dispatches from hipsterville

I sometimes joke that living in Glasgow is a lot like living in Brooklyn, but with more hipsters and more ridiculous accents. I'm only being semi-facetious when I say this- as far as I can tell, the #1 leisure activity in Glasgow is "attending gigs" (#2 might be "Experiencing Art in Every Form", #3 is "knowing DJs", which is rather derivative of #1, #4 is "Seeing Films", and #5 is "Talking about art, films and music"). And beyond that, every month there's some sort of big festival based around a theme - the current festival is Celtic Connections, which is a 3-week-long folk music festival.

It's like Extreme Brooklyn, I'm telling you. Basically, there is no shortage of things to do here.

There are a million pubs, and almost every pub has gigs; on top of that there are whole bunch of bigger concert venues- no matter what kind of music you like, I imagine you can find something that you'd be interested in - like, this is just SOME music coming up in the next few days - that link lists some of the more popular music venues, and you can see that tickets are generally affordable.

And a lot of it is super indie and interesting! This is the same city that produced Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, and Franz Ferdinand ("wankers", according to all native Glasgwegians), and probably 7 thousand other musicians - this should tell you something about the music scene. As you can imagine, if you don't pay attention you can miss a lot of awesome stuff. You often end up scrambling at the last minute to see stuff, because who can keep track of all of those dates? I know I can't!

What I'm trying to say here is that seeing live music all the time is a totally normal thing to do. Tomorrow I've got tickets to see Ani DiFranco, and originally I was going to go see Sleigh Bells on Saturday night, but I'm going to a conference all day and then out for dinner with the conference-goers, so it looks like I'll miss that. I've actually missed a bunch of gigs because I had prior engagements: I missed Beach House back in November because I was going to a Thanksgiving dinner party - I wonder if that's part of the experience of the Glasgow music scene? Sometimes things just sell out entirely before you're made aware of them to buy tickets (The National, Arcade Fire), or you hear about it too late (Foals). Am I disappointed? A little bit, but then you see something awesome. And that kind of thinking is exactly what's going on in hipsterville: yes, it sucks if you miss a gig, but someone equally as exciting will come along.

The next big gig I'm hoping to go to after this weekend will be Lykke Li, but there's an up & coming riot grrl band playing at a pub near me in early February, and I have tentative plans to go to Sunday Afternoon Jazz and Dubstep Thursday at two other pubs soon. Do you see what I mean about Glasgow being a music town? In the fall I saw a whole ton of local musicians, KT Tunstall, MEN, LCD Soundsystem, among others... and we haven't even covered some of the great guest DJ spots I've heard. Welcome back to Glasgow! Can't stop, won't stop...

winging my way home: epic journey part 1

Before I start this story, you should know that I'm a very calm traveler. I love flying, and I am generally unfazed by most things. I've been flying internationally since I was six weeks old, and by myself since I was 16. So the idea of flying back from Glasgow > London > Boston seemed like a non-issue to me.

Basically, I have a method of flying - "don't sleep until you get there" - that usually goes pretty well, especially when your flight leaves at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday. So I was planning on starting Operation No Sleep Till Boston on Thursday morning at 8:30 in the morning and arrive in Boston at 1 pm on Saturday, and then stay up for a while after that to get back on the right time zone. This usually works beautifully, as it's easy to get coffee on airplanes. AND SO IT BEGINS...

(this was written in real-time as things are happening across my diary, my computer, and one sheet of paper, and will be updated accordingly until we get to part 2)

3:38 am hello glasgow airport! No, i totally don't mind standing around for an hour and a half before my check-in opens. And here I thought I needed to be here 2 hours before my flight leaves for security check-ins, traveling internationally and all of that

4:30 am I don't think people in the UK/Europe travel with computers ever. This country doesn't seem concerned with wifi access under any circumstances - there's never wifi anywhere ever.

5:40 am real things said behind me in the security line: "oh, i need another wee box." Scotland, I am going to miss you.

6:00 am BE AT YOUR GATE NOW! also your flight leaves at 6:30 am but, you know, no rush. Take your time.

9:11 am I have been awake for about 24 hrs now! Well, except for the 20 minutes i fell asleep on the plane from Glasgow to London, but that doesn't count… I'm just saying that if you are a 6:30 am flight you should probably be legally (if not morally!) required to offer free coffee on the flight. It was snowing in London when I arrived - I'm convinced that London is an entirely different planet unto itself, and there's no way that London and Glasgow are part of the same country (but maybe that's because i can understand everyone without difficulty…) My next flight leaves at 10:30 and we don't have a gate yet, so for now I'm just hanging out in heathrow's MEGATERMINAL.


