Gather round, gentle readers, and huddle in close. The moon is in hiding and a fell wind howls in fury into the night. It is a darkness of ill omen.
Actually, nah, it’s pretty normal. Bit cold. Bit wet. 5 °C. Sprinkles. Partly cloudy. Nippy. Here in Glagsow, Scotland, in the middle of winter, we have weather that not only sounds delicious, but is slightly racist.
Welcome to the thrilling conclusion of the prequel (with maybe just a taste of actual adventure).
When last we met, a not-so-young but still-wet-behind-the-ears kid from Sydney, Australia, was about to board the last leg of his flight to Glasgow. Glasgow, Scotland. You heard me.
After a brief and uneventful stopover in Dubai, I was ready for lap two. Lap one, if you’ll recall, had seen me sandwiched between Sam the Steriod Man on one side and an aisle that people seemed unable to walk down without bumping into my leg and stirring me from my pitiful attempts at slumber. Not only had I given up my emergency exit row for seat 84D; other patrons had then proceeded to occupy seats 84E, 84F, 84G and 84H. Bam, bitch, five hits - they sunk my Battleship. (I’m going to be saying ‘bitch’ a lot more now, as I crammed all 5 seasons of the The Wire into the past 2 weeks. 60 hours? Yes, I’m making productive use of my time watching TV until 6am.) On a smaller flight (only one storey? What is this flying hunk of junk?), what would the second instalment hold for me?
Awesomeness. Absolute awesomeness. Row 42, baby! Three seats to myself, window side! I could tell it was gonna be a gooooood trip. And it was! I researched (and by that I mean watched Post Grad by Fox Searchlight – seemed uniquely appropriate, though was inappropriately sucky.) I ate. I slept. By Zeus’s Beard how I slept!
“Excuse me Miss Flight Attendant. Could you please take a picture of me so that it looks like I'm really sleeping? Thanks!”
On this lap I got a little camera happier. Of course, all of the neat-o views from the sky out a tiny window seem like they’d make a sweet photo, but in reality, do not so much.
The alien grandiosity and time-ravaged sculpture of the earth, and shit.
Flying over Iraq, I once again see a huge billow of smoke coming from the ground below (this happened last May on my flight from Dubai to Liverpool.) Way less cool.
There’s part of me still hoping this was just a giant wood-fire pizza.
I remember looking out the window and thinking “Gadzooks! Snow-capped mountains! Just like Lord of the Rings”.
“Now I know how Gandalf felt as he soared atop Gwahir the Windlord over the Misty Mountains of Middle Earth. And shit.”
The next few hours were spent drifting in and out of sleep. I can’t really remember much of that stretch (and yes, I had room to stretch), until I awoke and looked out the window:
Clouds.
- http://www.notsoboringlife.com/outdoor-recreation/cloud-watching/
Hold on a sec, double take. Not clouds. Not clouds at all.
IT’S SNOW, BITCHES!
Yes, I’d woken up to temperatures below -0 outside. My first real snow! Sure I’d seen it on the television, but it’s always been removed from reality, behind a glass screen. Here I was seeing it with my own eyes, in real life, totally unaware of the irony of the previous sentence. Snow-capped everything!
If this were California Games 2, I’d totally be parachuting down to the mountaintop and snowboarding down the slopes. Also, it would be 1993 and be afraid of skating near tunnels.
I was pretty darned excited. I literally have over a dozen photos I took of mountains covered in snow, the majority of which I’ll spare you (I have to save something for the Does Yer Mother Sew: Special Edition).
“Hmmmm, this one’s got trees. That’s definitely worth another photo!”
“Gasp! There’s a city out my window. Covered in snow! This will never get old!”
At T minus 1 hour to Glasgow I did what any cliché loving hipster with a sense of poetic fate would do: played Tonight by Franz Ferdinand.
iPod Minis: huge in 2004, comically huge in 2010.
“So is the sky always this clear and blue in Scotland...? What? Why are you laughing at me?”
Following the advice of my dear family, 20 mins out I went and got changed into like 6 layers of clothing. Mobility schmobility – with 3” of cotton between my newly fashionable white chest and the outside world, the only thing I was scared of was static electricity.
And so we landed.
Finally I, Philip G. Betts I of Sydney, Australia, had travelled in an aeromobile all the way to the other side of the world to Glasgow, Scotland. Sure the trip only took 24 hours, but for me it had taken over a year. The landing was smooth, and before I knew it, I was checking through customs.
