So yeah, I got to Glasgow Thursday afternoon. Best thing about Glasgow: I had a hotel room!! It was quite a nice change from the hostels, and actually a pretty nice and big room, considering it was only 25 pounds per night. Bad thing about Glasgow: there are a ton of steep hills, atop one of which my hotel sat. Good thing: makes for great views.
Glasgow was very different from what I'd expected. Actually, I'm not really sure what I expected, but I think maybe a mini London? One thing I did not expect was that I would not be able to understand ANYONE. I mean, in England and Northern Ireland it was kind of like, oh teehee, they talk funny, but at least I could understand what they were saying. In Scotland I felt like an idiot pretty much every time I had to talk to anyone, because I almost always would have to ask them to repeat themselves, usually twice. When walking in large crowds I would try to listen to what other people were saying, but I honestly couldn't understand it. I was torn between thinking they were speaking other languages, and thinking that I just can't understand the accent. I think it was the latter. Made me wonder though: did all the Scottish people have trouble understanding me? Or is the American accent so prolific (through TV and stuff) that they don't have trouble with it?
Anyway, Glasgow. The first day I went on a (free!) tour of the Glasgow City Hall, which is pretty amazing. It's nicer than the State House in Columbia, and that's saying something--not only because the State House is nice, but also, it's for a state! Glasgow's is just for a city. The tour guide was talking about St. Mungo (apparently the patron saint of Glasgow) and the "medicals" he had performed, and I stood there thinking, "Medicals? Huh? I guess that's some kind of Scottish thing. Maybe St. Mungo is a patron saint of hospitals" (where did I get this thought? That's right, from Harry Potter and the Mungo's hospital). Um yeah. Took me about 10 minutes to finally realize that she was saying "miracles". She also pronounced "worldwide" with three syllables.
After the tour I walked around Glasgow a little bit to just look at some of the buildings. I went to Glasgow Cathedral, where St. Mungo's tomb is. That was pretty confusing too. My map showed the cathedral as being in a place where it actually isn't, but that was hard to figure out, because there was a church there, plus a hotel called the Cathedral Hotel. Fortunately I found the cathedral (and the oldest house in Glasgow) and also the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. Another good thing about Glasgow: all the public museums are free! Bad thing: the museums aren't that great. The religious museum was mildly cool, but not that exciting. I walked around it for about half an hour, and that was enough. Afterwards I made my way down to Glasgow Green, but the road I walked down looked kind of shady so I opted not to continue. Instead I walked along the River Clyde (most Scottish name ever) and just looked around. All the buildings in Glasgow are so cool! They're all old and stuff, but they're all really different. It's probably the only city I've been to where walking around and looking at buildings could be an actual activity.
See? Cathedral House Hotel!
River Clyde
The next day I managed to find the metro (there's only one line and it has, like, 10 stops) so I could go to some other museums. I went to the Hunterian Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow, which was cool, but I was able to see the entire thing in about an hour (like I said, the museums are kind of lame). The coolest part was the attached recreation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house. Mackintosh was an architect who designed a few famous buildings in Glasgow, as well as several interiors. The house was awesome. Of course it was forbidden to take pictures, and there were guards hovering everywhere so I couldn't sneak any. After the Hunterian I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Again, disappointing. It was pretty much aimed at people between the ages of 10 and 12, although there were a few paintings by actual well-known people. I was able to breeze through that museum pretty fast. In the afternoon I went to the Tenement House, which is a flat inside a former tenement that was occupied by a woman who saved pretty much everything. They've set it up the way she most likely had it, and had an interesting exhibition about what life was probably like for her, complete with pictures, ticket stubs, concert programs, etc. (she really did save everything). That was probably the coolest part of my Glasgow visit. Later on I went back down to Glasgow Green to look around a little bit more, since I found a brochure showing some of the cool stuff there. Luckily I discovered that it's actually quite nice--and no one else goes there! Much better than in London where in the big parks every square inch of space is taken.
University of Glasgow
Forbidden picture inside the Tenement House
So, did I mention that Glaswegians apparently LOVE to shop? There is a huuuge pedestrian mall there, probably the biggest one I've ever seen, complete with at least two malls. I think there were more, but I'm positive there were two. And, of course, since it's Glasgow, the buildings were all amazing. I can't even really remember what stores were there, but I can picture the buildings! Oh, and there was a Nelson Mandela Square?!
Saturday I woke up early and took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, then Edinburgh back down to London. I didn't see much in Edinburgh, but I did see the castle from the train. It looked pretty cool. In London I pretty much had time to go to my hostel, poke around the Portobello Road market for a while (my hostel was in Notting Hill), then go see a ballet at the Royal Opera House. Then I came back and went to bed around 9:15 so I could wake up at 3:15 AM to get my plane back to Germany. I think my roommates just loooved that.
And then I came back. And while waiting for the bus, I ran into Eveline and Tobias. I seem to always run into them when I'm coming back from some long trip. All in all, it was a really good trip, I think my favorite one so far. I liked Northern Ireland and Scotland a lot more than I thought I would. Also, it was REALLY REALLY nice to finally go somewhere where I KNOW they speak English. That makes things a lot less intimidating.
OK, finally done with my UK trip summary! Stay tuned for Paris, hopefully coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment