A Girl Alone in Glasgow

Well, I've been in Glasgow for about 36 hours now, and I'm really having a great time. The city is absolutely beautiful, and everything is so easy to walk to. I've put about four miles under my belt just today. And very little of that was because I got lost. XD I'm staying at the BlueSky Hostel, which is a cute little place with graffiti all over the walls (intentionally and good graffiti). There is also a house dog that stays during the day. His name is Sheffield and he's absolutely adorable. It makes me miss my Pig...but I'll get over it.

Yesterday, I pretty much just slept all day after waking up at 3 AM to get to my flight. I took a nap and woke up at 5:30, but I still don't think that it was enough. And it was definitely not enough after the night I had last night.  Not only did the guy sleeping in the bed above me snore (have you ever heard someone snore in a Scottish accent before? Hilarious), but I think he was on drugs or something. He fell down the ladder of the bunk bed like three times during the night, both talked and farted in his sleep, and somehow managed to knock his portable DVD player off of the bed, where it bounced off the wall and hit me in the face while I was sleeping. Overall, no one in the room with 10 beds got any real sleep. Well, except for him anyway. It was kinda miserable, and I stopped feeling sorry for him after the DVD player almost broke my nose.

The Bridge of Sighs

Today, I got up bright and early (mostly because I couldn't take the snoring any more) and decided that I would see Glasgow during my last day in the city. I started off walking down Bath Street toward Cathedral Street, where I knew that the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis were. Overall, its about 2 miles and I covered it in about a half an hour (with stopping to shop for souveniers). Once I got there, I was completely overwhelmed by how beautiful everything is. I walked around the Cathedral for a while until I found the enterance for the Necropolis, or City of the Dead. You start off going across the Bridge of Sighs, which was funded by the Merchant class in Glasgow as a symbol of their wealth and the devotion that they felt for their dearly departed.

Once over the bridge, I wandered around the base of the Necropolis for a while, looking at dates and names of the people who were buried there. Some of the monuments were very plain at the bottom, but became more and more intricate towards the top of the hill. Just to compare, here are a lower tombstone (left) and one at the top (right).

It was so peaceful and such a beautiful view at the top that you can almost forget that you're at a cemetary, where dead people are buried beneath your feet. It was entirely gorgeous, but still kinda creepy. I felt something slap my leg and kinda vibrate. I freaked out and screamed, thinking that I had stepped on a snake or something while I wasn't paying attention. Here, I stepped on a stick and the curved edge made it vibrate against my leg. I heard a couple of people at the bottom of the Necropolis laugh at me. Oh well...I'm used to people laughing at me after I do something stupid. I'll live (though I may not have if it were actually snake).

After the Necropolis, I walked around Glasgow city centre for a while, exploring side streets and trying to find a bus stop that would take me to the National Science Centre. As I wandered, I found a ferris wheel, kinda similar to the Eye of London, except it was the Eye of Glasgow. Of course, I rushed over for a ride. Luckily, I thought to bring my student ID with me, because it saved me two pounds. Yes, I am cheap. Anyway, I rode this thing to the very tippy top, and it held there for about five minutes. It was kinda windy today, which made the carriage I was in swing (kinda terrifying, let me tell you).

View of the Glasgow City Hall from the Eye

I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the Glasgow skyline while I was up there. It gave a really fantastic view of both the city and George Square, where the Eye was assembled. Here's one of the shots that I took while trying not to rock my pod anymore than it was already doing. After the fifth trip around the Eye, at which I was starting to feel slightly sick, I headed back out into the city. While I ended up not going into the Science Centre, I did take a tour of Glasgow on a double decker bus. They gave you a set of earphones, which you plugged into a radio on the bus to set the language you wanted to hear. The bus played a message telling us about all of the various tourist attractions and historical monuments that surrounded us on our two hour tour.

Of course, like my tour in Limerick, I sat outside the enclosed area of the bus to get better pictures, risking frostbite to my extremities. I couldn't feel my legs by the end of the tour, but it was worth it to get to see more of this entirely beautiful city. It is truly amazing to think that the city of Glasgow was first lived in during the 6th century A.D. Considering that's nearly 13 centuries more than our country was even settled, I was hugely impressed. Very little of the original architecture still remains, though there are still some buildings from the Victorian and Georgian Eras that are still in relatively good shape considering their age. However, they are not all being used for their original purpose anymore. For example, the building above was once a Catholic cathedral, but is now used as a restaurant. Kinda cool, if you think about it.

After the tour dropped me off relatively close to my hostel, I popped by a shop to get a slightly larger bag (on wheels!!) to make my life a little easier for the trip back to Dublin. Exhausted and unable to feel my legs, I walked back to the hostel, greeted Sheffield and the guys at the Reception desk, and headed up to my room to write this post. If you guys want to see more photos of my trip into Glasgow, check out my Facebook profile (www.facebook.com/hopelesswanderer). As always, if you have any questions, leave them in a comment below.

Best,
Brooke