Game against St. Andrew's

It's been a while since the last post, huh?

After that weekend in Glasgow, we had to play St. Andrew's AGAIN on Monday. This was however a BUCS game, so it was the universities league. Just the league we've been playing all season. If I remember correctly, St. Andrew's was the first team that Stirling played against in this season, but I wasn't a member of the team  yet, so I missed that one. And apparently, there was a very big difference in the score.

Nobody hits ma Kay and leaves freely...SO WE WON!
Eat that, St Andrew's!

Then again, we played against them on Saturday in Glasgow, and we lost 0-9. However on Monday... oh god, best game of the season. Best game EVER. We played so brilliantly! I couldn't be happier, and prouder of being a part of this team. FINAL RESULT: VICTORY! 5-3!!!! It was an amaaaaaaazing game!
**Edit: I was reminded of some aggressive manouvers that were carried by St. Andrew's. Kayleigh ended up being punched on the cheek and a scratch under her eye, as well as Bethany! Their desperation for winning made them take extreme measures. Girls, learn the lesson: violence won't make you win. Being better and brilliant DOES. However, we could hear their coach saying "This shouldn't be happening, Stirling is shit!" oh well... BUT WE WON! (Although later confessions brought up Kayleigh's mum pointing out that St. Andrew's was supposed to be good. Well... thanks to Kay's mum for the support and confidence, I guess? :p )
Also, I'm remembering now seeing their goalie being sick on Sunday in Glasgow in a LIDL bag. And missing...
Apparently, one of their players also twisted her finger. Like Kay said: "Karma's a bitch". Eat that St. Andrew's.
Forgot to talk about the BRILLIANT REFEREEING that day. GIANNIS was very sad because I hadn't mentioned anything about it when I wrote this post, so GIANNIS told me that he was disappointed and I should write something about GIANNIS' brilliant performance as a ref. Because he read his name 1000 times when I last posted about him reffing, so GIANNIS wanted to see that again.
Right before the game GIANNIS warned me that he would kick me out the game if I complained about anything he did wrong while refereeing, because apparently St. Andrew's coach is super professional. So I told GIANNIS that I would behave properly (LIKE I NEVER DO???) but he also had to do a proper job. So GIANNIS did. He's now very proud and has acquired some weird facebook stickers/emojis of refs. Shouldn't be writing about GIANNIS on my post, this was a bad idea.
(Still, Giannis, dick of the day, just because! :D)

Scorers: Stef (3), Becky and Me (1). And here I wanted to thank Stef for showing up and congratulations and good luck in her Masters in Madrid! It was a big effort for her to make this game, and it was very important for us so we owe her big time. So sincerely THANK YOU, Stef!

The heroes of the day

So after that great game we had to celebrate. We had beaten ST. ANDREW'S! And oh god, do never promise anything before a game...
Me.- "Girls, if we win..."
Kayleigh.- "Paula is staying for a second masters!"
Me.- "Haha, sure! And also, we go out to celebrate and DRINKS ARE ON ME!"

Bad idea. We won. So we had to celebrate. So we went to a bar-restaurant close to my place called "The Meadow Park" and... we had a few drinks. We were ECSTATIC so we ordered a bit on a rush and the bartender got one order wrong, he served an extra cocktail. I ordered Cosmopolitan (MY FAVOURITE EVER) and Judy ordered a Sex on the beach (my second favourite) and he served two of those. So I kept the extra one! woohoo! TWO COCKTAILS, why not?
Then I headed to ASH to meet Sergios, Aidan and some friends of his and joined the rest in town. We hit Dusk and OH MAN that was fun!! :D

Also, I want to say thank  you to my Alangrange Bitches for showing up and root for us! You made my evening, and I'm so glad that you attended this game because honestly it was AWESOME and we did best than ever. You are stars!

Pretty short text today but this was so long ago I don't remember many of the details... I'm asking the girls to suggest me ideas about what to write but they being big contributors. Sure, they all DEMANDED me to write a blog about this, so I did, but now... where are the ideas? :p


(I know I should add pictures to this post, but I'm in a hurry  now to do that, so I'll edit and post some tonight! Time for some kettlebells and insanity! WOOP, WOOP!) 

Scottish Student Sports a.k.a Scot unis.

This weekend in Glasgow the SSS was celebrated, so every Scottish University sent their swimmers and waterpolo teams to compete. Except RGU that once again, stood everyone up. So off we the girls were, to have a wonderful weekend and also play some polo :p Unfortunately, the boys couldn't join us for this because they didn't have a team... hopefully next year!