10:25 am my seat companion is another American studying at Edinburgh University. This is going to be a good flight.

11:30 am AND THEN WE WAITED FOR SOMEONE TO DE-ICE US, because we were informed that heathrow had effectively closed, except for planes trying to land and us trying to leave

1:30pm AND THEN THAT FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED. Everybody get off the plane! We'll give you vouchers! Never mind the fact that we've just sat on there on the tarmac for 3 hours, it's almost like we went somewhere!

Somewhere between 2pm and 4pm: It's so close to being like we went somewhere that we get to go through customs AGAIN! awesome! Go get your baggage, you've arrived! (Oh look, my duffel bag is shredded… super. let's get that fixed.) OH HEY GIANT QUEUES HOW ARE YOU


4:00 PM: Dispatches from AA #1: "We're totally going to rebook you starting at 4pm" JK GUYS, we really meant 6 pm

6:00 PM Dispatches from AA #2: "What vouchers are you talking about? No, we don't have those. Well, we've closed for the day, you could try calling this number but you'll be on hold for ages, it'll be great! Or stick around for 5:30 tomorrow morning, we'll be rebooking then

6:15 PM Dispatches from AA #3 "OH WAIT, ALL AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHTS FROM LONDON ARE BOOKED FOREVER jk everyone, there's no going anywhere ever. But if you stick around you might be able to fly as a standby in a week and a half!"

6:16 PM: I JUST WANT TO LEAVE THIS CONTINENT AND GO BACK TO MINE. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK.

(intermittent panicked phone calls home between 3:30pm-9:30 pm)

8pm: Dad & Heather: OK! we've sorted most of this out! You've got yourself a flight going from London > Paris > Boston on the 21st, plenty of time for this to all calm down. You've got a hotel so you don't have to stay in the airport for the next three days. Time to figure out how to get to there!

8:30 PM LET'S CLOSE HEATHROW WHAT A GREAT IDEA NOW THAT THERE ARE NO TRAINS RUNNING EITHER GOOD LUCK YOUNG GRASSHOPPERS

9:30pm how do I get a taxi in this city!? Can i flag it down? does it work asdfghjkl

10:30pm in Windsor, where the queen apparently hangs out. Hi queenie!

11:30pm This is the current state of me & my luggage


11:45 pm Realizing that I am going to have to open my luggage in the morning and figure out what to do with my shredded bag. But at least I have my luggage.

11:46 pm SLEEPING for the first time since 8:30 Thursday morning

10 am the feeling of eating something that is not a candy bar for the first time in 1.5 days

11 am Hoarding little packets of Nutella. Maybe this won't be so bad after all


11:34 am the feeling of putting on a different set of clothes

12:45 pm well, at least I'm near stuff and not in the middle of nowhere like I thought I was. Time to buy a new suitcase...

2:30 pm SOHUNGRY what am i going to eat here without going broke? Oranges. Lots of oranges.

3:30 pm But I mean, I have internet access and british tv, so I think I'll be okay. And if there are trains running I might be able to see some touristy things while I'm here. There are definitely worse places to be stuck in...

4:44 pm I am watching something about the muppets and airports. I don't know what this is but it is both a) relevant and b) hilarious. british tv is so strange.

7:40 pm took myself out for dinner & watched the news. you guys, i'd just like to remind you that all of this airplane fuss/heathrow hell situation is over LESS THAN SIX INCHES OF SNOW

10:03 am I AM ALMOST MISSING BREAKFAST oh shiiiiiiiii-

12:00 pm (Central) London calling! 12 pound all-day, all inclusive rail pass FTW

1:10 pm LONDON YOU ARE MASSIVE, how is it possible that I am still in the same city and just arriving in Central London

1:40 pm oh hai ORIGINAL BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT HOW ARE YOU TODAY. this exhibit is amazing, you guys. Also, this was my #1 priority.

3:30 pm I am halfway through seeing all the touristy things in less than 6 hours. (The last time I was in London it was for 12 hours.) I'm really good at this, but I can't stop in anywhere, really, NO TIME.

4:40pm how is it this hard to find a pub in London? It shouldn't be. A Sherlock Holmes pub on Baker St? Yeah, okay.

6:40 pm Hm, I wonder how the trains are doing- I should go back to Paddington Station. I still have to get home... Oh, look, delays... predictable. This train to OXFORD will get me back...

