The wrong potatoes and the Big Surprise

Monday the 29th of November was the start of our last week of school at the Glasgow University. We started of with a two day lab that Monday and Tuesday. The aim was “Practical and theoretical exercise employing the oxygen electrode to study electron transport (respiration) and oxidative phosphorylation in isolated mitochondria.”. This basically means that you use a weird machine to measure the amount of oxygen that mitochondria use. Mitochondria are little machineries in your cells that produce energy (adenosine triphosphate, ATP) by consuming oxygen. Multiple chemicals are part of this process and by adding or removing them, you should see the change in oxygen consumption. Well, that was the theory. For the first year they used pulverized baby potatoes. Students in former years used rat liver, but that was a bit controversial. The teacher had found an article where they had used baby potatoes which worked perfectly, but unfortunately ours didn't work. He had even bought other potatoes for the next day, but they didn't work either. Probably because they were stored in a freezer before they came to the store, which can damage the mitochondria. On Tuesday afternoon we were given the results of last year, so we could at least do the calculations for our lab report.

Thursday was pretty stressful. That evening there was the Christmas Ball organised by the International Society, but I also had to hand in my lab report about the Bioinformatics assignment of two weeks before. Fortunately, it didn't require a lot of work anymore, because I had been able to do most of my lab report during the laboratory classes. But I did need to hand it in that day, because the next day I would be flying to the Netherlands to attend the graduation ceremony of Guy. I still wasn't sure if my flight was even going to depart the next day, because of the bad weather conditions. Among other airports, Edinburgh Airport had been closed that week.

The Christmas Ball was fun. It was nice to hang out with our friends and to wear my new dress. I didn't think the food was very good, but the chocolate dessert was ok. Upstairs where we had dinner was very cold in only my dress, but fortunately it was warm downstairs where we danced after our dinner.

That night I didn't sleep very well. I was pretty nervous about travelling on my own, but in particularly if I would be able to get to the Netherlands at all. I also had to think of an excuse to tell Guy in the morning why I had to leave so early, since I usually talk to him via Skype in the morning. (I told him I wanted to print my lab report that morning.)

Friday was a real disaster. I took the bus to Central Station where my cheap CrossCountry train would depart to Edinburgh at 9am. When I wanted to buy my ticket at the station, the machine wouldn't take my debit card or cash, so I asked a member of staff if I could give him the money and he would get me the ticket. He then told me that CrossCountry wasn't going anywere that day because of the snow. Aahhh!! So now I had 20 minutes to run through the snow to the other train station in Glasgow: Queen Street Station.

When arrived at Queen Street out of breath, the ticket machine wouldn't take my cash. I then had to wait in the queue to buy a ticket at the ticket desk. When I was finally in the train to Glasgow it departed with already 10 minutes delay and it totally stopped just outside of Glasgow (Croy station). Our train was fine, but the train ahead of us on the track had broken down and needed to be fixed or pulled away. I could already add at least 30 minutes delay to my schedule now. Fortunately, I immediately had a bus from Edinburgh Waverly to the Airport, but due to the snow it took the bus 10 minutes longer than expected. By the time I arrived at the airport I had 20 minutes left to let them check my hand luggage (I had already checked-in online and didn't have a suitcase). Unfortunately, the queue was very long and halfway in the queue I had two minutes left before my gate would close and I started to panic and phoned my dad and told him I didn't know what to do anymore and that I would never make it to the plane. He said that should go and try if I could go to the beginning of the queue, explain them my situation and see if they would immediately check my hand luggage and they did! I was so happy! I ran of to see at which gate I needed to be, but the display with departing flights didn't show a gate yet and told me that there would be more information 20 minutes later. This message changed into: more information at 13:00 (1,5 hour later than planned), but still no information at 1pm. I asked a member of staff where my gate could possible be and she told me that RyanAir always departs from particular gates so I went to the gates and waited. Finally, there was a sign that the gate was open and that we could board. Since I was already at the right gate I was one of the first persons to board and was able to choose a seat next to a window (yay!). We now had two hours of delay already, but if my flight would depart at that moment, the parents of Guy would pick me up from Weeze Airport and I would still be in time for the graduation ceremony. The crew said we needed to take our seat as quickly as possible, so we could depart immediately. When (almost) everyone had boarded, they found out that a few persons were missing, but that their luggage was already on the plane. It took them an hour to get the luggage of these persons out. By this time the parents of Guy weren't waiting for me in Weeze anymore, because else they would miss the ceremony as well. The flight itself went ok and at a quarter to seven (Dutch time) I finally arrived at Weeze Airport. I had to wait for an other 45 minutes before a shuttle bus would take me from the airport to Nijmegen Central Station, so I had plenty of time to get changed into some nice clothes.

I was so glad when I finally arrived in Nijmegen. The day had been so stressful and I hadn't been sure if I would make it to the Netherlands anyway that day. At the station I put on my high heels instead of my army boots (looks better under a nice dress, although a few people passing by looked a bit weird when I was changing, haha) and finally phoned Guy's dad. What happened next was hilarious. I told him that I had finally arrived in Nijmegen and he said he would give the phone to Guy. I told him it was me and if he was able to guess where I was at that moment. He said he had no idea. When I told him I was at Nijmegen Central Station he responded totally flabbergasted and could only repeat: “Nijmegen?” and then went quiet. When not hearing anything anymore I asked if he was going to pick me up now I was here. There was a very surprised: “Ehh.. Yes. Of course!” and he hung up, while I was still talking about where we were to meet. His reaction and face were wonderful. He couldn't stop smiling the whole weekend and told everyone who asked what I was doing in the Netherlands that I was his greatest graduation gift.

Saturday (4th) we went into town to meet his uncle and aunt since they wanted to congratulate him as well. I had made him promise that he would make me mash pot (stamppot) when I was back in the Netherlands again. Little did he know I would arrive that same week, but he kept his promise.

While walking to a graduation party of one of his friends we couldn't find the place where they kept the party and I already missed Scotland. In Glasgow I would have taken a cab by then. It was nice to see most of his friends again and especially to see their reaction when seeing me, while Guy had told them one day before that I was still in Glasgow.

The next day we left Nijmegen in the morning, so I would at least be on time for the flight. Guy joined me in the shuttle to the airport and we had a nice hot chocolate before I would leave again. I didn't feel really sad leaving him this time, since I would already see him again in two weeks time. The flight back went as planned (although Weeze Airport is very, very small compared to Edinburgh Airport!!). There was some delay with the train back to Glasgow, but that didn't really matter to me, since I didn't need to be in Glasgow on time. When I arrived back at Firhill Court, I was still in time for eating pancakes that my Glasgow friends had made. That evening we were going to have a real 'pakjesavond' to celebrate Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas), which was really great.

Love,
Samantha

-----------------------------------
Photos: http://s1046.photobucket.com/home/MathildeCastelijns/allalbums