Glasgow via RyanAir

[Mar 29-31]

Ah, Glasgow. What's there to do there, and why did we go to Glasgow anyway?

Well, blessed be the budget airline industry, which have made hopping around Europe fast and cheap. RyanAir, one such carrier, has a huge number of flights out of Glasgow, including one to Brussels. Thus, with Brussels next on the agenda, Glasgow it was.

Marita had the impression that Glasgow was going to be the city to end all cities, that we'd be fools to miss it, and that we ought to count our lucky stars that we'd have a week to spend there. A little research showed that Edinburgh was actually the more preferred destination in Scotland, and Glasgow wasn't high on many people's lists of places to visit. Nonetheless, Glasgow was a very nice town, if quite cold at this time of year, and if not immediately as appealing as Edinburgh. We're glad we went.



We arrived by bus, having discovered that the bus system in Scotland has recently been redone to provide quite plesant traveling expereiences. The bus terminal looks not unlike an airport terminal, replete with news and gift shops, storage facilities, and overhead monitors displaying arrivals and departures. Our first stop in Glasgow was the train station, conveniently placed across town from the bus station, to pick up tickets for our evening's ride to our Servas host. We also hoped to leave our bags there for the day, but once we heard that such a service would cost us 5 pounds per item, we walked back across town to use the substantially cheaper lockers in the bus station.

All that walking around sent us straight to the simple and simply delicious Hula Cafe, where we ate our fill to the tune of student discounts. Discounts on food for students? Amazing!

That night we made our way to Whitecraigs, to meet Amin, our hard working Servas host. While many of the Servas families we met in Asia hosted maybe one or two visitors a year, Amin hosts visitors almost every other week! His enthusiastic welcome to so many travelers is almost as impressive as the streamlined system of hosting he offers. Although he arrived from his own travels the same day as us, he'd set up his pad to accommodate our every need. Very nice indeed. He was catching up with work, and so had little time to see us, but we had a great pub dinner with the classics of British cuisine, Steak Pie and Bangers & Mash. Mmmm...

The most interesting parts of Glasgow for us consisted of the double-decker public buses, which provided excellent views of the city, the tennement house exhibit, and the Art Deco pervading the city. The tennement house consisted of an apartment in a tennement building that had been decorated and stocked with early-1900's pieces by the original owner of the flat. When she died in the middle of the century, the apartment was left untouched, and eventually donated to the city. Now it's a great snapshot of that particular style of life in Glasgow.

As home to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow is well known for its devotion to Art Deco. Much of the exterior architectural decoration is in the Art Deco style, as are many of the fonts used in today's signage. It´s like a field trip through the history of style!

Moving on from Glasgow we enjoyed an hour-long bus ride to the dubiously-named "Glasgow-Prestwick Airport". Amin insisted that it was previously known as the Prestwick Airport, but underwent a name change to encourage the belief that flying there was the same as flying to Glasgow. At least we had the chance to see plenty of green fields full of sheep. Lovely.