The Evolving Style of my Room

Rain, rain, rain... continuous rain. The sun wants to rest for a while. My friend Riikka is coming here tomorrow from Finland. She has such a bad luck: the forecast predicts continuous rain for all the 5 days she's here. Well, one thing I've learned here, you can never trust the forecast...

One night last week I was sitting in my room and suddenly heard someone in the backyard yell and spell the name of our street, Kelvinhaugh Street, to someone on the phone, possibly Glasgow Taxis call centre. 'Yes, it's KelvinHAUGH Street, KelvinHAUGGGHHGHH Street'. I was kind of relieved to hear that. I've always wondered if it's just me and my pronuciation, or if there really is something peculiar about our street name. This is because the taxi drivers always repeat the street name after me in a questioning tone:
'To KELVINhaugh Street, please.'
'KelvinHAUGH street?'
'Yes, KelvinHAUGH street'.

Maybe it's the stress. Or maybe there's another street called KelvinHALL street. Whatever the case, I've got less than four weeks left in KelvinHAUGH Street *sigh* :( , in my cosy wee room. In honour of my room, I decided to add an entry on its capability of evolving through time.


The bleakness struck me when I arrived in January. Look how boring! Terrible!


A trip to Ikea did wonders. Neat and pretty. Not much stuff on the walls yet. Being a good girl.


The arrival of my favourite cloth from Finland did even more wonders. This is how my room used to look in London back in 2002 (the cloth is from Camden Lock Market). Back then the cloth stayed put all summer with Blue tack. Not here. This look was hippytrippy cool but impractical: one night I woke up to the horror of the cloth falling all over me slowly like a ghost. The damned Blue tack had let me down.


After the Easter break I took the cloth off of the ceiling and put a Chihiro poster on the wall instead. This is how my humble abode looks now, and I like it! Or LOVE it, more like. Note the cereal boxes on the floor btw. A proof of both my laziness and environmental attitudes. I still haven't found the recycling bin. There are just a few central collection centres scattered around the city, no idea where the nearest one is. And no car to transport my carton mountain there. Oh, bugger. Mañana, mañana.


And lastly, here's my favourite poster:



My favourite Bushisms in this poster include:

'I know that the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.' (indeed, Mr. Bush!)
'It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.' (good reasoning, Mr. Bush!)
'That's a chapter, the last chapter of the twentieth, twentieth, twenty-first century that most of us would rather forget. The last chapter of the twentieth century. This is the twenty-first century.' (really sure now, Mr. Bush?)
'I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question.' (believing is the answer, Mr. Bush!)

History Vibes in Paisley Abbey

On Monday (yesterday, that is) my 'Must-see Attractions around Glasgow' list was shortened by one item. I woke up early (?! - well 9:30am is early for me) to check out Paisley Abbey, about 10km outside Glasgow, easily accessed by bus or train.
Why go to Paisley Abbey? I had five reasons:

- I had to find a good reason not to sleep until 12:30pm.
- Lonely Planet had recommended it.
- The Abbey is connected to the 14th Century struggle for independence which I am crazy about: Edward I 'the Longshanks' set the Abbey on fire in 1307 because its High Steward (ie. the person in charge of the Abbey) had supported Scottish independence. This drove Edward I quite mad.
- It is assumed that William Wallace was educated at the Abbey since he was born in Renfrewshire, not far from the Abbey.
- Buried in the Abbey are for instance Robert the Bruce's daughter Marjory Bruce, Robert II's wives and Robert III. Marjory Bruce is an ancestor of Queen Elisabeth.

So, many many reasons to get up and hop on a train.
And it was well worth a visit. Not much survives of the Abbey from the period before the 14th Century because it was basically burned to ground by Edward I. A friendly guide told me (without even asking) that only the main entrance dates back to the 13th Century. So, I wasn't inside the same walls as Wallace during his schooldays, but used the same doorway at least:


A 13th-Century doorway. William Wallace has walked through that. So have I.

