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I took the train to Glasgow on my day off this week. Ten months of living in Edinburgh and I’d not been to Glasgow – a 40 minute train ride away.
Unsurprisingly the two cities have a rivalry going, and if ever I mentioned to someone from Edinburgh that I hadn’t been to Glasgow, their reaction was ‘Och! Dinnae bother!’. (Alternatively I learned that Glaswegians – or ‘Weegies’ – have a saying: “The only good thing to come out of Edinburgh is a train to Glasgow”).
Jenny is from Glasgow, and when she met me at the station she suggested we do an open-top tourist bus tour because (being a local), she’d never done one.
I fail at self-photography
Our hilarious tour guide was Mary, who pointed out important architecture and history, but also said things like “In Glasgow, we don’t get arrested, we get ‘lifted’”, and “We knocked down many lovely and historic buildings to build this overpass.”
Glasgow is not like Edinburgh. It’s much more industrial, with it’s ship building yards and whatnot. But it does have some beautiful buildings, and good advice for visiting Glasgow is to spend a lot of time looking up.
We got off the bus in the West End and wandered around, hitting the Kelvingrove Art Gallery:
We got coffee and then went to a Middle Eastern deli, and a crazy used bookshop.
No one's seen the bottom shelf books since 1992.
We had a picnic in a park with our babagaoush and tabouleh, and found the man at the deli had slipped us an extra piece of baklava. We also had Shani, a Middle Eastern softdrink – the can will stab you in the face if you’re not careful. (The surprised shop owner, when we paid for our lunch, said ‘You know Shani?’ Um, no, we just saw an interesting can collecting dust behind the juice in your cooler, that isn’t actually turned on. We loved that shop).
We hit a vintage clothing store and a wee pub down an alley that sold Belgian Raspberry beer.
Much is made of Glasgow’s shopping opportunities (“Second only to London in the UK!”) but as I’m a tightwad who already owns more than will fit in her backpack, there was no need for that. Glasgow also has excellent night life and gets more live music gigs than Edinburgh, so I hope to make it back again for that before I leave Scotland.
So it’s official – I like Glasgow! Just don’t tell anyone from Edinburgh.
A few weeks ago, Ireland played Scotland in the Six Nations Rugby tournament, here in Edinburgh. The Irish flooded in, selling green scarves and hats up and down the Royal Mile, generally taking over.
I had to work the night of the game, and though our pub generally gets quiet after the kitchen closes at 10, that was not the case Irish Rugby night. The back of the pub was full of middle-aged Irish people, and around quarter-to-last-call, a group of about six 20-something Irish boys came in, wearing green rugby jerseys. Suddenly, one of the men up the back started singing a traditional Irish folk song, and his friends all joined in. Then, the young Irish boys countered with their own – in harmony. Soon they were all singing loudly, together, then dancing in our limited floor space.
Once they’d sang every Irish song in existence, they decided they should sing songs from all the other Six Nations teams – Scotland, England, Wales (in Welsh), France (a heart-felt but brutally butchered Allouette), and Italy (That’s Amore).
A group of just-old-enough-to-drink American tourists were also in the pub, and loving the show. As they got up to leave, one of the Irish blokes announced ‘The Americans are leaving!’, and suddenly, like out of a dream, all the Irish stood up, raised their arms forward, and started singing ‘Oh Danny Boy’ to the American kids. It was like watching a Broadway musical, only better. As they left, the Americans filmed the display with their digital cameras.
It came to the sad moment when I had to end the party, and standing on a ledge behind the bar I waved my arms in the air trying to get everyone’s attention. One of the customers did it for me.
‘Excuse me everyone, but these ladies have been very patient with us this evening, and it’s time we got out and let them close!’ I wanted to do no such thing, but such is licensing laws. The old men started clapping and singing ‘Cheeri-cheeri-cheerio!’, and the young men stood in two lines along the bar, with their arms up forming an arch way. The old men got down on their knees, and ‘walked’ underneath it to the door.
Before they left, everyone came over to apologize for their rowdiness, give a kiss on the cheek, thank us for putting up with them. I, who hadn’t stopped laughing for an hour and a half, thanked them for being so entertaining. Some checked to make sure I’d get home okay. One of the guys took off his Ireland scarf, and put it around my neck.
Once we’d closed up, I was walking home, and when almost there I heard a voice from the crowd in front of one of the bars: ‘Hey! It’s the girl from the pub!’
The six guys in rugby shirts appeared. They insisted we take group photos.
….
Last weekend, another group of young Irish folks came to the pub. They came in several days in a row, and were there one night when Jase, Jenny S. and I stopped in on a ‘Yay Jenny’s done uni classes’ pub crawl. We were several pitchers of Tennents in, and told them to meet us later at the Bank Hotel down the street. When they showed up, we were attempting to kareoke ‘One Week’ by the Barenaked Ladies.
They bought us a round of tequila shots. They bought us a round of Baby Guinness (Kahlua with Baileys on top). We don’t much remember the walk home.
The next day, they were back in the pub again. They were heading back to Ireland, and had 16 bottles of Heinecken they couldn’t take with them, so they left them with us.
…
On St. Paddy’s day, we were at a pub called Dropkick Murphy’s, dancing to a live band. Jenny S. noticed that they had all the Six Nations flags on display above the bar – except that instead of having the English flag, they had the Irish flag twice.
Bwaahahahaha!
Jenny A. will be here in 12 days. We will be in Ireland in 16 days. Yessssssssss.
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