July 10-12: Tamara Stimatze

Editor's Note: The plague has hit the ESU group. Eight of our eleven students have a nasty cold. I'm plying them with juice.

This weekend was our opportunity for independent travel. I decided not to go anywhere for two reasons: 1. To explore Glasgow more and, 2. It was my birthday on July 10. I went to bed on July 9 feeling super excited, since the next day would be my 21st birthday. I woke up in the morning ready to go out and celebrate with lunch, shopping, and a movie. I got out of bed at 11:00 a.m. and started feeling kind of sick, like I had a cold, or something. I ignored my body, took some ibuprofen, and started getting ready! I found out that my friend Sarah was also not feeling 100%, but she was ready to help me celebrate. All of the other students were already either up shopping, traveling, or at a movie, so Sarah and I made Dr. Long come with us to lunch.
I picked a Malaysian restaurant called Rumours. I had eaten there before and they had delicious vegetarian food. I had a bubble tea, which everyone should try, and a tofu stir-fry. Everything was great. Afterwards, we were going to see the new movie, Bruno, but I wanted to do a little shopping first. I started walking around and I realized that I was a lot sicker than I had originally thought. I wasn’t able to go to the movie and had to go back to bed instead. Dr. Long and Ben offered to order pizza for dinner, and I slept from 1:00-8:00 and only woke up for pizza. I felt much better after eating, but stayed in bed so that I could celebrate my birthday on the 11th instead.

I woke up Saturday still sick. Sarah was feeling a little better, so we went to get some juice and medicine. The first place we went to wouldn’t accept cards that need to be swiped (most cards here have a chip in them). We ventured further away and had to sit at Starbucks and drink juices due to our illnesses. Then we went to Sainsbury’s and bought juice, medicine and a little bit of food, and then hurried back to our beds.

I slept again most of the day, had lunch, but then slept through dinner. The night of the 11th I had a very hard time sleeping and woke up sick to my stomach, which was something I hadn’t experienced yet with this flu. I emptied my stomach and fell asleep again for a long time. I didn’t leave my room aside from going to the kitchen and to Dr. Long’s room for medicine all day on the 12th.

Luckily, I slept great last night and feel much better today. I still don’t know if I’m ready to continue exploring Glasgow, because I don’t want to relapse. Also, in my still-ill mind, I forgot to mention that the highlight of my birthday weekend was having the privilege of witnessing a man urinate in public and another man vomiting in a pedestrian shopping mall at around 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

Hopefully my peers who traveled had more fun