The Abbey was completely restored during the 14th Century after Edward I's evil deeds, but oh, all in vain, because another disastrous fire came in 1498. The Abbey was restored again, but then the tower collapsed about 50 years later, leaving the Abbey open to the sky for 350 years. Only recently has the Abbey been restored back to its former glory.

Oh, nice bits of history.

Another bit of history tells us that Robert the Bruce's grandson, later Robert II and Queen Elisabeth's ancestor, was born in the Abbey in 1326. The story goes like this: one day Robert the Bruce's daughter, Marjory, was riding her horse near the Abbey. She got in an accident, was taken in the Abbey, and unfortunately died of her wounds. The baby was saved however through Caesarian operation, long before any form of anaesthasia was in use. Gruesome. Marjory Bruce's tomb lies inside the Abbey:


Here lies Marjory Bruce.


There was only one drawback to my visit. Not until inside the Abbey I recalled that my digicam had run out of battery as early as Saturday. Absent-minded as I am, I didn't remember to check it before leaving home, so there I was, surrounded by this awesome play of light and shadow, lacking a decent camera. Luckily, my mobile phone came in for consolation, so at least I have some pictures from the place. Try not to be blinded by the suberb quality of the shots in this post.


A view of the choir.


The Wallace Memorial Window and a Celtic Cross from the 8th Century.


An amazing stained-glass window.

Besides that, nothing much worth mentioning has happened since Saturday. Studying, eating, sleeping. This far I've finished a novel and a play, both for the exam and both about the Highland Clearances. Pretty thought-provoking! During a period of 100 years (about 1750-1850) the Highland people were driven away from their homes to the coast or overseas colonies to make way for sheep, because sheep were more profitable than people to the landowners. This is why there are more descendants of the original Highlanders in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand than in Scotland itself.
The novel explored the Clearances through the eyes of an old woman. The play took the subject even further by describing how the people of the Highlands have been exploited throughout history: first sheep, then stag hunting, then tourism, then oil boom, all the while oppressing the people living there to the profit or entertainment of the ruling class or multi-national corporations... Learnt a lot about history just by reading two short books, both of which even turned out to be quite enjoyable in the end. I love literature exams.

Go Suomi Go!

Hip hey, hooray!! Thank you Finland for a spectacular show!! Yesterday I was proud to be a Finn! No need for a national shame even if we didn't get that many points - at least for me, it was the show itself that mattered, and it was superb! (and as we all know, the voting results in Eurovision Song Contest are more often than not a representative of current geopolitical relations, and yesterday was basically an Eastern Europian feast). Ei tarvinnut tuntea myötähäpeää, homma hoidettiin hienosti kotiin.

It was a bit shame that I am abroad for the one (but hopefully not only) time the Eurovision Song Contest took place in my lovely home town. It would've been fantastic to take part in the Helsinki hullabaloo and to watch the contest on the stairs of Senate Square like thousands of others did. But luckily there are Eurovision freaks in Glasgow as well: yesterday evening us Finns, two Dutch, one Norwegian and one Australian all gathered in Anna-Riitta's place to watch the contest and fill our bellies with authentic Finnish food that Anna-Riitta had made (good God, she had put so much effort on it, thanks again A-R!). And I guess we had as much fun as the people did on Senate Square, topped with the excitement of watching the contest abroad and seeing how Finland is portrayed! ;)

Huomio: Suomalaisille englantiin kyllästyneille tai sitä huonommin ymmärtäville lukijoilleni vinkkinä, että Anna-Riitan blogista löytyy myös kertomusta viisuvalvojaisistamme, silkalla suomenkielellä ;)

Let the pictures speak for a while:


Iskemättömänä. Anna-Riitta had put so much effort of feeding us.


A variety of Finnish candies were waiting for us on the table!


Hard Rock Hallelujah! A gluten-free and lactose-free cake, all for me! :D


Let the munching begin! Me, Jolien (left) and Margje (right) filling our plates.


