#friendscomingover

Tuesday, 6th November:

My visitors came and went – so now I am once again all alone in my flat listening to Gabrielle Aplin. I said goodbye to them at the airport about an hour ago; and I think they should land in about an hour. Seems like this is a good moment, to start writing about their visit.

Two of my friends arrived last Tuesday, and ever since then we had a fully packed schedule. They accompanied me to my different social activities, such as the language café on Tuesday and the medieval society on Saturday, but we also went on some trips together: to Stirling and to Edinburgh.

We went to Stirling on Wednesday; a rather cold day that made each of us freeze a bit too much. We looked at the castle there, however. It started good, directly with the free tour around the castle. They guide was really enthusiastic and included several jokes in his tour, so you didn’t notice that time passed. Stirling was one of the residences of the Scottish kings and queens, and therefore has a palace and high chairs for the royalty. I can proudly admit, that I convinced the guys to take some pictures sitting on them.

The rest of Stirling was not bad either. It is as very old town (at least the centre still keeps that charm), and since the castle sits on top of the hill there, you walk through the whole of the cobblestone allies to get to it. We didn’t have time, sadly, to look at the Stirling bridge, which was defended in an epic battle by the Scots. After we had looked at the castle, we needed food (and warmth), and after our dinner, it was too dark, and we were too tired (and still too cold) to look around further.

This was also the reason, why we didn’t really do anything Halloweeny on that night. We were just way too tired, and one of us had to finish his uni work, so we just spend some time chatting and inventing journalistic entries.

On Thursday, the guys went out of the city for a hike near Loch Lomond. I spent the day writing and studying and only met up with them in the evening. We went to a nerdfest (I had heard about it through medieval) so we creatively created some last minute costumes and went to my university, doing some social stuff; but we left at around eleven ‘cause the music was too loud. Instead of partying we just talked to each other (maybe a bit too long).

On Friday, the guys accompanied me to university. The talk with my professor (that I mentioned in a blog post I didn’t upload ^^) went well and we had some time to look at Glasgow as well. But I kind of had a mental issue thing on Friday, thinking I messed up my essays way too much, overthinking anything really, to be honest and completely losing all hope and self-confidence. My friend read my essays again, even though he had done it once before already, helping me fix all the still existing problems. I uploaded that shit there and then, because it was taking too much of my nerves. They guys made sure, I laughed about my problems away afterwards.

Saturday started with a nice sleep in and a huge American breakfast (with loads of marble syrup and Nutella). In a second hand shop the guys saw the luxury of being able to by two DVDs for just a pound for the first time and we spend ages looking at everything offered. We still had time for medieval afterwards, but sadly it was raining the whole day, so the guys could not try out fighting. They did get to see, however, what different weapons the society has and got at least to wield a wooden sword a bit.

Our Sunday was rather full again, since we went to Edinburgh and wanted to get all the important tourist attractions possible. We looked at the castle (and found that the castle in Stirling was more impressive, maybe), and got to see Mary Kings Close, an old alleyway and their different rooms within the houses there. We also got to shop some touristy things (and I might have just bought the first Christmas present). The weather was amazing, so we got to take gorgeous pictures of Edinburgh city. I am not so sure, however, whether I have good pictures myself… most of the time I left the photography to my skilled friend.

On Monday we all agreed that we had done maybe a bit too much and rested not enough. We went for a relaxing walk along the Kelvin and into the Botanical garden and cooked at my place then, which worked better than I had expected, even though it was three of us and just this tiny kitchen space. I had to leave to uni before their food was done though, so I got the luxury of them doing my dishes. We also had a look at the fireworks in Glasgow Greens that started the Christmas season, but we more confounded about the whole thing than impressed. It was a lot more crowded than I would have expected though, kind of like at the Japantag in Düsseldorf; but there was oversteered music during the fireworks and overall it was not done with much love, we thought.

Well, today, I left them at the airport; and I have to say my room really feels way too big without them. I don’t really know what to do with myself now; no touristy things to plan and no one that laughs at my bad jokes. But luckily, I got amazing friends here as well: one of them just offered to meet up, if I am feeling lonely, even before the language café at five. So, I get to get some company as soon as possible.

Thank God for my friends (and let them land safely).

Mary

*lyrics by the Beatles “With a little help from my friends”