Kay and Mairi as Jasmine. Plenty of them.

It all started on Friday when Kayleigh wanted to get some stuff ready for the Disney themed party we were having that same night. She was dressed as Jasmine (Stirling uni's theme was Aladdin) and wanted some shiny things to wear around her tough, sexy waist. So off to Primark after training, and then on the way back.. her car stars to act funny. Not funny in a "laughing" way, but rather in a "worrying" way and it was supposed to take us to Glasgow! So Kayleigh, who was not stressed+excited already at all, panicked a bit and decided she'd take the train. Luckily we did that trip to Primark so the car would start failing while still in Stirling and not on our way there...but oh what a fun way to start this amazing weekend!
*EDIT*: We just heard that the car died. #RIPMaureen
So we split in other cars, or took the train, and headed off to Glasgow. We met at the Blue Sky Hostel, which sounded very promising, right? Well, we were lucky, sharing a 12 bed room only for the girls in the polo team, but swimmers were not that lucky...and had to share with some other strangers.

We were having too much fun

We all started getting ready to partyyyyy at 7 pm. Apparently, we were meant to meet the rest of the teams at 11... quite a long pre-drinks round, huh? So you can imagine how we all were when he hit the union with the rest of the people. Our costumes were very cool, we had plenty of Jasmines (including the swimmers), 3 Aladdins, one Jaffar, two tigers, two genies... Some of the costumes were full of effort, not necessarily fancy, but they looked very cool. I personally loved Megan's Yago, it was so genuine! And of course Katie 'Titanic' G's smurf. No, wait, she was as genie as well. She painted her whole body in blue, completely. She needed some help for...some body parts, but that's something you readers don't need to know. Although we had graphic evidences of that process...
*EDIT* After painting ourselves in blue, Katie's costume has blue stains. Our waterpolo caps have blue stains. The bedsheets we used had blue stains. Blue, blue everywhere, I'm not gonna use bodypainting in a long, long while.

Genie and Yago

Well, so before going to the union, the swimmers joined us in our room and I was being introduced to people I had never met or heard of and THEY KNEW MY NAME. What the hell? I wasn't sure if that was flattering or offensive, so I decided to change my name for the night and be FRIEDA. But the swimmer boys called me Frodo all night long. People have tended to change my name to male name version lately: Paula>Paul, Frieda>Frodo. Is it a suggestion? Anyway, I'll just take it as a compliment. Not sure how, but I will.

Our tigers

Just for you to guess how we all were at that point, some of the girls were kicked out
of the place (two of them. K&K, we'll keep them in anonimity, although
I've mentioned them already before :p) but they snuck back in! They are so brilliant... One of them just pretended not to be drunk, just "sleepy because this is so boring" and said that she was driving that night and needed to get her car keys. The other one was kicked out for dancing on the stage, and was so honest that confessed she was drunk, yeah, but only because "she hadn't drunk in such a long time..." #BANTER
Then my friend Fran joined us, yes! And I then I remember I fell a lot of times. I am clumsy, and I fall/hit objects accidentally very often. (Specially in FUBAR when wearing heels) but that night... oh god. Then I woke up with bruises all over my legs AND ARMS, and we hadn't played a game yet... That said a lot about my night, I guess.
So everybody went home, I remained alone with Fran and went to take a taxi when they closed the place. On the way, I FOUND 10 POUNDS ON THE GROUND! So free taxi for me! Woohoooo!!
I got to the hostel and didn't even removed the paint on my face, I think...

The following day YES! Waterpolo! At Tollcross swimming centre in Glasgow. Firstly, Kayleigh and I had to do some table duty for two games, and man, that went terribly... Ever done table duty when drunk? Because I wasn't even sober yet.

