It’s that time of year again, when it’s good and proper to look back on what happened in the previous 12 months and smugly congratulate yourself for how awesome a year you gave yourself. It may have been a bit of a shite year if you care about your celebrities being alive, and we may have taken a step closer to total global sociopolitical chaos… but … Continue reading Year in Review: 2016
The Irish do get around, don’t they? Lucky for the rest of the world that they do, because it means we’re all allowed to get extra drunk once a year when they celebrate the day of their patron saint. This is cultural appropriation at its most useful, and the larger the Irish population is in a city, the more frivolous the day will be. Good thing … Continue reading Getting Chirish
The one time I forgot to check the weather forecast was the time Chicago experienced its 5th heaviest snow-dump of all time. OF ALL TIME. It began snowing at about 8pm on Saturday. I was in a dive bar in Ukrainian Village on a date of the romantic sort, and was informed by the establishment’s owner, as he showered us with free cheese puffs, that blizzard-warning nights are always … Continue reading #Superbowl #Snowday
I remember watching Friends and other apartment-based American sitcoms as a youth and being slightly sceptical of the premise that there were all these apartment buildings in big cities filled with people that actually hung out with each other. I remember moving into my first landlord-rented apartment in 2010 and, in the two years I lived there, having a grand total of zero instances of communication with any of … Continue reading Tales from the Castle
Chicago is definitely a city of music. I’ve been here a couple months now, and am just getting started exploring the music scene. Here’s what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks: November 7th – Frontier Ruckus @ Subterranean A very good friend of mine (who I met in Maastricht when we did the same Masters degree and lived in the same building) has … Continue reading Chicago Live
At the end of my last post, I was somewhere in up-state Wisconsin on a coach that was 4 hours behind schedule with a US phone that had run out of battery and a UK phone that was about to follow suit, knowing that, even if everything from now on went to plan, I was going to be dropped at a bus station approximately 2 miles … Continue reading A Wausau Wedding
It’s my Birthday. Time to throw a party. Theme? 90s Eurodance. Naturally. In my 10 months in Maastricht so far, I seemed to have garnered quite a reputation for my frivolity skills. This was confirmed last week when I received the coveted “Party Animal” award at the final International dinner piss-up. Then, like it does every year, my birthday came around and, having a lot to prove … Continue reading Party to end all Parties.
Having spent 6 months in the Netherlands so far, I can tell you with a fair amount of conviction that the Dutch are not the most reserved people you will encounter. This is generally. You know, average everyday dutchness… the type that occurs about 360 days a year. Of the 5 days not included in this figure one is Queen’s day, where everybody dresses from … Continue reading Carnaval Madness!
It seems like I had barely arrived back home from Maastricht when I was back at the airport again boarding another flight to another European airport. With another joyous layover at Heathrow Terminal 5. My parents have rented an apartment in Nice for the festive season and we’re all going over to see if the French are any good at doing Christmas. I have high hopes. Even though I moved … Continue reading A Riviera Christmas
So our program, and we shall be known from this post onwards as MPP (Master of Public Policy), is very nationally diverse. From about 100 students in total, there are about 45 different nationalities represented. To celebrate this diversity, and so that we can all get to know a bit about each others’ cultures, there will be “international dinners” held sporadically throughout the year, where we … Continue reading First International Dinner
the lost scot 