The next morning, I got out of my cramped, airless hostel room as fast as I could, and I didn’t even care that it was raining because it was refreshing. The Glasgow connection with architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh was one of those things that I knew about at one point, but then forgot about, so it was a pleasant surprise when I was looking into things to see in the city. Another pleasant surprise, after walking all the way from my hostel to the city centre (and up an alarmingly steep hill), was realizing that I had read about the Mackintosh art school when I was a teenager and recognized its great art nouveau facade from a book on architecture I used to have. Unfortunately, I was there so early in the morning that nothing was open, but I stood around in the lobby and watched as parents dropped off their children from art classes. “What age group is she? And is it 2D or sculpture?” the people who worked there would ask. I thought about how these kids probably didn’t know how lucky they were to be taking art classes in that building.
Then, frustratingly, I figured out that the Mackintosh House, which I was told I should visit, was back in the other direction from my hostel (something I could have discovered earlier and saved myself much walking if I had been organized at all) so I walked briskly back up town. All I had was the photocopied map that the hostel had given me and it was sort of annoying in that sites would be indicated by numbers but it was unclear what street the numbers were actually on, which makes a huge difference when one doesn’t know the city at all and is wandering around in the rain. As well, the map was getting mushy. I found the Mackintosh House, which had an okay selection of his furniture, but I liked seeing the art gallery that was beside it (possibly the gallery of Glasgow University?) because they had some elegant Whistlers, and a painting of a Canadian moose (done apparently by a Scot to combat the claim that the North American moose was the same species as the extinct British elk. Duh!)
I phoned my friend Siobhan, who was visiting her boyfriend in Glasgow, to see when she wanted to meet up and she told me first I should go to the Kelvingrove Museum, which I was close to. I swear I followed some signs that lied to me, because I ended up on the Glasgow University campus (and it being Saturday, no one was there) and got completely lost. I was up on a hill though, and at the bottom I could spy a building that may have been a museum (it’s hard to know in Europe though, as gorgeous neo-gothic towers could also just be post offices or public toilets) so I began the winding trek down. At the bottom of the hill a gate led out to the main road but I discovered to my alarm that it was locked. ‘What the heck?!’ I thought, ‘I got in totally freely at the top of the hill! What use is this?’ I was not going to walk all the way back up and go around and when I saw that there was an open entrance on the other side of the iron fence I decided to hop the fence. ‘That’s what boys do, right?’ I thought, ‘They hop fences when they have to. No big deal. You can do this.’
The fence was too high for me to just jump up on it, but there was a plastic garbage container close by so I very carefully (it was wet) stood on top of it and raised one foot up on the fence. Then I raised my other foot and saw that they fit perfectly in between the iron spikes. Then I slowly lowered my left foot down onto the mushy ground, but I slipped a bit and fell towards a conveniently placed tree, which a caught myself on. Only I quickly realized that, while my left foot was on the ground, my right foot was bent up behind me still on the fence. “Ow ow ow ow OW!” I whipped my head around and saw that the bottom of my jeans had been pierced by the metal spike. Although it hurt a lot (I am not particularly flexible, and my legs were still aching from the crazy amounts of walking I had done) I went to lift up my foot and dislodge my jeans. But I couldn’t bend that way, nor was I strong enough to pull up my leg any higher. Then I tried to just rip my jeans, but the hole was right by a stitch and it was stuck too. Damn you Levis brothers! ‘Okay, stay calm,’ I thought. ‘Just think. Ow ow. Okay, what can you do? Ow. How long may you have to wait until someone comes along? And what if they are teenage girls, or thugs who laugh and/or rob you. OW! And you’re getting more and more wet. Crap!’
In what must have been only a few minutes, although it felt much longer, and when I was seriously considering taking off my pants (although now when I look back, I don’t know how I would’ve managed this feat either), a middle-aged man walked by. “Excuse, sir? EXCUSE ME! Hey, sir, ummm, I was wondering if you could help me for a second. I’m kind of stuck...” The man came over, instantly saw what was wrong, lifted up my leg and helped me dislodge my jeans. “Phew!” I sighed. “Thank you so much!” “Now, for next time,” the man said in his Scottish brogue, “There’s an opening in the fence at the bottom there, so you won’t get stuck again. Good day.”
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Glasgow
It was difficult to leave Edinburgh. I had had great times there with two good friends and did not particularly want to set off on the next leg of my journey by myself (or return to Dublin at the end of the weekend, for that matter). Megan took more time off work to wander around the city with me that last morning. We went back to the National Art Gallery to see the Impressionism gallery which Alyssa and I had missed the day before, but as most of it was closed for some reason we only got to see a couple new paintings, including Gauguin’s surrealist painting of angels wrestling which I had no idea was in Scotland. As we were walking in the park, I started to point at where the fellow was singing the other day, only to spy him in the exact same spot, going at it again. I’ve since learned through fellow-Scottish travellers on facebook that he’s kind of a legend. Finally, we went to the Children’s Museum (really a toy museum) which has multitudes of creepy porcelain dolls as well as many racist ‘golliwogs’.