Saturday, three games in a day, who could imagine? But we survived, like CHAMPIONS. True, we were also beaten up:
-First game against St. Andrew's: 0-9
-Second game against Edinburgh (their good team): 1-16(Scorer: Paula/Paul/Frieda/Frodo)
-Third game against Dundee: 1-11 (Scorer: Paula/Paul/Frieda/Frodo)


So up to that point, I was the top and only scorer of the team. Which is sad, honestly. Very, very sad, because I'm terrible at shooting, and everyone knows. From 0 to 10, I'd give me a -8 at shooting. But oh well, I got that going for me, which was nice. Also, first two games I was still a bit drunk. I didn't sober up until second game was completely done... very uncomfortable. Ever played a waterpolo game when still drunk? I'm pretty sure some of us did on Saturday :p And still, top scorer! Impressive xD
We spent the rest of the day just watching other games, and there was a very tough one, just like I like! Even with violence, and punching! Okay that I don't like, but the game was so exciting! Glasgow ended up winning to Edinburgh? (I don't really remember the team) but it was very tight. You can see Glasgow is not a very beloved by other teams (apparently they are very dirty and agressive, and that I could tell from what I saw in this game...) so only people cheering for Glasgow were... their team mates. The girls, that is. The rest of all other teams were supporting the other team. That was an exciting and fun game, I must say.

After that exhausting day, I wasn't sure if my eyes were stingy because of chlorine or because of sleepiness, but we had a ball to attend... So we hurried to the hostel to get ready, and OH MY GOD were we stunning. We all looked gorgeous!

BEWARE!!! HOTNESS OVERLOAD

Of course, the story does not just begin calmly and normally. We took a taxi to go to the Hilton and we went TO THE WRONG ONE. There are like 3 Hiltons in the city and we went to the wrong one! It was only a 50/50 chance because the third one was llike 100m away from our hostel and we were told that it wasn't that one. But we did it! We had so much fun at this dinner with freshers' challenges and stuff like that. Even though I'm old and postgraduated, I stepped out and volunteer as a fresher with Judy. We raced for lit candles (that made me have two tequila shots with no hands as a forfait, which btw made Judy RUIN MY BANTER at the bar. Thanks for that), not being allowed to say some word we would not know which one was (ten press ups as forfait) and then a speech mentioning the lack of scores we had in the tournament, but how much we would score that night. That earned me one pound from every one of the girls, even though nobody got the reference or found it funny, we had our laugh. First time in my life that I take part in this freshers' challenge thing, AND LAST ONE.
*EDIT* There were guys there wearing kilts. THEY WERE ACTUALLY WEARING KILTS. So Scottish. I have seen men wearing them at weddings and stuff, but I didn't expect boys to wear them in an event like this. It was so cool! I had to ask for a picture.
Conversation went literally like "Hi, I'm from Spain and I find amazing that you guys are wearing kilts. Can I take a picture?" And they did :D 

After that yummy meal at the Hilton some of us went to a club called Sanctuary. Music was not very good at first (for a long while) so after that, when they started to play decent music, I was a bit "meh" and not very motivated anymore. ***But motivated enough to creep out the goalie from the Edinburgh team by staring at him all night. Just Frodo keeping it classy!*** (Learnt the following day that Kayleigh and Katie creeped him out before me telling him that he was the best-looking goalie there...)
Also, that place was okay, but I think we've got too used to nights out in Stirling... and that's sad xD There were some kind of people that wouldn't go unseen, and that you wouldn't bump into in Stirling when in our nights out. That felt weird. And also, too many creeps (besides me).
When we had to go back to the hostel (one more taxi, woohooo!) it was raining like crazy. Weird! Rain in Glasgow? That's odd. And of course, NO TAXIS AVAILABLE. Because if there's something certain about Glasgow it's their TAXI SHORTAGE. If you want to be rich, start up a taxi company in Glasgow. We were trying to call with two phones to two different companies, nobody would pick up... But we eventually made it!

Second day of waterpolo, at least this one was not drunk day for me (but it was hangover for some :p). We played against Aberdeen, a team we've played before and won and drew in each of the games, and also brought up a big issue with Lewis the coach, because he got so angry for the tie in the second game! I still keep saying that we were lucky it was just a tie, because gosh, that game went terribly. (I can't believe I didn't blog about it!). We should've won, we were pretty strong but we just ended in 6-3, which is not bad either, but I felt terrible for missing a penalty. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE MAKE ME TAKE PENALTIES, you know I'm terrible at shooting! NEVER AGAIN! But I was luckily not Dick of the Day for that, although I know I deserved it.
I didn't score in this game, but Kayleigh, Bethany and Jeanne (woohoo!) did. I was still top scorer of the weekend. What the hell, girls? Kayleigh, you hit too many posts and you know it!
The rest of our free time that day, I spent it yelling things in Spanish at the goalie in Edinburgh's team (in case I hadn't scared him off just yet). That is "¡ME VUELVES LOCA, GOALIE!" or "¡EMPÁCHAME!" Just like Annie said: "I've never heard of anyone who got YELLING working for them". Well, no, Annie, but I tried to be a pioneer! (Like I hadn't had an embarrassing moment the night before with my great speech...)