More guests: Lotta, Petra behind her, Gayathri, Anna-Kaisa and Paula (A-R's Finnish guest from Leicester).


And so the intense watching starts. Jolien, me, Petra, G and Eva.




Laughing at something, probably the counting of the votes.

The show was well done all in all. I was especially impressed by the stage floor and background being a huge screen. The lights were also as cool as you can imagine with such a budget. Lauri actually told me that there was so much stuff on the ceiling of Hartwall Areena that if it had snowed just a bit, they would've had to wipe the snow off immediately to prevent the roof from collapsing! :D

The picture the little inserts conveyed of Finland was what I wished for: not just tacky touristic commercials with landscapes and stuff, but humorous presentation of all kinds of Finnish oddities such as swamp soccer, indoor skiing, winter swimming in a hole in the ice (what's 'avantouinti' in English?) etc... The funny thing was that we couldn't really deny anything: 'Yes, some people do that... of God, yes, we do that too...'. One thing was a bit unauthentic though: why on earth did they wear towels in the sauna?? Shame on you, shame on you! :D




Feel the excitement!

There was only one thing spoiling the fun: the British commentator, Mr. Terry Wogan. Yes, they say he's sarcastic, and I love British sarcasm over all, but even sarcasm loses its effect if it's overdone! He was being sarcastic about EVERYTHING: the singers, the songs, the video clips between the songs, the presenters... Sometimes he got it to the point - I agree with him that Krisse's humour didn't really amuse the majority of Europeans ('cos you have to get to know her style, which, after getting to know it, I still don't find particularly funny). But he dared to spoil Antti Jokinen's opening video of Lordi and Lapland by pointless blathering about reindeers. Childish bastard! Like a little kid demanding for attention! The final straw for me was when he kept on wondering about the boy in the bubble during Apocalyptica's and the acrobats' performance. I would have loved to let the performance take my breath away, which might have happened without Mr. Wogan's annoying comments. Of course he's allowed to make comments, sarcastic or not, but please, not during the performances! That's called underrating the spectators' ability to make their own judgements! So shut up Terry Wogan! Thank you! :D

Anyway. Serbia won, good for them, I really liked the song even though it apparently didn't set the place on fire (like Lordi did a year ago, haha!). Ukraine's 2Unlimited copy was hysterically funny and would've deserved the victory likewise, but I think it was good for Eurovision's image that a more serious song won this time. Oh, and yes, I gave my vote to Finland's Hanna, of course I had to take the opportunity to vote for my own country! ;) It didn't count much though, but hey, we didn't come last, it was Ireland and the UK, hahahah! There's something to mull over, Terry Wogan.


Afterwards the more sensible people went to sleep, and the less sensible people (me, Maija, Eva and G) continued to the QMU to practise our face muscles...



...and our reflexes with a hilarious hippo game where the goal was simply to eat balls:



I also turned out to be the worst pool player in the universe. Which I'm proud of!

So, a good day all in all!

Celebrity Houses

I know that you are all keenly waiting for an entry about my Ultimate Eurovision Experience in Glasgow. Patience, patience. Before moving on to that, I'll post an entry about the ISoc BBQ that took place yesterday. Two reasons for this:

1. TO PROVE THAT I LOVE EATING: yesterday I might have put on a couple of extra kilos, what with walking straight from a BBQ table to the cakes and candies Anna-Riitta had made for the Eurovision evening.
2. TO PROVE THAT I'M ALMOST RELATED TO A CELEBRITY (from the Finnish saying 'Olen melkein sukua julkkikselle'): the BBQ took place at 'Royston Castle', a huge house (or a mansion more like) owned by a professor and occupied by a couple of university students. Curiously enough, the mansion had been previously owned by the man who 'invented' Irn-Bru. Yes, you heard right, IRN-BRU! The famous hangover cure that sells more than Coca Cola in Scotland! More than cool! 8)

That's about it, basically! Here you can see the house:


'Royston Castle' from the sreet. Passers-by often stop to take photos of the house, not something that the owner likes :D


A German guy's fearless jump to the unknown. It was quite chilly so only a few people dared to show up.

