible thing. I realize that. But it doesn't change the suck factor. Which is high. Not living in Glasgow is going to suck.

Obviously there are big pros to moving back to the States. Like seeing my family. Seeing my dog. Not having to buy three separate transatlantic tickets for three must-attend 2010 stateside weddings. Being able to buy things (any things!) after 6pm. Having an efficient banking system. Or an efficient anything system. Being able to eat good (or any) Mexican food on a regular basis. Being able to buy Goya products in the grocery store. These are all pluses. And I am looking forward to all these things.

I'm really trying to prepare myself for the reverse culture shock. When I was ten, and we moved back to the States from Yorkshire, I remember it lasting for a few months. But I was ten; as a person still in her late 20s, I should have a better, more logical grasp on what's going on in my head. Hopefully, preparing myself for it will help ease it a bit. But I know that it won't be easy. I may complain tomorrow morning when I leave my flat, and walk out onto a street lined with broken bottles of Buckie, but damnit if I'm not going to miss those stupid numbered bottles when I'm gone.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Я не люблю глупых людей. I do not like stupid people.

Taking the cake for this week's Dumb Stunt By Someone Other Than Me award goes to fantasy writer Catherynne M. Valente, who posted in her blog recently about booking a honeymoon to Russia, being told by Expedia that they "didn't need visas," and consequently being stranded in Frankfurt because of it. Valente's fans and readers are now taking up collections for her and are up in arms at Expedia on her behalf. They've even started a Facebook Group to "help" her and boycott Expedia.

I realize the Cold War is over (mhmm), but come on. Thinking you don't need a visa to go to Russia? Since when? The concept is so ludicrous. Who cares what Expedia says; isn't there an alarm bell that would go off and make you check another source?

I'm not a fan of the Expedias and Pricelines of the world, just because it's the least flexible option ever, but poor Expedia is just being ripped apart by this clueless woman and her even more clueless fans. Whatever happened to days of, oh, I don't know, checking with the State Department on whether or not you need a visa? Or even the Russian embassy? Expedia can't even give you seating assignments. Are they really expected to give you visa information? Did this woman even open a Russia travel book (all of which very early on talk about visa requirements). Did she not look at a single Wikitravel article? Even a three second Google of "Russia visa requirements"? Or did she actually just hop on the computer, do a vacation package search on Expedia, input her credit card, and then go to the airport?

To go to Russia.

I can understand if you're transitting through SVO or DME, and not being sure if you need one then (if it's a straight gate to gate transfer of >24 hours, then no, no you do not). But an entire vacation? Really? I wouldn't be so bothered by this woman if she accepted some shred of culpability in the whole thing; instead she cries victim.

Besides, if you didn't need a visa or any paperwork, what would you give the Militsia when they try to shake you down?

Everyone gather 'round. Actor announcement!

So with my (one-way) flight booked home for December 12 (mark your calendars), I remain uneasy about the booking. In the age old issue of Price vs. Miles, I succumbed to the temptation of a lower price tag, and am now feeling regret gnaw in my stomach. But still, price is price, and I am but a poor graduate student.

Sort of.

The above one-way ticket is one-way for a reason.

I will however officially graduate with my Master of Letters degree on December 2nd. Which is still nice, even if there won't be a PhD following it in three years. Turns out that I actually missed working and being employed everything that comes with it. That and I really didn't want to have to go through the (expensive, invasive, passport-stealing) visa application process again when my current visa expires in January.

Perhaps with the money I saved on buying the cheapo ticket, I can do one last Euro-jaunt, while I still have the continent just an hour's flight away. Maybe another birthday-weekend trip?

What's it going to be? I think the big contenders right now are Stockholm, Vienna, Poland, and Berlin. But really, it'll probably be whatever is dirt cheapest that weekend.

Being back on the other side of the ocean again for 2010, I think I'll try and get over the loss of proximity to Europe by focusing my energies on Central and South America. That's probably where employment will come in handy...