(Wo)Man of the weekend went for Connie for her ABSOLUTELY excellent performance as a goalie. We lacked our official goalkeeper, and Connie took her place and she didn't disappoint us.
Dick of the weekend goes for JUDY for ruining my BANTER on Saturday night, and for snoring and coughing like crazy all night long in a shared room with 10 more people. Thanks for that, Judy! Wonderful, sweet night :D (She claims on facebook that we voted for her because of a given-away penalty, but I'm not even sure that actually happenned...). Poor Amy had such a tough nigh, she was sleeping in same bunk as Judy and you could hear her saying "the whole bed is shaking!!!". Tough night.

After that, we went to a pub for some lunch and drinks together (I finally had my first sip of IRN BRU ever!!!) and headed off to Stirling. Some of us had to take the train, and to get to the train station, we had to take a taxi. This was a very benefitial weekend for taxi companies, I believe. It only took the taxi 50 minute to get to us! I'M TELLING YOU, START UP A TAXI COMPANY IN GLASGOW! SUCCESS IS GUARANTEED!

Final results:
Women's winner team: Edinburgh
Men's winner team: Aberdeen (after a tough, tough, tough game against Glasgow, but once again, Aberdeen had everyone rooting for them! I find that so funny...)


So after this weekend, all I can say is thank you to everyone who was there. Thanks to the girls, thanks to Lewis for his great coaching and thanks to everyone who participated in this super fun weekend! I'm sorry if I can't be any more critical about our games, but I genuinely think we did pretty well, and I enjoyed so much that I can only say good things.


Last home game tonight against St. Andrews. Wish us all best of luck! Also, there will be a blog about that game (I guess) and for the game on Thursday against RGU, which is the last of the season... my last game with Stirling uni :( So there will be plenty of waterpolo in the blog!


And here's a picture of me on Saturday night. Just because :D

Home game against GLASGOW!

Oh my, that was a fun game!

But first, let me say CONGRATULATIONS to the guys for their victory today against RGU!!! I hope you celebrate like crazy tonight, you deserve it! That's the perfect way to close the season: with a victory! You lads are great :D 

And now... TO THE GIRLS!
Game last Monday  was against Glasgow uni. Apparently, they were in 2nd place in the classification...but not anymore. In the away game, we lost terribly... (not by 30, that's for sure! Regardless what other people say) but also because if I remember correctly, only me and Bethany were the experienced ones, and the newbies hadn't had that much of practise yet. But you should've seen them on Monday! They did so well!
Glasgow started the game being ahead by two goals. Two GIVEN goals, thanks to our president and referee at the game: Giannis. He insists that they were legit goals but we all disagree... Then many other things he did wrong. These Greek people, what's wrong with them! :p
First two quarters were alright, defence was tight and harsh, but still some of their shots were lucky, so they kept scoring...
Third quarter they were knackered, couldn't swim that much and then last quarter... THERE WE WERE!! Fit as hell, swimming back and forth and shortening the difference in the score. We were staaaars!!!

Newbies dared to play hard, and fight for the ball. Hence Jeanne was called for Man of the Match. A practice in this team that I had never heard of, same as Dick of the Day. That title went to (Giannis unofficially, for his shitty refing :p ) KTG, aka Katie 'titanic' G. Reason: she was "defending" in 6, 2m away from the goal and all of a sudden... she was just diving! SINKING even! So of course, offender got the ball, shot... scored. KT denies the whole story, Kayleigh tries to excuse her, but Emma the goalie is on my side. And she's the goalie, so... she knows what happened.

Well, it sounds like we did all perfectly and obviously, it wasn't like that. We also made some mistakes, focused too much on the hole man and we were trying to fill that space so it became too crowded... and nothing could be done. Regarding technique issues, such as passing and such, some aspects can be improved, and they will be!

All in all, this game was our best game of the season. We lost 6-11, but we blame it a bit on one of the referees (last time I mention it here, I promise!) but considering how we ended the away game, this result is very positive and motivating. It's a pity that the season is about to end for us as well... only one more home game on Monday and last one on March 12th!

