Glasgow

Hello! So, today my friends Katelin, Grace and I decided to take a day trip to Glasgow.  It was really fun, but I'm glad that I chose to study in Stirling.  Glasgow is way too busy/crowed/sketchy for me, but more on that later. First, we took the bus to the train station in Stirling and found our train to Glasgow.  The round trip to Glasgow only cost me 4.90 pounds.  This was very exciting.  Also, navigating the train system was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.  In fact, it was quite easy and something I'm sure we'll be doing a lot more in the future.  Anyways, once we boarded the train, we saw that the hills (more like unofficial mountains) all had snow at the top.

I took this video from the train.  You can see the view out the window and the snow covered hills. (As a side note, we didn't see any Highland cattle.)

The train ride from Stirling to Glasgow was pretty short.  It was only about a 30 to 40 minute ride.  Once we got into Glasgow, we had good intentions of promptly starting our Rick Steve's walking tour, but got side-tracked by a restaurant advertising a 4 pound breakfast. 

Here is my 4 pound breakfast.  It came with 2 types of sausage, baked beans, black pudding, an egg, bacon, and a potato pancake thing.  Let me tell you, it was worth the 4 pounds.

After successfully consuming our 4 pound breakfasts, we headed to the start of our Rick Steve's walking tour.      We started at a "lighthouse" (I never did figure out why it was called that.  It was just an artsy building with a tower.).  It had different exhibits inside, but the main reason for going there was for the view of Glasgow.

Here is the view from the top.

Next, we headed to the Glasgow Modern Art Museum.  We went inside and there were some pretty cool exhibits.  Mainly it was warm, dry and free so we walked around it for a while.  Next, we went to St. George Square.  

It has different statues in it of famous Glaswegians (people who live in Glasgow).  The building in the background is the City Chambers building.

Then, we walked to this church that was somehow significant to Nelson Mandela.  I'm not really sure how Glasgow (or Scotland in general) is connected to Nelson Mandela, but well we saw the church which was by the Stock Exchange building.  After that we got a little distracted by a gift shop and the sound of drums and bagpipes.  Well, we found some awesome street performers.   I couldn't help myself, I took video of it.

These people were just standing in the middle of the street performing.  There was a man selling their CD, so I guess that they had a purpose, but it was really cool to see.

After this, we walked to the Glasgow School of Art.  This is supposed to be one of the most architecturally significant buildings in Glasgow.  It was designed by a famous architect named Charles Rennie Macintosh. He designed a lot of buildings in Glasgow.  We didn't really see a lot of the school because you had to take a tour to see it, so we just kind of walked around the lobby.  

After successfully completing Rick Steve's tour (Ok I'll be honest, we didn't see Tenement House which was also designed by Macintosh because it was really hard to get to, but I hear it's really nice.), we walked to the Cathedral of Scotland.  This church was gorgeous! Also, the priest that greeted us, wins Glasgow's friendliest person award.  He was really nice and gave of directions and a free brochure of the necropolis. 

Inside, this cathedral is amazing (and yes this was partially because it was warm, dry and free).  

We then journeyed around the necropolis (which means city of the dead...which means it's a graveyard).  I was really excited because we saw the grave of William Miller, who wrote the nursery rhyme Wee Willie Winkie.  After that, we went on the search for food and ended up at a place that sold fish and chips.  We got fish tea which means that you get fish, chips and tea with your meal.  It was really good (other than there being some bones in the fish) and we felt really authentic because there weren't any other tourists in the restaurant.  We then headed back on the train to Stirling, where we promptly missed our bus in order to get ice cream at a cute little place by the bus stop.

Overall Glasgow was a good city.  I don't think that I could spend a lot of time there though.  It was kind of a big dirty city and I was always kind of worried about getting mugged.  I definitely prefer my clean and quiet Stirling.  Also, people (other than that awesome priest) were kind of mean in Glasgow.  In Edinburgh and Stirling most people are really friendly and willing to forgive you for your American-isms.  However, Glasgow did have it's nice spots and it was a fun way to spend my Saturday! 

 Tomorrow we're going to the Methodist Church in Stirling. I've heard that there are some differences between churches here and in the US, so I'm excited to experience this!