Le Tour Eiffel

I am back from Paris with my mom, aunt, and sister, and now having been a fifth time in less than a year, am happy to be feeling quite comfortable there. The shiny newness of the experience has worn off, but the familiarity of it all is in fact even better. It feels like Paris is a dear old friend. And my French continues to improve with each visit. If only I had six months there, I feel like I could be near proficient.

If only.

I love Paris in the fall...

I haven't blogged in forever and a day, and realized it this morning when I woke up to a brief rejection email from a stateside lit mag. Thanks, but no thanks, etc.

It's the second time this particular story has been rejected. I think having gone through the "thanks, but no thanks" with this baby has softened the blow. Strange though that may sound. I'm sitting here sipping my morning coffee, watching the morning flights head into GLA, and am not terribly devastated about it. Instead, I'm thinking of a quick turnaround for it. Seeing if I can't have it submitted again by this evening. Since it's edited and ready to go. If a date stands you up but you're already in a dress, you might as well see if anyone else feels like a night on the town, right? (This is entirely an analogy, and not commentary on the state of affairs of my social life.)

It is worth noting however that in the month since I've written, I did have a small acceptance for a short story, in the form of the soon-to-be-published Glasgow University student anthology. So it's not all doom and gloom for yours truly in the literary world.

Also, in the (oops) month since I've written, a lot's gone on:

• Gabriella's been here, and our sisterly bonding has fallen into a blissfully boring domestic routine in which I forget she's not my roommate. It's going to be tough when she's gone (next week, crap) and I'm living alone again.
  

• I received a Merit award on my dissertation, which is huge!
  

• SCHOOL STARTED. The work of a PhD seminar in literature is not to be taken lightly. It's making my head spin.
  

• Though I'm not actually in the PhD program as of now. I'm just doing the coursework. It's complicated. Glasgow offers three different levels of creative writing postgraduate degrees. The MLitt (the equivalent to an American MA) is one year, the MFA is two years (the first year of which is the MLitt), and the PhD (of which year one is the MLitt, year two is the second year of the MFA, and then there are two subsequent years after the MFA year). What this means is that right now, I have an MLitt, completed in August, and am working on year two of the MFA, meaning that after this year, I can walk away (with an MFA) or just keep going all the way to the PhD. Confused? SO AM I. It's a lot of acronyms.
  

• My mom and aunt arrive tomorrow for a week here!
  

• In that week, the four of us are heading to PARIS!
  

Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris! Le meilleur ville du monde! Easyjet in, Ryanair (ughhhhhh) out. Two days, one night, in the City of Light with my three favorite girls. It doesn't get much better than that.

I am making a concerted effort to update this more often.

It's raining outside and I can't go out to play...

At the beginning of summer, the Met Office declared that it would be a wonderful summer, warm and dry. Except, August didn't really live up to that. August was rain. And chilly temps. Almost every day. And so the Met Office went and took back their statement, changing it to one stating that this will be one of the wettest and unseasonably coolest summers in recent history.

It has rained. Every day. While there have been a few breaks here and there (Wednesday, it was dry in the morning, before raining all afternoon), it has essentially rained every day for a month. Not drizzle, not even anything light. But rain. Serious downpour, sometimes sideways, gets you soaked, fills your shoes with water RAIN.

I like rainy days usually. They're cozy and perfect for snuggling up with a good book and a cup of tea. But not every day. Even for here in Glasgow, it's gotten excessive. Even the Scots are complaining about how wet it's been, and the Scots never complain about their weather, because for them, it's normal. But lately, they've been moaning and groaning about it. That's how bad it's been.

One day without rain. It's all I'm asking.

You take the high road and I'll take the low road...

Tomorrow is the day where I see if Virgin came through on their "seven days" promise, and see if there is indeed broadband at the new apartment. If not, I might have to break up with them.

Gabriella comes on Monday for six whole weeks of sisterly bonding! I am very, very excited. While it won't be the Restaurant Extravaganza that it was during her visit in March, it's still going to be a good time.

