Elizabeth in Granada

Outside the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

Last weekend I took my first ever trip to the UK: a friend and I went to Glasgow, Scotland for the weekend. It was also my first experience with Ryanair, which was surprisingly a very good one. Our tickets from Malaga to Glasgow (Prestwick, about 40 minutes outside the city, the only inconvenience) were dirt cheap, as was our hotel. We stayed at the Glasgow City Hotel (Best Western) because the hotel we were originally supposed to stay at didn’t have a room available for us. It all worked out to our advantage because we ended up being staying in a great place. Our room was super comfortable. I definitely enjoyed taking a long, (consistently) hot shower with no time limit. In Spain I try to keep my showers to under 5 minutes, with the water running for about 3. As much as I’ve gotten used to the quick and efficient showers, it was nice to be a little spoiled and not have to worry about how much water I was using.

Anyway, we got to our hotel early in the evening on Friday. We didn’t really do much besides go out to dinner and relax in our room after a long day of traveling: bus from Granada to Malaga at 7am (meaning I was out the door at 6), shuttle bus to the airport, 3 hour flight to Glasgow, then a 40 minute drive from Prestwick to Glasgow. Needless to say, it was a long and exhausting day.

We spent all day Friday sightseeing. Even though Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, I still thought it was pretty tiny. Or at least tiny enough to hit all the major tourist attractions in one day. By the way, the “Hop On, Hop Off” sightseeing buses are an amazing deal. It was £8 for a 48 hour pass. Basically you just get on the bus at any of the stops, take a seat, and get off whenever you want. Then when you’re done at the museum, church, etc., you just wait for the next bus and get on again. Much easier than trying to figure out the city bus/subway system, plus they take you all over the city AND give historical explanations/random facts about different places.

Even though it rained on and off all day and was freezing cold (typical Scotland weather), Friday was a fun day. We started off going to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Half the museum is art, the other half is social history/anthropology/archaeology. Surprisingly there are a lot of famous and influential Scottish artists from the beginning of the 20th century. The “Glasgow Boys” apparently introduced a unique style of impressionism to Scotland. After leaving the museum we went to the Cathedral of  St. Mungo, the patron saint/founder of the city. Afterwards we went to the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens. The People’s Palace itself is sort of a museum dedicated to the social history of Glasgow, and the Winter Gardens are in a huge greenhouse attached to the palace. We had lunch at the cafe in the garden, which overlooks the oldest public park in Europe! (I think it dates back to 600 ad if I remember correctly, I’m not positive though.)

Even though there was supposedly a lot of snow in the highlands, we decided to sign up for a bus tour of the highlands for Friday. It was only £28 for the tour, and in my opinion it was definitely worth it. A lot of the day was just driving around the countryside but it was fun to see lochs, sheep, and the really pretty hills and mountains. Our bus driver, from Edinburgh, was really funny. I ended up being the only American in our group of 8 (we took a mini bus) because my friend got sick and stayed behind. We stopped to see a little church in the country, and when we went to get back on the bus the driver made fun of me because he had seen me start to head for the wrong side of the bus. He just laughed and said “Forget where you were?”  Unfortunately I didn’t get many (good quality) pictures of the countryside from the bus.

Part of the tour included a tour of The Famous Grouse whisky (spelled without the “ey,” only Irish whiskey is spelled that way) distillery. I’m not that interested in whisky, but it was fun and I actually learned some interesting stuff. At the end of the end of the tour we got to sample whisky. The tour guide at the distillery asked the very diverse group how everyone said “cheers” in their native languages. There were people from Russia, Japan, Spain… a ton of places. I’m pretty sure I was also the only American, which is a really rare event. I’m usually surrounded by Americans, even in Spain. I ended up having lunch with the other people from my bus: a grad student from Australia studying in Paris, two brothers from Japan, a guy from Germany, and a brother and sister from England.

I also learned on this tour that traditional Scottish food is… interesting (aka gross and terrifying). Our bus driver suggested that we try the “haggis with neeps and tatties” (haggis = pudding of sheep intestines/other organs, neeps = turnips, tatties = potatoes). A couple of the guys who tried it said that it was really good. I probably would have if I hadn’t been told what it was. It’s the same way with morcilla in Spain. I usually just eat what my host mom makes and don’t ask questions; even when she tells me that name of a food I still don’t know what it is. Then I discovered that morcilla is blood sausage and I can’t look at it the same way now.

After the distillery we drove a little further and went to Stirling Castle in the town of Stirling. The Elizabethan history geek in me was so excited because it was the main residence of the Stewarts, the family of Mary Queen of Scots (Queen Elizabeth I’s cousin). It’s amazing to go somewhere that’s been standing for hundreds and hundreds of years. Even in Spain I love being surrounded by so much history. There are churches, monuments, etc. that are older than the U.S. by hundreds of years. It’s so incredible.

The Bowling Green in Stirling Castle

We had to wake up at 3:30 on Sunday morning to get the 4:30 bus to the airport, the only bus that would get us there in time for our flight at 8:00. Because it was a Sunday and because our airport was so far away from the city (thanks Ryanair!) it was our only choice. Either that or take a very expensive cab. Even though the traveling part of the trip was hell and took up almost 2 full days, it was a really fun time. I never thought I’d end up in Scotland, the same way I never thought I’d end up in Portugal. I think I’m done with European travel. The conversion from pounds to dollars was horrible: I spent so much money without actually buying that much. I’m really glad I decided not to study in the UK! It made me happy to get back to using euros. If anything I’ll probably take a weekend trip to Morocco in April.

Glasgow City Chambers