8:15 pm I'm gearing up for another 2.5 days of transit, better go get some food, thank god Waitrose is open. Candy bars, pita bread, and stolen cereal & nutella packets - that should keep me going for a while

8:45 pm MY FLIGHT TOMORROW FROM LONDON TO PARIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED, but it looks like my flight from paris to boston is still on asdfghjk

9pm can I get a train to Paris? No. Everything's booked forever, because we are all trying to get somewhere through any means possible

9:45 pm OKAY THIRD TIME'S A CHARM RIGHT? at least I don't have to be anywhere for christmas specifically. London > NYC, here I come, on Christmas day!

i'm coming home again

Can you believe it's almost Christmas? Christmas here is a big, huge deal - they take it really seriously. It's like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one mega-holiday, complete with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. (Hmm... where were you a few weeks ago!) Everything about it is very serious and fairly traditional. We even have what I have been told is a German-style Christmas market near my flat. If I ever felt marginalized for being Jewish in the States (read: not celebrating christmas) I would probably be very unhappy here, as 'not celebrating christmas' is not an option. GLASGOW LOVES CHRISTMAS AND YOU DO TOO. Everyone has Christmas parties for every sort of group possible - so far I have attended six parties, no joke - two different department ones (Glasgow Uni's and Strathclyde's) and two for the reading groups I attend (Socioling and Corpus Ling), and two friends' Christmases. It's definitely been a traditional (UK) Christmas, complete with mince pies, which to my surprise do not have meat in them ("mince" also means "ground beef" here) and lots of mulled wine. It has all been very exciting - I've never celebrated Christmas before, and certainly not like this.

But Almost-Christmas means I've been here for a little over three months. I am one-quarter finished with my master's degree, which is a bit daunting! I'm starting to work on a PhD project next... Almost Christmas also means I am coming home for a bit soon. Meanwhile, I apologize for not having written much in here lately other than to complain about being cold all the time -- I've been trying to get a lot of work done so i can take a few weeks off and relax while I'm in the states.

My first flight back leaves at 6:30 AM on Saturday. I think I am going to live-record my travels again (See september for the original ones), so you all have something to look forward to when I am fairly jetlagged. See you all soon!

it's beginning to look a lot like a new england winter

it's snowing! (this is the view from my sitting room.)

Do you guys remember when London was in the news last year for days because it snowed and nobody could handle that? It's like that. Apparently it rarely snows in Glasgow, because it's never cold enough to snow, so it's very exciting. Nobody knows what to do with it though!

meeting people is easy

It would be presumptuous to say that I was a popular person at home. I certainly knew many people, though. If I wanted to do something, there would almost always be someone around. Also, I don't know how to talk about Having Friends without feeling like I'm six years old, but here we go.

If I were to move almost anywhere within the continental US, I am fairly certain that I would know someone (or know a friend-of-a-friend) who lived there too. And if I didn't, the time zone isn't different enough that I wouldn't be able to keep in touch with everyone. It's not like moving a seven-hour plane ride away! I don't like to keep harping on this point, but going from knowing a ton of people on one continent and then moving to a new continent where you don't know a soul is, quite frankly, a terrifying prospect. You have to go out and meet people, and you have to make friends all over again. And it's stressful! You have to remember to call them or text them and invite them to do things and try not to feel like you're bothering them. I spent a lot of time doing things that interested me, like going to art galleries and gigs and such, hoping that I would meet people who also liked these things. Unfortunately some of the things I'm into are not the most accessible things to invite someone to - "hey, do you want to come with me to a minimalist composer's concert?"

The international society has a weekly pub night, where we all converge on a pub and socialize, so of course I go to that - I now have a pretty solid group of international-student-friends who go every week (mostly Germans, they're a lot of fun) and I think I am friends with most of the people in my office (although I feel like I probably come off as a tool most of the time, to be honest; there's a handful of MRes students though, and we all hang out together as The Newbies). Everyone in the office is really nice and we all get along really well - it's a good group of people.

And then a really strange small-world twist of fate, I ran into a girl whom i had had been introduced to briefly once at a gig a few weeks ago - it turns out she is my advisor's wife's student over at Glasgow university, studying sociolinguistics. She runs something called Lock Up Your Daughters, which is a magazine & monthly club night - I met her girlfriend and bunch of her friends and they've been great. (Though I am definitely comfortable with my international friends and my office friends, I did need some gay friends. Sometimes international groups of people are not the best places to be out, loud & proud, you know? I live near a whole bunch of gay clubs but would never go to them alone, and I'd feel weird asking a straight person to come with me.) But yeah - I've been hanging out with the LUYD crew and getting involved in that, which has been fun; they're exactly the sort of liberalminded queermos I was looking for when I first arrived.