I'm really hoping that we can do a serious hike while she's here, before the weather turns. The two biggies in Scotland are the West Highland Way, which goes from Milngavie (just outside of Glasgow) up 95 miles to Fort William (in the Highlands). It generally takes a week to walk (depending on how fast you walk and how frequently you stop at pubs), and is supposed to be amazing. And then there's the Great Glen Way, which is slightly shorter (at 73 miles), and goes from Fort William up to Inverness, along Lochs Linnhe, Oich, and Ness.

Both would be amazing, and it's the perfect time of year for it too. Tourist season is done, the kids are back in school, but the weather hasn't quite turned (though this would imply that the weather ever properly moved into summer). The midges will be bad, but we'll deal. I'm feel quite remorseful that in my year in Scotland, I haven't really done much traveling in Scotland. I've done Paris (four times!), Belgium, London, Yorkshire, Spain... but not so much the country where I live, save for random days in Edinburgh, which doesn't really count. So getting to hike almost 100 miles of Scottish countryside would be awesome. And quell some of my guilt.

...though knowing us, we'd hike for five miles, find a pub, and that would be the end of our adventure. We'd be back in Glasgow the same evening.

Because really, I'm a citizen of the WORLD.

It should be noted that I am officially on summer break. My dissertation is handed in, I've moved, and fall term doesn't start until September 21st.

(*insert a "WOOOOOOO, SUMMER VACAY!" here*)

Granted, it's not really time off. The PhD Year One reading list (for our novel seminar alone) is 62 required books, which are apparently "supposed to be read" by the time term starts. So I've got my work cut out for me. But if reading is ALL I have going on between now and September 21st, I can definitely handle that.

I can't believe I've been in Glasgow for almost a year (my anniversary is coming up in two weeks). Sadly, time spent in the UK on a student visa doesn't count towards the five years necessary for obtaining Permanent Residency. So I could be looking at an additional eight years before I get Permanent Residency, then I think it's an additional year before I can apply for Naturalized Citizenship, and then (and only then) do I get to apply for a UK passport that allows me into the superquick EU passport lines in airports.

Not that I'm contemplating giving up my American citizenship. Just that it feels weird to technically be on a track to actually allow me to become a citizen of another country. To even have the option. Living here is one thing. But to think it's technically very possible in the future to be BRITISH? Strange. Just really, really strange. Because as much as I love it here and think that I can hold my own pretty well living here, I'm a Yank through and through. There's no mistaking it.

See? This is the problem with "summer break." I have too much free time to sit around and think about inconsequential things like my citizenship.

My Misadventures with Virgin Media...

So, earlier this month, I signed the lease on my new flat in Maryhill. Even though I still have my flat in student halls through mid-September, I had to double up on the leases because I didn't want to lose the other place.

Back on July 29, I started the process of getting my internet hooked up with Virgin. Figuring Richard Branson's a good way to go. They have lovely planes; I had high hopes for their internet.

A month later, guess who's still not online at the new flat? If you guess THIS GIRL, you'd be right.

FIRST: the guy never showed for the appointment when he said he would; I wasted an entire afternoon waiting for him. Not only did he never show, but he never called to either A) cancel or B) apologize.

Then, a week later, a second guy came to take a look and tell me what was needed for installation. We set up an appointment for a week later to have an engineer come do the installation. I was excited. I was finally going to get internet in the new place and have it up and running.

Fast-forward a week to last Thursday. The engineer comes out and spends two hours installing the line. We test it out, the modem doesn't work. He goes back down to his truck and gets another modem. THAT modem doesn't work. He tells me they have to fix something in the office, and to wait four hours, but then it should be fine.

Fast-forward four hours: still no internet. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with Virgin, for the girl to tell me at the end I just have to wait four more hours.

Fast-forward to Sunday: STILL NO INTERNET. I call Virgin again. Am on the phone this time for almost an hour. Tech person tells me I have to now wait 24 hours, and that they'll call me to tell me it's fixed then.

Fast-forward to Monday, 24-hours later: no phonecall. Still no internet. I call Virgin again. The tech guy tells me that yep, there's a big problem with my account (on their end; it's nothing I did wrong), and that he's "putting a rush" on the order to fix it. And that the soonest it will be working is in seven days.

SEVEN DAYS. And apparently not an hour before then.

And that's the "rush." Seven days and then "if it's not working then, call us back."

I am livid. Beyond livid. Are there hamsters running on wheels powering the internet at Virgin? What kind of problem takes seven takes do fix, when all I need is connectivity? I'm not an IT geek, but I know enough about computers to know that SEVEN DAYS seems beyond ridiculous. And what if it wasn't a rush? Would I be looking at a month?

It's not like my internet broke. It NEVER WORKED. This is some of the worst customer service I've ever seen; I'm a new customer. You'd think they'd want to get it right for me from the get-go. They should be busting their hump to make sure that as a new customer, I'm happy with the company. Instead, my first impressions of Virgin is that they don't care about their customers, they seem to operate on a pass-the-buck system when things go wrong (I kept getting transferred and referred and told my account was being "passed on to someone higher," yet it's never FIXED), and that they're slow and incompetent.

This does not bode well for the rest of my time with them. What happens once I have service and the internet breaks? Are there going to be frequent outages, with them just telling me to suck it up for a month while they take their time fixing it?

We are now approaching a month since I contacted Virgin about getting internet set up. A MONTH. And I still don't have access in my flat. I have their modem, and all the lights are lit up and give the illusion of internet, but there's no actual CONNECTIVITY. We past the point of ridiculousness two weeks ago. This is now unimaginable. A month. To get internet. And it will pass the point of a month and I still won't be online, since the EARLIEST I've been told I'll be connected is September 1.

...which is cutting it close. Term starts in September. I cannot be without internet once term starts; it's not an option. And I 100% don't believe Virgin when they tell me it'll be fixed in seven days (because actually, they didn't. They prepared me for it to NOT be fixed in seven days, to be ready to call back then when it's still not working).

Right now, I'm soured to the whole Virgin empire: planes, record shops, gyms, mobile phones, you name it. I'm really glad I didn't book a flight home on VS. I don't care if they have some of the best IFE of any airline I could fly between LHR-IAD. I don't want to give this company another penny of my money.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dissertation was due at noon today. I did not go to sleep last night. The timeline of the insanity of getting to noon went something like this:


4:30am: Print out first copy. It is 85 pages and 21,437 words long.

4:45am: Need to change ink cartridge. Realize that I only have enough paper for three copies, not two.

4:50am: Do a quick (and sloppy) edit of my other paper due, make changes, and print it out. Realize that I don't give a crap about it, only my dissertation.

5:30am: Other than finishing printing, am done. I set three alarms and get in bed. The sun is up.

5:50am: Realize I can't sleep because my mind is racing and the adrenaline is pumping.

7:09am: After drifting off for a little bit, I wake up on my own, a whole ten minutes before my first alarm.

7:10am: Switch the coffee on.

7:11am: Pee.

7:15am: Begin coffee consumption.

7:30am: Print out second copy. Watch as my paper supply dwindles dangerously lower and lower and lower.

8:00am: Go over regulations and specifications for the hundredth time. Decide that I am finished.

8:30am: Take a shower.

8:41am: Get exfoliator in my eye.

8:57am: Realize that no amount of makeup in the world will make me look like a functional human being today.

9:16am: Am in mad scramble to leave the apartment. The goal is to make it to the copy/print shop next to campus when it opens at 9:30am.

9:25am: Am walking to campus when it starts raining. I use my umbrella to protect my box of dissertations. Not myself.

9:39am: Get to copy/print shop. It is closed. I have heart attack.

9:41am Sit on the stoop of the closed copy/print shop in the rain. Text K in Edinburgh frantically about potential back-up plans, as I have none, and only 2h19m remain until my dissertation is due. Am entirely too tired to cry. Feel like I am in bad movie. Hear my dad's voice echoing in my head about not leaving things till the last minute.

9:47am: The lady who runs the copy/print shop shows up. She was stuck in traffic. Of course she was.

10:09am: Leave copy/print shop with three bound copies of my dissertation.

10:14am: Arrive at SESLL building, at 6 University Gardens.

10:15am: Turn in dissertations! Sign drop-off sheet!

