Week Three (Feb. 18 - 24, 2007)

• I celebrated the end of my second week in Glasgow by quaffing a pint of hard cider with Mel and his girlfriend, Muire, at the longest bar in Scotland – the Horseshoe. The place felt like an authentic dive, and I was told that for the longest time, the two restrooms in the pub both had urinals.
• I now understand 71.6% of Glaswegian speech in conversations the first time something is said to me.
• I’m scheduled to stay at the Spires in the downtown core for 3 weeks. I’ve been continuing to scope out potential flats around the city to make home for the rest of my assignment. I viewed some really nice places early on, but neither I nor the office staff assisting me realized how hot the Glasgow rental market is. All the places I went to see were snatched up within a day or two of going on the market. The city has undergone a major transformation for the better in recent years, and I think word has gotten around to rest of the European Union that the Mitchell Library will hand out library cards to anybody.
• I’ve centered my efforts at finding housing around the West End, which isn’t far from my office and the city core, and has lots of transportation links. The area is known by its bohemian mixture of restaurants, pubs, museums and theatres, and its anchor resident, the University of Glasgow.
• My favorite place was a flat on the sixth floor of a brand-new development at Meadowside Quay, on the banks of the River Clyde. The flat had a huge floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Clyde, waterfront promenade, and historic shipyards and port on the opposite side of the river. The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth ships were built nearby at Clydebank along with many other historic vessels. I expressed interest in the place right away, but got bumped because another prospective tenant was willing to sign a longer lease. My search continues…
• On Saturday morning (OK, it was the previous week, but who cares?) I went for a walk around Downtown and stopped by Queen Street Station. There was a train for Aberdeen (via Stirling) leaving in two minutes, and I thought, “why not?” I crammed my credit card in the ticket machine and ran to the platform and jumped on the train as the doors were shutting. About a half-hour later I was getting off at Stirling Station with nowhere in particular to go and a day to kill. I figured I walked at least 15-20 miles that day between and around the William Wallace Monument, Stirling Bridge and Stirling Castle and the surrounding cemeteries. Mel Gibson would have been proud. After hiking down from the hill which hosts the Wallace Monument, I bought a pack of chocolate chip shortbread cookies at a market and walked across town to sit on the park bench I could see unoccupied atop Mote Hill, near the castle. The sun suddenly popped out, and full of cookies, I dozed off on the bench and enjoyed one of the best naps of my life. When I woke up, the sun was still shining, and I sat and watched a rugby match off in the distance, framed by the Highlands.