14/2/09 You're Up: Glasgow

I didn’t sleep that much on the bus. First it was overbooked, so we had to wait around for the next one to come about a half hour later. Then when we got on the only seats left were backwards facing and next to a baby. Not the best conditions for sleeping, but it wasn’t that bad.

We got in around 7 and walked to the hostel. Glasgow was completely empty. There was literally no one on the street, it was very strange. The town wasn’t as old as I expected, it had sort of an ‘70s architecture vibe (aka not good) and it just wasn’t that interesting.

It was too early to check-in so we played cards. We played Speed, which I hadn’t played for a while (if ever) and lost the first game pretty bad but won the second. After that we could check-in. The hostel was the worst I’ve been to by a decent margin. I did like the people working there a ton, by far the coolest kids, very hipster indie guys that would come up and talk to you and ask what you were doing and give you advice. But the actual building was pretty bad, just dirtyish. Our room had 12 beds in it or so and I grabbed a top bunk (which always seems so much cooler than the bottom).

Since nothing was open, we decided to go to a tea room we passed. It was really nice. I had a scone with cream and jam and the house tea. This is sort of what I thought London would be like. I loved it. It was a really nice building and we just sat around for a few hours and had tea and talked.

From there we finally found where the actual town was. They have a few major pedestrian streets with all sorts of shops and actual people on them. There were a lot of people playing bagpipes, which I didn’t see at all in Edinburgh. The other part of Glasgow I liked was they had much stronger Scottish accents.

We went to the Lighthouse, an old newspaper building turned into a modern art gallery. The best part was that you could climb up the tower and get a great view of the city. They had some interesting furniture and different designs but it wasn’t anything too awesome.

We decided to head down to the Glasgow Cathedral, which had parts remaining from the 13^th Century. I’ve been to a lot of gothic cathedrals in Europe, but this was one of my favorites. It wasn’t that huge, but unlike so many of the more famous ones, you could really wander around it without restriction. I didn’t feel guilty touching the walls or taking pictures. They had awesome stained glass and rib vaulted ceilings. There was an apartment room for someone in the clergy connected to the main cathedral, and the wooden door dated from the 1500s, riddled with bullet holes from, as the sign put it, ‘less quiet times.’ And you could touch it too, feeling history. It felt a lot more real to me, sort of like how I complain about not being able to walk through the Parthenon. The access was great.

When we left the Cathedral we looked and saw a huge hill filled with graves. It was the Glasgow Necropolis. I’ve never been to a necropolis before, but it sounds like an awesome thing to do, so we went. The graves were all a few hundred years old, going all the way up and down the hill, a very impressive site, especially on a day where it was overcast and dreary. If there was ever weather for going to a necropolis, this was it. At the top they had some amazing monuments, the type that if they were on the street in an American city they’d be well known, but over here it’s nothing special.

After trouncing around in the mud for a while, we went back into town. I spotted the Tollhouse Spire I wanted to see, which is a giant clock tower that is all that’s left from the city’s tollhouse, which was the center of the city a few hundred years ago.

We then went back into the center of town and to another tea room. This time we ordered afternoon tea for about £6. It was unlimited tea, a scone with cream and jam, sandwich (I had cheese and tomato), a pastry, a cake, and cookies. It was one of the single best meals I’ve ever had, especially taking into account the price. I’m into this tea stuff.

By the time we left it was 6, and most of the things we wanted to see were closed by then so we were sort of at a loss for things to do. Kim lost her voice the day before and actually ended up not being able to really talk the entire trip, so we tried to find somewhere quiet to hang out where we could sit around for a little. I told her if she wasn’t better by Sunday when we went to Oxford I’d buy her a dry erase board she could wear around her neck. We ended up trying a couple places before finding an Irish pub where we stayed for a little. We tried to figure out things to do and what we wanted to do the next day. I said I wanted to go to Loch Ness tomorrow (especially since it was sort of apparent there wasn’t a whole lot to do there) and if anyone else wanted to come they could.

There wasn’t anything we really wanted to do the rest of the night so we went back to the hostel and showered. There were only three showers, and I couldn’t figure out how to make the hot water come on in mine (apparently it was possible, I was just confused by the Scottish dials) so I took a quick cold shower. I decided I wanted to go see the Armadillo down by the water, a new auditorium that’s very Frank Gehryesque. I walked around a little and then went back to figure out Loch Ness.

While I was on the computer I saw I got two pieces of fan mail (sort of a strange time since I don’t think I had anything in the paper since Monday, the last piece didn’t get in ever I think) both from DePaul students (so maybe Conklin was talking about them? Who knows). One was saying that he saw my face all over, on the DePaul website, the paper, everywhere, and he called me a, and I quote, “Campus Champ.” I’m thinking about getting a shirt with that on it. The other was a DePaul girl that had interned with a number of sports clubs and a big sports fan, saying she liked my columns. I have more column info in the post tomorrow.

This was the hardest time I’ve had sleeping at a hostel, which is sort of surprising because it was also the most comfortable bed I’ve slept on in a long time (sort of a strange feature for a bad hostel).There was a group of British kids that came in around 3, turned the lights on and chatted in normal voices. It was crazy. They turned the lights off but turned them on at least twice more. This was sort of against all hostel etiquette I’d experience up to this point.