10:20am: Have long talk with departmental admin about PhD program. Ask incessant questions. Have lost ability to speak coherently. Am quite sure she thinks I'm mentally deranged.

10:30am: Swing by M&S for celebratory breakfast.

10:35am: Run into classmate on Byres Road. He looks in worse shape than I do.

10:45am Go up to new flat to get mail and get K's suitcase that I'd borrowed to start moving stuff. Catch bus back so I don't have to walk in the rain.

10:57am: Instead of pushing the button to signal my stop, I accidentally push the handicapped emergency button, setting off a massive bus-wide siren. Have thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of full double-decker bus.

11:07am: Arrive back at my old flat to realize that I have almost an entire ream of paper in the form of drafts on my floor. Realize that I'm done. Update blog and Facebook instead of crawling into bed.

Now, I crawl into bed.

And just in case you were ever wondering how I'd look at 5:30am after pulling an all-nighter to finish my dissertation:

T minus seven days...

I have exactly one week until my dissertation is due.

Actually, less than one week, since it's due by noon on August 18th and it is currently 2:09pm.

Can coffee be administered intravenously? I think I need to walk around with a constant drip for the next few days.

Wherever you wander, wherever you roam...

Since one can't do upper-level graduate coursework without a roof over her head, I am now proud owner renter of a sweet little one-bedroom flat in Glasgow! It's located in Maryhill, a diverse area in every sense of the word, be it economics, skin color, or nationality. Maryhill has its rougher edges (understatement), but also has really great bits about it too.

Or at least it does where I am (in the decidedly/hopefully not-as-rough fringes of the notorious G20 postcode). I am three blocks from the Kelvin Walkway, which follows the river as it winds from Dawsholm Park, four miles north of the city, down to the River Clyde, and the walkway feels like another world away from the noise and the grime, rather than something that's smack in the middle of a large city. I am five minutes from the Botanic Gardens. And only half a mile from the top of Byres Road and Great Western Road, the two main drags of the West End, chock full of pubs, restaurants, shops, and two subway stations. It's about a 20 minute walk (which is nothing) to the university, and if the weather's terrible or I'm feeling especially lazy, there are three major bus lines right outside my door to take me to campus and another two to take me directly into town.

But the best part of my new place? Minus being on the third and top floor with a big bay window, high ceilings, hardwood floors, walk-in closet, gas cooking, electric fireplace, and views of the Campsie Fells (though admittedly, I'm much, much further away from the Fells than that picture)? It's that I am 100 feet from the big Maryhill Tesco! Which is one of the super Tescos, containing a housewares and electronics section, in addition to being a gigantic, US-style grocery store! It doesn't get more convenient than that, and I'm sure once the weather gets bad again in the fall, I'm going to be insanely thankful that I have food and toilet paper just outside my front door.

Also, the flat is on the final approach path for one of the runways at GLA, which means on a good-weather day, I can sit in my big bay window and watch (though luckily not hear) the planes go by. It's a pretty cool view, between the occasional 777, the hills, and an overview of northern Glasgow. I like being on the third floor. I like being removed a bit from the street.

Overall, I'm a little in love with my flat. And really excited to be living alone again with a kitchen to myself. It is so hard to cook properly in a communal kitchen. And not cooking properly makes me ten types of antsy. But this place has a good kitchen. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with it. That, and the windows. I really, really love my windows.

Fun UK fact of the day: My gas bill isn't a bill at all. It's pay as you go. Like my mobile phone. PAYG gas works with a little card. You top up the card at a pay point, and put money on it. Then you insert it into a little box in your utility closet. When the card runs out of money, you don't get any more gas.

Food

We went to The Italian Caffe in the Merchant City tonight for K's birthday dinner, and I've got to give it two very enthusiastic thumbs up. If I could give my monkfish, wrapped in parma ham and drizzled with a sundried tomato dressing, three thumbs up, I would. Just really stellar food, great atmosphere, good service, and pretty reasonably priced. I love hitting new restaurants. Especially in parts of town that I'm not tremendously familiar with.

