A Laddie and A Lassie In Scotland and Ireland: Getting In To Glasgow

Day 1: Glasgow

After stopping at Scott’s for a quick beer and whiskey, it was off to the airport. Big thanks to Dad Lampman for making the trip to Mississauga to pick up our fur kid (Ollie) and to drive us to the airport. Air Transat, discount airline, offered a safe flight with no frills. Although, it felt as though we were continuously being fed on the plane. It was plate after plate of food I wouldn’t even serve Oliver. The in-flight entertainment included Journey to the Mysterious Island; The Rock should have really stuck to wrestling. Although the food and entertainment was terrible, being that it was Friday the 13^th, we were just happy to make it to Glasgow in one piece.

Once we arrived in Glasgow, we took the shuttle bus towards the city center. Jumping on the shuttle, we encountered our first local Scot, the bus driver. He was very helpful and encouraged us to purchase the round-trip ticket in order to “save a fiver.”

Logistics is my favourite part of the trip to research before our arrival. Ensuring we get from point A to point B with minimal problems or high priced taxis is always helpful. Our research suggested that we needed to get off at the Queen Station stop (which was one of the stops listed in bold letters on the side of the bus). Amazingly there was no stop called Queen Station. We waited and waited for our stop to be called, until we heard “Buchanon Station, final stop”. All of a sudden, this was now our stop. We had accidentally ridden the bus to the furthest possible point away from our hotel.

After asking a couple of helpful Scots with the greatest accents, we made it to our hotel, Ibis Hotel, after about a twenty minute walk. Being that it was only 9:00am, we were very lucky to get a room right away. After flying the red eye flight, we were exhausted and fell asleep immediately.

Our first day in Glasgow City started at 2:30pm. We left our hotel and headed to St. George’s Square. As we approached, we could hear the sound of bagpipes and drums. Although Glasgow feels like a major metropolis, it still displays its Scottish roots in the street music.

As we continued towards the square, we heard loud pop music coming from a giant stage. We followed the massive crowd toward the square. It only took us a few seconds to understand that this was not any normal festival. “Fringe” is the best way I could describe the vast majority of clothing, hairdos, and piercings. It turns out that Glasgow was hosting the annual Rainbow Festival this weekend. Standing in the middle of the gay pride festival in which people were dressed very exotically, I felt out of place wearing a golf shirt! The music was good, but there was cold beer in a nearby pub calling our name.

The Auctioneer, a “value pub”, was packed at 3:00pm with local Scots getting their fill of Carling and Tennents. As soon as I approached the bar, a patron at the bar called for the bartender and ensured Monika and I had a drink in our hands in no time. We each had a Tennents and a wee dram (shot of scotch). Our first scotch was called Talisker, from the Isle of Skye. Monika’s introduction to scotch was caught on film! YUM! After a nacho and a couple more drinks, we emerged from the pub. It had rained and we didn’t even know it! On our way back to the hotel we stopped at “Pound Land” (UK version of the dollar store) to pick up some essentials (water, chocolate and mixers) for the room.

Later, we decided to head to the waterfront to see the River Clyde. We figured that this would be a hotspot, as it usually is in major European cities. However, there was no extravagance about the waterfront area at all. Many of the businesses and pubs along the waterfront were actually closed down. In my opinion Glasgow has missed an opportunity here! Anyways, after a couple of pictures we headed to some shopping areas in the city. “The Style Mile” near Princes Square was the high fashion district, which had all of the brand name designers. Nice to see, too expensive to shop, and definitely not where you want to stop for dinner! We went down a side road and stopped at a pub called “The Goose”. We intended to have dinner here, but the pub grub menu just wasn’t anything special. So instead we drank on an empty stomach. Seemed the sensible thing to do! On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Subway for a sandwich. Somehow it felt like late night eats and it was only 8pm.

Back at the hotel, we tuned into some quality British television programming. “The Million Dollar Drop”. It is a game show in which contestants start with 1,000,000 pounds and wager their money on 4 possible answers to 8 different questions. It definitely had our attention, as we could not pull ourselves away from the TV until 10pm.

We headed out for a drink at a pub down the street called The State. A pint of tennents and a wee dram was just the thing we needed before bed. Oh, and a late night stop at McDonalds on the way home too...

Two Tickets to Paradise