July 6-Colin Davis a.k.a. "Moose"

Today we went on a open top bus tour of Glasgow. We started our day off with class which was just an orientation of what was going to happen for this class and just make us all realize how fast this class will move. We have a test on Thursday, and then on Wednesday of next week we have our final exam, our presentation of migrations, and our brochure due. And a lot of people are going to London this weekend which takes away three days.

After we had class we tried to get our bus passes and had no luck. I feel like Dr. Long was just having one of those days trying to get everything started and things were just not going her way, because in the end we did not get bus passes and decided that we could walk everywhere that we wanted to go like the People’s Palace tomorrow or the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. So instead of having bus passes we got an extra group meal which was a dinner after our bus tour ride.

I was really pumped to go on my first ever open top bus tour of any city. We all got on and sat on the top of the bus and outside, however it had been raining and all the seats were wet, so some people were kind of iffy about it. However, once we started our bus tour and got almost all the way through the east side of town it started to rain. But when everyone else left a few remained. I was amongst the brave few that fought the rain, the others included Xuan, Sarah, Tamara, and Michelle. We all sat out on the back of the bus while it was raining in order to see some of the wonderful sites that Glasgow has to offer. We drove by the Universities of Glasgow, and saw the museums that we will be going to in a few days we even saw a pirate ship that I really wanted to go on and set sail, but unfortunately we did not have time to stop on our bus tour. One of the buildings that I liked the most was a stand alone clock tour that look like a mini Big Ben. It was in the middle of a round about so that everyone could see what time it was no matter what. Although it was fun sitting up on the top of the bus in the rain I was soaked by the time we got off, but we paid for an open top bus tour and you better bet that I got one. It would have been really nice if the rain had let up because I’m sure that if you had to sit inside you would be unable to see all of the high buildings because the bus got right up to the side of them.

After the bus tour we went to a Chinese restaurant to eat dinner with everyone, and I feel like Dr. Long was a little mad at us for sitting up top of the bus in the rain but it all buffed out. (Editor’s Note: I was not mad about the rain, but I was a little irritated that the bus driver had to scold them for being too loud upstairs!) So we all had our food some of us ate noodles while others had rice, some meals had chicken and others tofu or beef. I had some duck gyoza (which is fried meat or veggies in a dumpling served with sauce) that I thought was amazing! I had only had duck once before this and it was on the highland tour in a baguette from a deli that we walked by on one of our breaks and that thing was MONEY! However, the duck meat gyoza came in with a close second. After the gyoza I had some really good curry chicken with sticky rice and a creamy curry sauce. Now for dessert I ordered a coconut ice cream with mango sauce and fresh cut coconut on top. If you could taste gold this is what it would be, because it was soft server coconut ice cream drenched in mango sauce with crunchy fresh cut coconut on top, this ice cream is something I would love to have with my last meal. When you hear people say “they could die happy now” this was one of those moments, I was so close to going into a food coma like during Thanksgiving when you eat too much but instead of eating too much I was just overly pleased with the meal I had just devoured.

After dinner everyone went their own ways and I ended up going back to the dorms and jump swiping the lock on the door. The door to the outside is a door that has a swipe key card to it so when someone needs to get in they don’t need to take the card out of their pocket they just jump up an inch and swipe the card on the reader, Jump swiping. It is really fun and makes it easy to get in when you have things in your hands.