Glasgow

My flight from Manchester to Glasgow was delayed 3 hours! Some sort of technical difficulty required to flight to go minus three passengers and they took forever to finally get three volunteers instead of just randomly kicking people off. The flight itself lasted maybe 45 minutes, so to be delayed for 3 hours... I almost could have drove the distance in the same amount of time!

Glasgow, though, is insanely fun! It was rainy, a drizzly on/off again type of rain, so that every time I stopped to buy an umbrella I could look out the window and see it trickle to a stop, and then when I walked outside without having bought one, the rain picked up again! There was some sort of mischievous being playing with me this afternoon, that's for sure!

I walked the city for a few hours, amazed by the hustle and bustle of the place. Imagine 16th Street Mall at it's busiest time, then make it twice as long and twice as wide. That's one of the many outdoor squares I found today. The people are like a tidal wave, too, when it comes to waiting at the street for cars. They'll all press up right to the corner, and if one car is too slow or (heavens forbid!) stops to let one pedestrian cross, it's like the torrent is unleashed and a crowd of thousands flood to the other side! It happened so often, I was actually surprised that cars would even consider stopping because it would turn into an automatic 10-minute wait.

It felt like an English town. There were huge two-story buses everywhere, people talking with their Sottish accents so bad I couldn't make a word out, ridiculously linked out boys with chains everywhere and girls with pink Mohawks. It's just a really fun city to walk around in! The rain was cool but not cold, which is another great benefit! I can't wait for the weather to be sunny again and warm/hot.

The weird thing about this place, though, is that all the shops close at 6. I'd only been wandering the city for about 2 hours when I noticed it, how everything was closed or closing. At first I thought that I'd actually stayed out too late (the Scottish sun can fool you, too, in the summer with how late the light stays out) but then I saw the clock tower that sat up on two running legs and I knew it was still early. I checked into my hostel (Euro Hostel down near the bridges) and for awhile considered hoofing it back north to where the necropolis is; a 10-minute walk later, when my nose had started flooding over and my toes began curling up spitefully, I turned around and resolved to save that sight for the morning. I stopped by a grocery store and picked up pita stuff for tomorrow, chips and juice for tonight, and some cookies to make me feel all better. I know, very healthy!

In the morning, I'm going down to their breakfast and stealing as much food as I can, and then I'll be catching a bus to Edinburgh! I've gotten in contact with a few people to stay with in London for Sunday so I'm pretty relieved about that.

A few important things I did learn today: when the passport customs lady asks you what your doing, saying "I quit my job, grabbed a backpack, and started traveling, I don't know anyone in this country and don't have any solid plans either, I've only got about a hundred euro of cash on me, and I have no way of proving how long I'll be in the country" is not the right thing to say. Even if it's the truth, what they want to hear is: I am staying only a short time, all my accommodations have been previously arranged, I will be out of the country and will definitely not end up as a beggar on your streets.

Also, if the back of the bus squeals like a banshee but no one else seems to care, then it's ok and it's normal. And if a bunch of street punk pre-teens start fighting in the middle of the street, it's not going to be interesting because all the words they'll be shouting will sound like pig Latin to you, even if you know it's still some twisted form of England. And everything in the hostel will squeak VERY loudly, from the elevator, to the room door, to the bathroom door, to your locker, to your bed. And you will make everyone squeak loudly repetitively because you will constantly forget one last thing in your locker just after you finished locking everything up. And there will be at least one other person in the room whose pretending to be sleeping, because you know nothing could live through that ridiculously loud squeal!