First Stop: Glasgow!

Trip Start May 01, 2007

Trip End Apr 29, 2008

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Flag of United Kingdom Glasgow, United Kingdom
Friday, May 4, 2007

So I guess the first time really DOES hurt. FlyGlobespan had a great deal for us from Hamilton to Glasgow (direct, mind you) on May the 1st for $99 each. We bought an upgrade, and ended up paying $340 all in for both of us. A great price, no doubt. After booking this flight, we realized that it was their first flight out of Hamilton. No reason to be concerned, we figured. This was an award winning airline - just read their website. I checked their site before leaving for YHM at about 8:30 that night, and it said that everything was on time for their 10:55 departure. We got there, only to find that the status board said it was over 2 hours delayed *sigh*. After waiting around for a while, we FINALLY boarded and pushed back probably 2.5 hours after we were supposed to. Now I should say that I'm a reasonable man - upon being told that we were delayed for crew rest requirements (which are legal requirements, by the way) I relaxed. It is important to have a well rested crew, not just from a legal standpoint, but from a safety standpoint as well

01 Flight safety sheet

. However, while we were pushing back from the gate, the Captain came on and told us that, due to "operational requirements" we would not in fact be going direct to Glasgow as we booked, but would be connecting through LONDON FREAKING GATWICK (adding about 2 hours flight time to the trip.) After finally landing in Gatwick, we were told it was going to be an hour layover. BS, I said to Terri, there is no way we can turn around in an hour. The crew wouldn't let people off the flight, causing a passenger having a nic fit to freak out on the FAs (quite unpleasant.) 1 hour 45 later, we were finally on our way to Glasgow. All told, we were 6 hours late getting in (equal to the supposed original duration of the trip.)

Now then...

Glasgow is a very nice city. Old beautiful architecture mixed with new buildings makes for a very nice skyline. All the old buildings are quite interesting to look at. It's nice just walking around town gazing at them all. Something I noticed about the Scots - they have just about the nicest accent in the entire world. I swear someone could have told me he was going to kill me with a chainsaw and desecrate my Great Grandmother's grave, and it would sound nice.

Getting in so late on the 2nd didn't leave us with much time to do anything fun. We got lost walking from the bus station, but finally got our bearings and made our way to our hostel. The building was a bit of a maze, but we got the hang of it. Our room smelled like feet, which was a little disconcerting, but we discovered that it was just some other guy sleeping in one of the bunks. When he left, we opened the door and aired it out quite nicely

02 Home sweet home

. We went out for dinner that night, and tried retiring early. Tried.

Day two in Glasgow we visited the library and got ourselves a wireless password for the good old heavy-as-lead laptop, then ventured over to the other side of town to visit the Cathedral. That building was built something like 900 years ago, and survived the Scottish reformation (taking the power from the Catholic church as I understand) and a huge mob determined to tear it down. A gent named Ian gave us a great free tour. It was quite evident that he loved the building, and took great pride in it. After the Cathedral we visited the city Necropolis, which wasn't nearly as terrifying as our tour book said it was. But we did get a nice view of town...
Wandering around some more, we found a shopping mall, and decided to try to find some dinner. There was a booth set up handing out free samples of rice pudding. The employees there literally couldn't give it away, and asked us to take as much as we wanted, so Terri grabbed 8 of the things (200 grams each, I think) and some spoons. It was pretty embarrassing, but I certainly won't turn my nose up at a free dinner! We found a pub after that, had some drinks and turned in. Walking around in the sun all day is quite tiring!

Today we'll be taking a bus into Edinburgh to visit Terri's girlfriend Cara, and plan on hiring a car to drive up north. More to come...