Even though I've been here for almost a year (seriously?!), I've realized that I mainly stick to the West End and its university bubble, with hops into town for a night out on Bath Street or a day of shopping on Buchanan Street or a movie at the big Cineworld. But neighborhoods outside of the West End or City Centre? I hardly ever go into. Like tonight. The Merchant City remains largely undiscovered territory for yours truly. And I'm learning that I need to start discovering it more, because it's got some really great spots, provided I have taxi fare. Tons of good bars and some really excellent restaurants. This country gets a bad rap for for food, what with the haggis, deep fried Mars bars, greasy fish suppers, and unrecognizable curries, but honestly? Glasgow is a great restaurant town. It makes me sad that not a single establishment here has a Michelin star, especially when this is a city that genuinely loves dining out.

But this is a resolution of mine this autumn: branch out.

That, and finally attend a Celtic match.

I wonder how much a taxi down to the Merchant City will cost from my new flat in my new postcode, but since all the paperwork won't be finalized until I sign my lease on Saturday, I won't speak of it for fear of jinxing. But hopefully, on Saturday afternoon, I will able to unleash my giddy excitement of having new digs and a new neighborhood. Outside the university bubble.

Seriously? Seriously?

I hope that I'm not incurring some kind of bad publishing karma by slagging off a publisher, but poor Justine Larbalestier, an Australian young adult author. Her novel Liar, which is about a black girl with short hair, is set to be released in the US in September by Bloomsbury.

Except, the cover for the book features a white girl with longer hair.

Larbalestier blogs about it, in a far more eloquent way than I would have if it was my book and my main character's racial identity in question. Because for me, it's a disturbing prospect and points to one of two reasons: either Bloomsbury didn't actually read the book (unlikely) or they think that a cover featuring a picture of a black girl won't sell as well. It suggests that they think it places the book into some kind of racial niche, because clearly, only black teenage girls would read a book about black teenage girls, just as Latina teenage girls would only read a book about Latina teenage girls (but everyone reads books about white girls). While I don't know that this was Bloomsbury's reasoning, I can't really see any other logic behind changing the main character's race for a front cover, other than it would affect sales, which if that's true, has a whole mess of unpleasant implications attached to it.

Covers are important. I always judge books by their covers. And so do you.

My Glaswegian flat hunt continues today. It's looking more and more likely that come August/September, I'll be a resident of either Maryhill, Kelvinside, or Partick. And I'm 100% okay with this. I'm a bit done with living in Finnieston.

Parisian love letter.

I had a plane ticket to Paris today, that I bought the other week after an evening spent with a bottle of Chilean cab. Just for the day, leaving Prestwick at 6:40am, and returning from Beauvais at 8:50pm. When all was said and done, I'd have had roughly eight-to-nine hours on the ground in the City of Light.

The price was right: £8 for the round-trip ticket, with another £10 in fees tacked on. On paper, £18 to hang out in Paris for the day isn't bad, even if it shreds bits of my soul to give Ryanair my money (which it really does. Aside from Michael O'Leary's general offensiveness, it's a company whose logo is in a font that's more or less Comic Sans. Can I really expect them to get me from Point A to Point B safely when they can't even use a normal typeface to showcase themselves to the world?). My anti-Ryanair feelings aside, £18 to Paris is tough to beat.

£18 seems like a worthy expenditure to stroll around the city if it's nice out. And I had such a phenomenal day planned: I was going to pick up a roast chicken and dripped-on potatoes in Belleville (as well as a cheap bottle of wine), and then head down to the Jardin du Luxembourg and snag a metal chair so I could have the best outdoor lunch ever. Then, I'd check out what's new over at the Jeu de Paume. Maybe do a bit of grocery shopping, since it's only a day trip. Have a late afternoon coffee somewhere near the canal and be willing to shell out extra cash for a prime table on the sidewalk to people watch for a few hours. Sit down along the Seine with an ice cream and wave at people on the bateau mouches. Take a quiet moment or two in the Eglise St. Etienne du Mont. And then wander down to around Gare Montparnasse for the crepe to beat all crepes, before catching the Metro back out to Port Maillot, to get the bus back out to Beauvais. It wouldn't have been a terribly important or historic day. Just lots of people watching and walking around and eating. A nice break from dissertation madness.