So there's that! YOU GUYS I HAVE FRIENDS.

(On a mostly unrelated sidenote, this is how I am apparently going to a party on Tuesday for the BBC tv show Lip Service, which is like The L Word but set in Glasgow. It's pretty terrible- seriously, check it out. LUYD has been asked to be there to do a DJ set, as they are a "staple of Glasgow's lesbian scene"... I'm starting to get involved with promotional stuff like flyering, so I'm apparently going with them. You guys, these are my friends!)

Get off the Internet! I'll meet you in the street (ii)

So I bet you are all waiting with bated breath to find out if I was severely accosted, etc this weekend. SPOILER ALERT: I was not. TAKE THAT 1997! (if you are confused, go back one post.)

Both of the girls I met were wonderful people and we're arranging a second meet up. Like, it's scary at first (how are we going to recognize each other IF WE HAVE NEVER SEEN EACH OTHER? Should we exchange phone numbers? You already have my real name. WHAT IF YOU KIDNAP & RAPE ME) but basically, meeting people from the internet is inherently awkward. How can it not be? You know their personality and things about them, and you obviously have things in common, but a lot of it was really first-date-like. So what do you do? How long have you been in Glasgow for? TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF. Except you don't need to do all the awkward subtleties of trying to impress the other party because you effectively already know each other. It's really strange, but cool to put a face to the name.

But you know what, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing them again. And, If anything, I keep getting better and better at introducing myself to people over the span of ~1hr. (Frequently I meet with people for about an hour or so via Grad School Networking - tomorrow I am meeting a girl from Glasgow Uni's Gaelic & Celtic languages department for coffee; we're doing some similar research.) Can I put this under "communicates effectively" on my resume?

Get off the Internet! I'll meet you in the street

Do you guys remember how, way back in 1998, it was determined that if you used your real name on the internet or you gave out your email address to strangers, someone would TRACK YOU DOWN AND RAPE YOU?

Only 12 years later I am using my real name on the internet with much consistency - between my column (now mostly defunct), my twitter account and my email address (yes that is almost my full legal name!)

This weekend I am meeting people from the internet! In real life! I need to back up a little bit.

I read a website called Autostraddle, which you should check out if you like a lot of the same things I do. Anyway, they ran an article about meeting other lgbtq girls, which rapidly became a Meet Other Autostraddle Readers sort of situation. (I followed their advice and saw JD Samson of Le Tigre fame play a show last night with her new band MEN, and met some gays there. So far so good! Also can we pause to discuss how I was sharing airspace with JD Samson.


...


continuing on, now.)

This was great and actually kind of beautifully timed. I've been here long enough that I'm ready to start feeling comfortable Being A Gay Here, but I have to find them first. (My American gaydar keeps getting thrown off by straight men who are clearly rocking some gender ambiguous alternative lifestyle haircuts, sunglasses, and tight pants.) Even though this is obviously a pretty queer city, I'm not quite ready to go myself to a gay bar. I live near a whole bunch of them, but they're kind of intimidating and mostly full of gay men. I'm brave but not that brave!

But I am e-brave, and it would be awesome to have some gay friends who clearly are intelligent/interesting. And besides, people meet on the internet all the time, through online dating sites, Craigslist, "tweet ups" and other such things. So I added my email address, saying that I had just moved here and don't know any gays ... and got a few emails from some other Autostraddle readers in Scotland - a few in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, all of whom were very friendly people!

And so today I am meeting one person for coffee and another one on Sunday for brunch/coffee. 2010 YOU GUYS. The Internet is truly a magical place - between email, facebook, skype, twitter, blogs etc etc etc it is bringing us all closer together.

but if you never hear back from me again i was probably violently kidnapped & raped via 1997. So we still run that risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

and you in your autumn sweater

It's starting to feel like autumn around here, which is exciting! Previously it was just raining and being warm a lot. Now it is cold and raining! No, just kidding, we've been having some really sunny days lately.

I really like Glasgow a lot - I can see myself being here for a long time, I think - but for now I live in the city centre, where there are no trees. No, that's a lie, I can see a couple trees on my way to my office, but it's not the same as a Proper New England Fall. (Glasgow Green, where I took this picture, is a park about 10 minutes away from where I live. Sometimes I go over to Glasgow University and get jealous of the beautiful West End of Glasgow, complete with trees everywhere.)