There was only one small problem. No, one major problem. Catastrophic problem. I couldn’t find Duty Free.
THERE WAS NO DUTY FREE AT GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT*!
I'd been putting off buying grog until I got to Glasgow so that I wouldn't have to cart it around, and now I couldn’t get any ridiculously cheap-as gin or bourbon or vodka or anything of the sort (though you can only bring in 1L to the UK anyway). I was doomed to a life of £1.25 G&Ts (more on alcohol in another post.) Ordinarily this would be devastating, but, upset as I was, I was just too darned excited to let that get to me. In my mind that pretty much says it all.
*NB – turns out there is and I just didn’t see it. My advice to you though: when you come to visit, pick up your alcoholic gifts for me before you arrive.
I took my first step outside into my new city and found it was... cold. Sunny, clear, blue and... cold. Not freezing. Not arctic. Just... cold. Ok, technically it was freezing at -7º, and there were areas in the north of Scotland that were only -2º warmer than the North Pole, but seriously, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s not that bad. I actually kind of like it. Of course, if -7º is not your cup of tea you may be interested to know you’re not alone. You know who else thought it was cold that week, and was obsessed with complaining about how cold it was? The entire population of Scottland. For a country that prides itself on hardy people, a country that, might I add, is fairly notoriously cold and miserable, the Scotts sure do act surprised when it snows. And from what I hear, it’s not that uncommon. Yet it was pretty much all Scottish people could talk about on my arrival, and they seemed to take great delight in complaining about it. Despite having had a university for over half a millennium with some of the most enlightened thinkers in the world (CF: The Scottish Enlightenment,) and featuring Lord Kelvin amongst its alumni, the dude who developed the concept of Absolute Zero, Glasgow still hasn’t figured out how to manage a cold snap. It seems I’d arrived in the middle of a salt shortage for the roads. A salt shortage! And they had to ration out gas for heating. It was like living in a Ken Loach movie. Of course, you can kind of forgive them. After all, the British Isles don’t usually look like this:
NB: I did not take this photo from the plane.
Besides, their accent is the best in the world, so even when they’re complaining you still want to high five them for being so cool.
While I’m at it though, do you know what else they’re totally ill-equipped to handle here, despite having had a lot of practice? Change. As in, notes and coins, change. Not only do they still use pennies which are an absolute nuisance (copper coins? So 1991), nobody ever seems to have £5 notes or £2 coins. This means it’s not uncommon to get £9 change in £1 coins. On the coach from the airport to Glasgow Central I tried to board with a £20 note. The fare was £4.50, so it’s not like it was a blue Travel Ten. Also, it’s an international airport, so it’s not like they can expect passengers to carry a lot of change. Despite these two facts, the bus driver looked totally alarmed when I tried to pay with such a large and fearsome note, and I had to get change from a second bus (while lugging around 4 bags wearing clothes that granted me the mobility of an astronaut in a vat of porridge). The driver still gave me a funny look when I came back and paid with a tenner.
The final leg of my trip was a cab ride from the city to my residences. Now after more than a month of living here, I can tell you that one of the few groups of people you meet in Glasgow who are actually from Glasgow are taxi drivers. Everyone else seems to be a blow in from England, Edinburgh, the west coast, Europe etc. But not taxi drivers. Born and bred Weegies, they lay it on thick and they lay it on fast. It was my first true encounter with a native, and, much to my delight, we couldn’t understand a word each other was saying. After clumsily shoving my notebook with address up against the glass barrier and gesturing enthusiastically, we pulled away from the curb. Slowly, painfully yet beautifully, we built up a conversation, forging a true intercultural bond (“nah, I’m not American, I’m Australian.”). He’d visited Sydney in the 70s, and remembers Kings Cross fondly. He has a daughter who lives in San Francisco and is coming to visit later in the year. We swapped knifing stories as he pointed out the best places to score heroin (just kidding, Mum). On the way we passed the Òran Mór, a popular nightclub that just happens to be in a beautiful old converted church. I swear, everything seems to be in a beautiful old converted church. My office is in a beautiful old converted church. I’ve dined at a soup hall in a beautiful old converted church.
Finally, we arrived at my new home, the conclusion to this, the prequel to my adventures in Glasgow, Scotland. I’ll leave you with this video of me, jetlagged and acting like a 6 year old on my second night abroad:
Coming up next on Does Yer Mother Sew?:
- Meet the rogues and miscreants here who tolerate my inanity
- An introductio - "OH MY GODS. IS THAT A CAN OF CHERRY COKE?!?!"
