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