That was supposed to be my today in Paris.

But things didn't quite work out that way (I am in rainy Glasgow right now, not walking through the Latin Quarter). What I failed to take into account when I spent the £18 on the plane ticket in the middle of the night after a few glasses of wine, was the fact that I'd have to be at Buchanan Bus Station here in Glasgow at 4am this morning to catch the early bus out to Prestwick. So it would have been £5 for the cab ride to the bus station, £9 for the bus ticket to PIK. Then, from Beauvais, it's a €13 bus ticket into Paris. And the same back. Even before any metro tickets bought in Paris, I'd have been looking at essentially £50 in transportation to and from each airport. Which is more than double the price of the flight.

And suddenly, my nice cheap hop to Paris for the day is a big expenditure.

So I ate the £18. And didn't go to Paris. I think a bit of me died today, having a plane ticket to Paris and not using it.

This is my issue with Ryanair. It is the working definition of TGTBT. No such thing as free lunch. Or plane fares cheaper than a cab ride to the bars in City Centre on a Saturday night. Yes, you can get to another country for £4 each way, but then there's Ryanair's fees. And the cost of getting to and from an airport that's sometimes 100 kilometers away from the "city" (Girona "Barcelona," I'm looking at you). I hate Ryanair. It just feels so sleazy and cheap and dishonest. This is hopefully the last time I give them my money. And I hate Beauvais. I hate their bathrooms, I hate their coffee, I hate their immigration officers, and I hate how their entire departures area has like five benches for four "gates."

Besides, ten of my favorite words in any language are "Madames et messieurs, bienvenue a Paris, Aeroport Charles de Gaulle" spoken over an airplane PA system by a flight attendant in perfect French. There is something insanely romantic about landing in Paris, about flying by the city as you make your descent, and seeing the Eiffel Tower from the air. It just gets me deep down. I don't even think they say "Welcome to Beauvais" on Ryanair. I think they say, "GET OFF MY PLANE" in a surly Irish accent, and charge you a fee to de-plane via the stairs. Don't want to pay the fee? Jump. That's the Ryanair way after all. Only provide the bare essentials, and the passengers pick and choose and pay for the rest. Oh, Ryanair, I hate you.

I am convinced that the Glasgow rain today is the universe's way of crying on my behalf for not being Paris today. That's how I feel, at least.

Kwan.

There's a weird duality about being a writer. On one hand, you want a big book deal, maybe to sell the rights of your novel to Hollywood for a fat enough paycheck that you can sip Mai Tai's happily by the ocean, while working on your follow-up, and you want to be known and respected. And then you want literary glory, the kind that's usually not achievable (except in rare cases) until after death. Too often, if you're a big commercial success, it means you have little respect within the literary community. If you're okay with this, then you're a sell-out. Or a hack. Which sometimes, to a writer, are labels worse than "unpublished."

At the heart of it, we're snobs, we're elitists. And we're comfortable being such. We'd rather win a small literary prize and live in a studio apartment eating sardines out of the tin than have a novel published that brandishes the sticker of Oprah or Richard & Judy's respective book clubs. Being a starving artist means you haven't sold out yet and that you still have integrity. Which is everything.

(I will say, however, the worse the economy gets, I'll settle for any publication and any book list, and if Oprah wants me to sit on her couch and have housewives all over America read my book and have Mandy Moore play the lead character in the Lifetime adaptation of it, I'm all for it. You've gotta pay the mortgage.)

But news broke today that was a reminder that it is possible still to have both. The literary respect and the MONEY! financial security that accompanies selling lots and lots and lots of books.

Yann Martel, author of the Booker-winning "Life of Pi" reportedly is receiving $3,000,000 for the manuscript of his third novel. Do not adjust your monitors. Seven figures. Three million dollars. For his manuscript. This isn't even film rights, it's just the book.

While I realize that Martel is definitely the exception, and not the rule, it's nice to be reminded that authors of literary fiction, and not just chick lit or crappy crime fiction, can make money too. Because while the respect part is grand, eating ramen sometimes sucks.