Old School Vibes

Satu just asked me at Irc-galleria how I spend my days now that I have no lectures. It's fairly easy. I sleep, eat, meet friends online and offline, cook, do the laundry and dishes, buy groceries, and read novels and poems in the library or in Kelvingrove Park for my one and only exam, which takes place in the end of May. Really relaxing. I've always loved idleness.
Besides that, I've created a list of nearby attractions I want to check out in order to break the routines every now and then. These include Scotland Street School Museum, Bothwell Castle, and Paisley Abbey. And Dundee, but it's not nearby.

Actually the School Museum has already been removed from the list, 'cos I checked it out yesterday. It basically provided all the essential info about the history of education in Scotland. Really interesting stuff for a future teacher. The building was a former school, designed by Macintosh in the beginning of the 1900's, so it was an attraction in itself. There were reconstructed classrooms from the Victorian Era, WWII, and 1950-60's, plus lots of info about the building, Macintosh's involvement in it, the area, and school days in the past (you could actually walk through a school day and read bits about the history of teacher education, the subjects they used to have, school uniforms, girls' and boys' duties, the development of the school system, the effect of WWII, etc.). Really worth a visit.


The staircase. Macintosh's imprint could be seen all around the building.


The entrance hall. Here the kids used to do 'drills' (some sort of light exercise) with their teacher. 'Drilling' later evolved into PE (Physical Education, liikunta).


Cookery class, today's Home Economics. Somehow cute, haha! :D


Wanna play hopscotch? :D


The Victorian classroom. I'd have nothing against preaching on a lifted speaker's stand once in a while :P


The WWII classroom. The desks look a bit more comfortable, still lacking ergonomy though. Note that the lifted stand has disappeared.


The 1950's classroom. Individual desks, what a luxury! They still assumed though that every pupil is of the same size. Feeling a bit nostalgic, mum and dad? :)


There were also two exhibitions on show. The other displayed the winners and almost-winners in an annual nature photography contest arranged by the Natural History Museum in London. Awesome shots. Hard to describe. The other was 'An Alternative Alphabet' by a male artist whose name I cannot recall (the same who designed the cover of The Beatles's album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band'). I'll find that out and add it here later.
Some of the letters were quite hilarious. Or what would you think if you browsed your kid's ABC book (or whatever they call it) and came across such illustrations as...


B for the Beatles.


K for the King (Elvis Presley).


N for Nude.

The Ultimate Shopping and Beatles Experience: Manchester and Liverpool

Judging by the title above, I've written too many essays. Essay titles are always in the form "Blaablablablaa blaablablaa: blablablaa blabalabalaa". The half stop makes it sound neat and effective. And that's what I'm aiming at here. Wouldn't a title like "Our Trip to Manchester and Liverpool" sound a bit dull and uninteresting? Why read on? Essay-type titles are decent after all.

And, bearing in mind that an essay wouldn't be good without a proper purpose statement, I shall include one here: In this post I will give an account of my wonderful four days (1.-4.5.) in the grand cities of Manchester and Liverpool.

Oh screw this essay crap.


MANCHESTER 1.-2.5.

So, on Tuesday last week me and Petra stepped on a bus to Manchester. Finally. We were supposed to make this trip already during the Easter break, but since I dashed to Finland, we had to reschedule it for May. And I think it was for the best. Manchester and Liverpool really were at their best at this time of the year! Not yet too packed with tourists, but still lively and bustling, and to top of all, blessed with warm and sunny summer days! The temperature rose up to +17-20C every day! :)



Green pastures and farm houses (see above) passed by as we drove on, and by late afternoon we hopped off in the centre of Manchester, puzzled, looking around like tourists. We had this funny feeling of being abroad, which was actually true - England is a different country! The zebra crossings were still missing though, like in Scotland. Maybe its a Northern British thing not to provide pedestrians with extra safety when crossing roads.