I've lived in New England for 22 years, and while I think I am pretty much over homesickness at this point, but I do find myself being surprisingly homesick for New England fall. I think living in New England ruins autumn everywhere else for you.

Help, I'm Alive!: A One-Month Retrospective

[editor's note: Two years ago in late July, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland for a weekend, with food poisoning. Today I am back there on a hike with some Germans, hopefully without food poisoning. Through the magic of the internet and auto-posting, I present the following.]

You guys, I have been in Glasgow for a month! I can't believe it's been a month already. Things are going so, so well - this blog has sort of shown the ups and downs of the first few weeks of moving to a new country by myself, but I definitely feel like each day is better than the last. There's a lot of things that I am still working out - like what side of the street and which side of the stairs to walk on. (This is more complicated than you'd expect.) Sometimes I still have difficulties figuring out where I would go to buy things - we don't have Wal-Mart or Target or CVS here - but this is getting better. Some days I wake up and just really want to see something instantly recognizably American, like peanut butter and jelly or the word "eggplant", and some days I want be able to talk to someone from home and not have to wait for 7pm to be able to do so. But moving to a new place by yourself is an emotional rollercoaster, let alone a new country or a new continent! I think I am doing very well. I have tentative friends! It's all very exciting.

It's an amazing opportunity to be here, and even more of an amazing opportunity to be working with the man who invented my field in addition to meeting all these other important linguists and literary people across three institutions (Strathclyde, Glasgow University, the University of Edinburgh). I am very, very lucky. There's no second-guessing crossing an ocean to do something and the more I am getting into what I am actually doing the more I am absolutely certain this is was absolutely 100% the right choice for me. I love all the work I am doing, and the people around me are so passionate about their work, so deeply involved that I can't imagine them doing anything else. I've been in contact with all these important linguistics people - the other day I met the woman who headed the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. (No big deal or anything...only one of my life goals achieved! She was so interested in what I had done and what I am doing here.) Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde are already both aggressively courting me for their PhD program next year; I just want to tell them to cool off a little bit!

I can't believe this is my life. I am so, so lucky.

I definitely still feel like I have a giant American flag tattooed on my forehead, but with every day I feel more integrated into Scottish life. Maybe soon I will start talking with a Scottish accent. (Or at least write a blog post about it, as I keep meaning to.) Or maybe that will just have to wait for month two...

through the roof n underground

This is the the Glasgow Underground, affectionately nicknamed The Clockwork Orange, as it goes in a circle every 8 minutes. It is wildly efficient, and it has the added bonus of BEING IMPOSSIBLE TO MESS UP BECAUSE IT IS A CIRCLE.

As a non-city person I was nervous about having to learn a whole new train cycle. I get the T in Boston, it's easy enough, but it took me a long time to figure out. I am not very...directionally oriented, you could say; I get lost while driving around my hometown. As you can imagine the idea of learning a new train schedule and which train goes where and how long it will take was incredibly daunting.

When I first arrived I was told that I would be going to Glasgow University sometimes and I would have to take the underground, and I sort of nodded and said "Yes", hoping that it wouldn't be anything complicated. You can imagine how happy I was when I looked at the following map:

I only have to go a few stops in one direction - from Buchanan St to Hillhead. Going back is just as easy! I sort of alternate my time between Strathclyde and Glasgow Uni, so I'm getting more and more comfortable with it. (Glasgow is a walking city - you could definitely walk from one end to the other in under an hour - but the underground is much more efficient sometimes.)

What is hard about the underground, however, is not knowing the etiquette for riding the trains. Do I make eye contact or should I study my shoes? Should I smile at the cute girl who just got on? I know in France, you would never make eye contact on the metro, but in Boston it's kind of okay. Usually I just sort of read the newspaper over the shoulder of whoever is next to me.

everything in its right place

My office is in this building. It is one of the ugliest, out-of-place buildings I think I have ever been in.

My office is on the 7th floor and from it I can see all the way past the West End from my desk. It's an amazing view.

Tonight I went up to the 14th floor and saw all of the city as the sun set and night fell - it was beautiful. I thought to myself, "I live here. This is my city."

This is the first time I've truly felt like it's not some sort of weird interim thing - I really am here, and this is really what I am doing. I have worked so hard to be here, and being here finally feels absolutely right.