Glasgow Greetings

Trip Start Feb 07, 2008

Trip End May 03, 2008

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Flag of United Kingdom Glasgow, United Kingdom
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Getting up at 230am to catch a 330am bus doesn´t agree with most people, I am most people. Our flight to Glasgow departed from the Pisa airport at 740 this morning but because it takes about an hour to get to Pisa from Florence we had to take the earliest bus possible. We weren´t the only crazies up that early...there were plenty of other crazies waiting for the same bus, and then there were the actual crazies about 50ft away in their cardboard condos. That wasn´t nerve racking at all, especially when one of them started to give us a sermon of sorts. Having only slept about 2 hours the bus ride went well for once as I was continuously dozing off. Once at the airport we had about 2hrs to kill before boarding, I would like to have slept some more but have quickly come to the realization that airports are vortexes where nobody is able to sleep. The people that look like they are succeeding in their feeble attempts are the most optimistic people you will ever meet.
The flight went a little better, taking off from Pisa I could see the leaning tower out our window which, combined with church and the baptistery looks like a model from the air. It is usually impossible for me to sleep on any type of transportation vehicle so when I woke up to the announcement we would be starting our descent soon I was thankful - I also thought our flight was about 5 hours but it turned out to be about 2 ½ , so now I had slept roughly 5 hours.
From above Scotland looks cold, peaceful, and picturesque - all three impressions confirmed once safely on the ground.

The Cathedral

Immediate reactions: the landscape rivals that of Tuscany yet you really can´t compare the two, the Scottish is practically impossible to understand (esp. with enthusiastic Scots), this might be a bigger culture shock than Italian culture was.
We checked into our labyrinth of a hostel - it resembles the staircase layout of an Escher piece - and set out to see some of the sights. We walked to a newsstand nearby and asked for directions from a small older gentleman and after going through numerous "smile and nod" moments we walked away none-the-wiser about our bearing. At some point I heard "left", "quite a ways", and "turn" but this didn´t help much.
We walked down Bath Street and after traversing what felt like the whole of Glasgow we found the Cathedral. As far as Gothic architecture goes I haven´t seen much so and this was a great example so I took pictures from every possible angle, the stained glass was my favorite. It is true when they say "walls of glass are indicative of this type or architecture", they were gorgeous. Deciding to give our feet a break we ducked inside the cinema on the way back and saw Juno.
We were both hungry after so walked back towards the hostel and found an Indian restaurant on the way (Shenaz). We let the waiter choose our meal and were very pleased with everything. Finally back at the hostel we joined some of the other tenants and took turns bashing the Steven Segal movie on TV and after we just couldn´t take any more we turned into figure out day two.