The Hatters hostel, our Manchester base, was our first destination. It turned out to be really nice, with a relaxed but still somehow safe atmosphere, clean rooms and a central location. Would definitely stay there again! We shared our four-bed dorm with an Italian man who had been accepted to study a post-grad degree in both Manchester and Leeds, and who was now checking out the two cities in trying to decide which of the two offers to accept.

The Italian had already fallen for Manchester, and so did we in the course of our stay. The city itself was a truly positive surprise - I had thought of a huge and overcrowded place with an incomprehensible street plan and innavigable centre, but the reality proved to be totally opposite. Manchester is a real SHOPAHOLIC'S PARADISE!! (or nightmare) and far from being overcrowded and grim! Compared to Glasgow, the city centre seemed more stylistic and European in a way - there is even an Italian-style square right in the centre of the city with a medieval church on one side. And neds were almost non-existent (maybe they've all fleed to Glasgow). Even the women were wearing smarter clothes than their Glaswegian sisters. Some shots below.


Hustle and bustle on Market Street. Manchester has trams!


St. Anne's Italian-style Square. Nice vibes.


The Town Hall.


A picturesque pub quarter near the Cathedral in medieval Manchester.

On Tuesday we basically just snuffled around the city, with the aim of getting an overall picture of the place. Saw the main touristic sites, such as the massive Town Hall and the Cathedral (didn't get inside until Wednesday). The most memorable bit of our first day was one of best dinners I've had during this spring: Yellow Curry Chicken, Thai style, my god! My credits to this what's-its-name Thai restaurant in the middle of Manchester's Chinatown! Proof below.


Chinatown.


Yummy!

On Wednesday I blew over 120€ in just 5 hours. They say Glasgow is second only to London when it comes to shopping. Don't believe them. It's MANCHESTER, BABY!! Glasgow, naaeh, in Manchester the shops were FAR BIGGER and FAR BETTER! :D 120€ is a lot, but the clothes I found were totally worth every penny. The most notable one was a long and colourful hippie dress by Mango. I just hope this summer's gonna be sizzlingly hot. I'll post a pic of that fabulous dress here once I get the energy to put it on and learn how to use the self-timer.


It was sunny all the time :)


LIVERPOOL 2.-4.5.

By Wednesday evening we were done with Manchester and headed to our next destination, the Beatles capital of the world, Liverpool. The first impression of the city wasn't as great as that of Manchester: at 8pm on a Wednesday evening, the centre of Liverpool was completely dead. No people, no shops open, just endless roadworks and cranes as part of transforming Liverpool into a dazzling Capital of Culture by 2008. Once we found our way to the seaside, however, our image of the place changed radically - looking at the pics below there's no wonder why! The sunset on Albert Dock took our breath away and changed us into digicam maniacs for a while.


Albert Dock, the place to be.





Our hostel, YHA Liverpool, was just a stone's throw from Albert Dock. Once again, a four-bed dorm. First night sharing with a middle-aged Mexican woman whose English skills were next to none, but who was courageous enough to go on a 1,5-month tour around Europe! Respect! Second night sharing with two English-speaking girls from some corner of the globe. The dorm was more than a dorm since we had ensuite facilities, shower and toilet in the room and all. Not as relaxed as The Hatters in Manchester, but comfy and secure anyhow. They even had lockers in the room where you could fit all your stuff, even a trolley. That was a real plus.


On our way to Liverpool's Chinatown to find some fooooood. We're so used to our notorious Glasgow that we didn't even realise we were walking through quite a seedy area, don't u think?


All in all, if Manchester is for shopaholics, Liverpool is for Beatle-lovers. I was turned into a true Beatlemaniac overnight! The whole town is full of Beatles-related sites, most important being the Beatles Story in Albert Dock. It's not really a museum but more like an experience; you walk through the history of the band from their first guitars 'til the murder of John Lennon. Highly recommended!