I've always been proud and happy to be part of this wonderful team, but after this game I feel even fortunate for having the chance to play my favourite sport with so outstanding people, especially these girls. They worked hard, they give their best and they are persistant, and here are the results. I'm pretty sure that next year will be their year. But sentimentalism is left for the last game of the season, enough of that by now!

There's only a couple of things to say:
#staysexyStirling #bleedgreen

Let it snow, let it snow...LET IT SNOOOOOOOOOW!!!!

Definetely, I'm made for the cold weather.
Yes, I went to Morocco last week for a few days, and I loved the sun. And yes, I love a good suntan. And yes, I like warm weather at home. But, oh boy, I love cold. I think I only like it when I know there's gonna be summer afterwards, eventually. Also, I cope with cold better than I do with hot weather. Warmth can drive me crazy and make me irascible (more than normal...). I love snuggling up in cold days and try to feel warm... although my feet and hands are always cold (You know what they say: "cold hands...warm heart!") and other people normally don't like that. Weirdos...
Oh, well, when I chose Iceland as my ERASMUS I did it because of the climate (among other reasons). Then I realised that it was a bit too much. First year was fine, after that it became a bit harder to deal with, but I'll talk about this in a later post.

Last few weeks, I was feeling down for how quickly this year is passing by (MARCH ALREADY, WHAT THE HELL!!!) and I hadn't had a proper winter... but it's finally here! It's snowing in Scotland! Well, it had snowed before, but it was not as much as this. And this is not much. It's not much even for Spain (it doesn't snow very often in Madrid/Talavera, but when it does... it does snow heavily). But of course, this is nothing compared to Iceland. Surprisingly, I was SO EXCITED to see the snow. WHY?? I don't know. But it was beautiful! And I felt so conforted for some reason I don't know...  I guess I just feel comfortable in colder weather. Also, I might find it stressful to see that good weather is approaching, which means summer, which means END OF THE SEMESTER, etc, etc. I definetely have to get over the fact that this is going to end eventually!

But now, off with some pictures:

This is on the way out of the swimming pool. Jeanne was probably getting annoyed by me taking pictures like crazy: "you are like a Chinese! Haven't you ever seen snow?" Well... yeah, but it's been so long!

 Look at the sign, I can't even read through the snow! It's really impresive considering it's Scotland... I guess :p 

 There's a loch at the end of that path. It's my favourite view in the whole campus, and it looks extra beautiful now with all the snow around.

 Well, this is also a very nice view, also in sunny days. I'll show pictures of the same place in a good day, some time. Look at all that lights on in the library, people were probably stuck in there just so they wouldn't deal with the "snow-storm". 

And this is apparently Narnia. I would say that it's Winterfell, but I've found out that not many people would get that reference. WHO DOESN'T WATCH GAME OF THRONES? What the... 








But I'll show you how it feels like in Iceland. I insist, I don't really miss ICELANDIC WINTER, because it's eeeeeeeeendless. But I missed winter, and I missed the snow.




So these are the stairs to the place I lived in my first year. Imagine getting home after a night out, wearing your fancy heels...and having to face this. I can tell you: NOT NICE. And of course, countless times I fell down those stairs because of the freaking snow. The most fun is when it snows, and then it rains, but not enough for the snow to go away. But it still melts, and then during the night it freezes... so it becomes ice. And the streets are covered in thick ice, for weeks. And you have to walk on that. I've probably fell many times when that happened, but I don't even want to remember! I hate being (cutely) clumsy :p

And this is REYKJAVÍK city centre. That's all of it, there's nothing else!
Nah, I'm joking. But just. And this is in a good day, with not a lot of snow. It can be worse (or better) than that.












 This is just a nice photo of me skiing in Bláfjöll which I wanted to show off. I also miss being able to go skiing some time. I might have been able to go skiing in Scotland, but not free time or budget for it... So I'll just be happy browsing through my pictures :p


And that's my rambling about the snow. Writing that word so many times now makes it sound weird. "Snow, snow, snow, snow".
Although, HEY, I haven't shown you my favourite kind of snow! :D

Jejejejeje. Jejejejejeje. JEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJE.
(In case you don't get it... his name is Jon Snow).

After all this thinking, I've reached the conclusion that even though I feel like I want to be a Lannister (in some ways) I'm just meant to be a Stark! Not bad anyway :p (Aaaaaaaaaand end of the references to Game of Thrones!).

We've played a match against Glasgow today. It was great, even though we lost. But I might write some more in a different post some other day. And also about Marrakech. TWO texts about that. So many things to write about, and so little time!