I bid my farewell and set off on the Scottish rails again reading Fred Kaplan’s ‘1959; The Year that Changed Everything’ to distract me from my melancholy (having firmly set aside Ian Rankin). I was a bit nervous, as I didn’t have a little Lonely Planet book for Glasgow, but I told myself that all train stations in big cities have free tourists maps at the information booths. I also should add that my legs were still very much aching from all the climbing we did in Edinburgh, and I was very stiff when I got off the train. Eventually, I found where I thought an information desk should be, but all the pamphlets were train schedules and, bizarrely, info about sites in Edinburgh, the city I had just left. I finally gave up and went to get on the bus. I usually avoid buses as they never provide maps for where they go and you are just assumed to know (I even continue to do this for strange buses in Toronto!) but the other information my hostel provided on how to get there was via bus, so I braced myself for it. As in Dublin, your bus ticket differs in price depending on where you’re going (a practice that might make sense for locals, but is infinitely more complicated for tourists) and when the driver barked at me about where I was going all I could remember was that the street name started with Woods. “Woods...bridge? Woods...lawn...?” I attempted. He shrugged his shoulders as though the words were of a foreign planet. “Alright!” I cried irritably, and made him wait as I pulled out all my hostel info from my bag. “Woods...land.” “Ah, Woodlinds. Two-thirty-five.” ‘That was so difficult, wasn’t it,’ I thought bitchily as I looked for exact change. In British sterling 2.35 is FOUR pieces of coin, a ridiculously stupid price for a standard bus fare, so I ended up giving him two pounds. As if my frustration wasn’t enough, no effort was made at all to announce the stops, so I had to crane my neck the whole journey searching for every street sign. The bus ride was less than fifteen minutes, and I definitely could have walked it.
My hostel was up on this hill overlooking the city. The streets of white Georgian townhouses were arranged in circles, unusual for Glasgow, but luckily there were signs pointing the way. After checking in and thankfully receiving a photocopied map from the guy at the desk, I stashed my stuff and headed back to city centre. I am a traveller to the bone, and as cranky as I may be I am always relieved and excited to be in a new place. I will never forget walking down the steps towards the city centre as twilight descended.
Unfortunately, not much happened the rest of that night. I had the name and directions to one gay bar but after walking all the way into the middle of town discovered (conclusively, as I walked the street three times) it was not there. I ended up at an Italian restaurant by myself, and exhausted, went back to the hostel to discover two old men in my shared room, just hanging out with the lights on. I watched TV in the lounge for a couple hours, and when I got back and the lights were still on I ignored them and got into bed with my sequined eye mask. Unfortunately, that did not shield me from the incredibly loud snoring from below me and the hours-long bed creaking from the room above.
No more shared hostel rooms.
I bid my farewell and set off on the Scottish rails again reading Fred Kaplan’s ‘1959; The Year that Changed Everything’ to distract me from my melancholy (having firmly set aside Ian Rankin). I was a bit nervous, as I didn’t have a little Lonely Planet book for Glasgow, but I told myself that all train stations in big cities have free tourists maps at the information booths. I also should add that my legs were still very much aching from all the climbing we did in Edinburgh, and I was very stiff when I got off the train. Eventually, I found where I thought an information desk should be, but all the pamphlets were train schedules and, bizarrely, info about sites in Edinburgh, the city I had just left. I finally gave up and went to get on the bus. I usually avoid buses as they never provide maps for where they go and you are just assumed to know (I even continue to do this for strange buses in Toronto!) but the other information my hostel provided on how to get there was via bus, so I braced myself for it. As in Dublin, your bus ticket differs in price depending on where you’re going (a practice that might make sense for locals, but is infinitely more complicated for tourists) and when the driver barked at me about where I was going all I could remember was that the street name started with Woods. “Woods...bridge? Woods...lawn...?” I attempted. He shrugged his shoulders as though the words were of a foreign planet. “Alright!” I cried irritably, and made him wait as I pulled out all my hostel info from my bag. “Woods...land.” “Ah, Woodlinds. Two-thirty-five.” ‘That was so difficult, wasn’t it,’ I thought bitchily as I looked for exact change. In British sterling 2.35 is FOUR pieces of coin, a ridiculously stupid price for a standard bus fare, so I ended up giving him two pounds. As if my frustration wasn’t enough, no effort was made at all to announce the stops, so I had to crane my neck the whole journey searching for every street sign. The bus ride was less than fifteen minutes, and I definitely could have walked it.
My hostel was up on this hill overlooking the city. The streets of white Georgian townhouses were arranged in circles, unusual for Glasgow, but luckily there were signs pointing the way. After checking in and thankfully receiving a photocopied map from the guy at the desk, I stashed my stuff and headed back to city centre. I am a traveller to the bone, and as cranky as I may be I am always relieved and excited to be in a new place. I will never forget walking down the steps towards the city centre as twilight descended.
Unfortunately, not much happened the rest of that night. I had the name and directions to one gay bar but after walking all the way into the middle of town discovered (conclusively, as I walked the street three times) it was not there. I ended up at an Italian restaurant by myself, and exhausted, went back to the hostel to discover two old men in my shared room, just hanging out with the lights on. I watched TV in the lounge for a couple hours, and when I got back and the lights were still on I ignored them and got into bed with my sequined eye mask. Unfortunately, that did not shield me from the incredibly loud snoring from below me and the hours-long bed creaking from the room above.
No more shared hostel rooms.
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