The entrance to Beatles Story. Excellent, excellent.

So Thursday was our Beatles day. After 2,5 hours we spent inside the Beatles Story we got out a lot wiser, ready to tackle the Magical Mystery Tour which took people on a funky bus to all the more or less important Beatles sites around the town. Since Petra doesn't care (or know) as much about the band as I do, it was just me on the tour. And oh my, it was fan-tas-tic! The guide was the funniest ever. We saw, for example, the birth places of John, Paul, George and Ringo, the spot where John's mom got killed by a car when he was little, the church yard where the story of the Beatles got started, a park where Ringo lost something very valuable, and not to mention Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. I was in ecstacy. I still get high when I look at these pictures :D


Photos from the Magical Mystery Tour:


Our bus! FUNKY innit!


George Harrison's former home street.


Harrison's first home. The red one in the middle. Cute :)


The house where Lennon used to live with Aunt Mimi.


One of the houses in the row belonged to Paul McCartney's family. The place where Lennon and McCartney used to practise quitar chords :D SO COOL!


I was there too!


Strawberry fields forever...


The legendary Penny Lane. The street sign gets stolen week after week.


Ringo's former home street. So ordinary, isn't it? You know why Ringo replaced Pete Best as the drummer of the band? No, it was not because he was so talented at drumming. He was actually quite average. It was because he was so talented with women, and the other boys saw it as a change to get their share as well :D


This building is to be transformed into the Beatles Hotel by Christmas 2007. Every room will be decorated with Beatles-related stuff. Would be cool to stay there some day.

In the course of our tour it turned out that our guide was some sort of a business acquaintance with Paul McCartney. He had a funny story to share about this. Once the two were drinking after McCartney's performance in Liverpool when McCartney suddenly decided to write an autograph for our guide. He refused, of course, for friends don't write autographs to each other, but McCartney's argument was that 'You can sell it when I'm dead and use the money for your son's university studies'. So, he signed it and handed it to our guide. Right after this, he kindly asked if our guide could write an autograph for him as well. The reason for this was that our guide had played McCartney's role in some class B documentary movie about the Beatles, and McCartney had just happened to see that movie on TV and really enjoyed it. This makes our guide probably the only man in the universe who has not asked for Paul McCartney's autograph, but who has been asked for an autograph by Paul McCartney himself.


After the tour the Beatlemania continued with a stroll on Matthew Street, the place where it all began; a lunch at the Grapes where the band always sat in the same corner table because it provided clear views inside the girls' toilet (nice); and a chill out session at the reconstructed Cavern Club which looked exactly the same as the original one back in the 1960's. Those of you who don't know it, this is the place where the Beatles had over 200 gigs during their early years. Cool vibes. Pics below, again.


Matthew Street, the centre of Beatlemania back in the 1960s. This is where folks queued to get into the Cavern Club where the band played over 200 gigs.


Hanging out with Lennon.


On Matthew St. there's the Cavern Wall of Fame that features the names of all the bands that appeared at the club between 1957-1973. Some Finns have left their mark on the wall (no, not us!).


Having luch at the Grapes where the boys liked to peep in the girls' toilet. Naughty!


At the Cavern Club, rebuilt using the original plan and tile blocks from the legendary club.


Cool stage innit?


On Friday, just before heading back to Glasgow via Manchester we had just enough time to check out Liverpool's great Anglican Cathedral, the biggest and undoubtedly one of the most impressive ones in all of Europe. The visit changed my views of 20th Century architecture completely. I couldn't believe that such a grand and astonishingly beautiful building was an accomplishment of the 20th Century! See for yourself:








A view of Liverpool from the top of the Cathedral. Friday was a bit more cloudy than the other days.

All in all, our trip was more than great. I have to take my dad to Liverpool some day, I bet he would go apes. And I bet my record collection will soon expand dramatically as I start to fill the shelves with Beatles albums! :P