Last week, Timshead posted a photo-blog challenge: take pictures of things you see every morning. Now, this is a cooler challenge than it seems and here’s why. You know how sometimes, when you get into the groove of things, you start to wonder if you are the only one for whom day-to-day is so…predictable? Even I feel this way and I’m living for the first time in another country, across an ocean from my home. My newness to Scotland is still alive in me and everyday is still refreshing to behold, but there are also those elements of sameness, of being “settled in.”
Looking at everyone’s photo-blog challenge, at the quiet parts of their life–their teapots, their slushy commutes, their fart-ridden sleeping dogs–I was comforted to see that I was not the only one who wakes to sameness everyday. Morning routines are universal, I think. Or the want for them is, anyhow. Because us humans need to ease into things, don’t we? We create patterns for the morning that ensure we live to see afternoon. Pictures of my patterns are below.
six o’Clock in the mornin’/you’re the last to hear the warnin’/you been tryin’ to throw your arms around the world…
My day starts with me waking 5-10 minutes before my radio alarm, set to BBC, is set to go off. I feel around for my glasses on the bedside table, turn the alarm off before it wakes Shaun unnecessarily, and hit the shower before the upstairs neighbor runs her faucet, causing my water to go cold.
After I’m showered and dressed, I start to brew the coffee. While it’s steeping, I carry forth the biggest, most annoying chore of my day: blow-drying my hair. While I like my shiny, thick locks, they are a bitch to tame. Left to its own devices, my hair is wavy, frizzy, and insane looking. With a little patience and a round brush, most days it is voluptuous and a pleasure to wear on my head. I do hate blow-drying, though. I can’t believe I do it for 10 vapid minutes each day.
Next it’s makeup time. It’s as vapid as the blow dry time, but it only takes two or three minutes tops. Cover up my purple Romanian eye circles with a makeup wand, add some power, a wee touch of blush, chap stick, and I’m good to go.
Now it’s time for coffee and breakfast. I like granola with yogurt and fruit or oatmeal with chunky peanut butter stirred in. Yummy.
Grab my lunch, find my keys, kiss Shaun’s sleeping cheek goodbye, and off to the subway. The subway here in Glasgow is nicknamed the Clockwork Orange because it goes in a circle and is orange. And because Glasgow is hip like that.
I get off in city centre and am faced almost immediately with my favorite piece of graffiti in the city. In case you can’t tell, it’s a silhouette of a police officer with a white, weird baby blob monster hugging his legs.
Next, I head to the itty-bitty lane that my workplace, The Lighthouse, is located on.
And in the doors I go at 9 am on the dot. It’s so dark becuase of the before mentioned itty-bitty lane; we are cast in dark shadow most of the day.
So that’s my mornings, folks. While I’m at it, here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving party last weekend. I wish I had more pictures, but it was a little tight space-wise and it’s hard to play photographer and hostess. My friend Mara took a lot of photos–one cute one of all of us girlfriends–that I’m hoping she’ll send my way.
Everyone had a great time–conversation was flowing and the mood was top notch. And you know what? I’m not a bad cook, man! This is probably the most surprising thing I’ve learned about myself in my short time as an adult so far. I also got to tell everyone the story of Thanksgiving, which was fun because I gave them both the Howard Zinn version (aka The Truth) and the gussied up propaganda version that Americans learned in school. (And for the record, I think students would LOVE learning about the colonists if they knew that they resorted to cannibalism and eating dead bodies and shit before the Native Americans taught them how to grown corn. The kids at the party certainly seemed to like it.) Everyone seemed to get a kick out of it. 
Fika and Mahmoona
Shaun, Osvaldo, Nadia, Mara, and Danyaal
Lubnia and kiddies (the older one is hers and the younger one is Mahmoona’s)
Food!
It felt good to throw a Thanksgiving party for these people. Because my gratitude to them–the wives especially–is endless. We all helped each other settle in, we formed a community, we learned about each other’s cultures, we vented, we rejoiced, and we understood one another. Moving away from your country is exciting and fabulous and I recommend it to absolutely everyone. But it can be tiring to do the smallest things. For me it was understanding a foreign washing machine. For them it was understanding a foreign language. But the bond is there, nonetheless. And I am so, so thankful for it.
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As dorky as it sounds, the photo blog challenge motivated me to take an active interest in my groggy Monday morning (that’s when I took the pictures). What got you out of bed on Monday?
