Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

Well, after a week back I’m finally caught up again. Meaning I’m no more behind than usual.

Sophie put up a nice collection of pictures from our trip. There’s four photo albums total, broken down by locale, with links at the top.

Glasgow was nice, though it’s a combination college/industrial town. I was a little disappointed that there weren’t street vendors with kilts the moment we got out of the taxi in the city center. I didn’t get the sense that they were trying to exploit me as a tourist… it was really unsettling. I was all ready to buy one immediately so I’d have the maximum amount of time to make an ass of myself. But all we saw for kilts in Glasgow were in a tuxedo shop, and they were as expensive as they were handsome. I put it off and hoped to find something later in the trip…

We only had one full day there, so we didn’t get to see everything we were interested in. The main site we checked out was the Glasgow Cathedral. The cathedral is huge, and despite my lack of personal faith, it is humbling to see such an effort to symbolize the divine. Plus, there’s just something about buildings with dead people in the walls.

Speaking of dead people, the Glasgow Necropolis was immediately behind the cathedral; literally a mountain of graves. As we approached it was raining, and the sight of a foggy old wooded cemetery towering behind the spires was chilling. We hiked up top anyways, and as soon as we made it the sun popped out, making for a bright and jolly old time on the sacred ground. I did a happy little dance to secure myself a place in hell.

We also hit a couple restaurants, the botanical garden (amidst some kind of street festival) and the museum of modern art. Oh: at the street festival I learned that white people in Scotland can’t dance either.

Then we slept like fish to make up for our long travel and the time zone switch, and flew up to the Orkney islands…

More hard hitting reports to come.