Galway: Great Glasgow

Hello, hello! I am back from my wild and crazy adventures across the UK! Before starting I want to fix an error I made in a previous post! I kept spelling Glasgow with an extra l, so that is wrong I literally did not notice it at all whatsoever! Okay, with that done, let's get on with part one of this three part post!

Part 1: Glasgow
My journey started in the wee small hours of Saturday morning last week! At 2:40 AM we awoke to catch a bus to Dublin Airport. My Ryanair flight to Glasgow left at 7 AM, by 9 AM we were safely landed in Glasgow! It was dreary and cool but awesomely exciting... or maybe I was a little overtired? Either way, we found found our way to the one and only Euro Hostel, located overlooking the beautiful River Clyde. We had our breakfast and promptly departed for a City Sightseeing Tour! As part of this tour we got to stop off at the beautiful Doulton Fountain which is located right infront

Doulton Fountain

of the very interesting and exceptional People's Palace and Winter Garden! People's Palace is a museum about life in Glasgow. It was first opened in 1898 and has been running ever since! Inside you can find all sorts of interesting exhibits ranging from artwork by Scottish (Glaswegian) Artists, recreations of Glasgow's infamous tenements, and even legal records including a list of every public execution in Glasgow (the sight of these executions is located next to the museum).

People's Palace from the front

The best part of this museum, in my opinion, is hidden behind the impressive entry. It is the Winter Garden attached in the back! The Winter Garden is a giant greenhouse of awesomeness! It houses everything from lemon trees to cacti to palm trees! It even has its own cafe! You just can't beat it!

The Winter Garden

I mean... look at that lusciousness. Also, I feel it is important to note just how huge the lemons and cacti are in this greenhouse.

They're giant! 

 After the People's Palace and other shenanigans we stopped off at the Riverside Museum. Aside from being in a pretty location, the Riverside Museum is probably the coolest museum EVER. Oh yeah, I went there. It is shaped like a city skyline (designed by Zaha Hadid) and houses an astoundingly HUGE collection (over 3,000 items) of transportation devices from history dating as far back as the nineteenth century! There is a wall of motorcycles, a room of baby carriages, full buses, even two subway station recreations! They have their own early recreation of Glasgow that you can walk through, complete with shops that you can go into and videos that you can interact with!

Glasgow Recreation

The subway was probably the coolest part for me... being a New Yorker and all... yeah....

Yah Know

But I did definitely enjoy other aspects... including the exhibition they had about the Commonwealth Games, which took place in Glasgow in 2014. The mascot, Clyde, is the greatest.

Me and Clyde

On our second day in Glasgow was slightly disrupted. We were meant to go on an awesome tour of the Scottish Highlands... which are very easy to access from Glasgow because it's the most North-Western city, which makes it the closest low-land city to the highlands. Unfortunately, the weather was not so cooperative. About an hour and a half out of the city we got stuck in a massive snow storm! 

Driving in a Winter Wonder Land

While it was beautiful and festive, it was not conducive to standard shift vans on slick, icy roads... We promptly got stuck in a snow drift and our journey was cut short! While we were stranded on the side of the road for over two hours, all was not lost! We did get out and slide around on the road, which was loads of fun! 

"Skating" on the road

We also made a mini snowman! Yay! We got back to Glasgow a little bit earlier than we had anticipated so we went out and wandered through the city! It is a small and beautiful city. Very easy to walk around. Unfortunately, it is FREEZING. We couldn't stay out too long, so we got some great food! Can you say Haggis!? Haggis with Neeps and Tatties is a sure-fire way to warm up the mind, body and soul! What is it? Haggis is described as a "savory pudding" made out of lamb's heart, liver and lungs. All minced together into a sausagey-looking mess and wrapped up for convenience inside the stomach. Yum. It is served outside of the stomach wrapping though, not to worry for those of you whoa are a wee bit squeamish about these delicacies! Neeps are turnips which can either be served mashed or in chunks. And Tatties are mashed potatoes. All this scrumptiousness is served on one big platter, doused with a healthy serving of gravy or a whiskey sauce. 

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties

 Haggis first showed up in the English dietary repertoire as "hagws" or "hagese" around the early fifteenth century. It became truly Scottish after Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his "Address to a Haggis" in the late eighteenth century. Today Haggis is celebrated in many ways throughout Scotland. You can have it officially sent via airmail all over the world, or you can buy books and money banks about cartoon haggises (haggi ??) named Hamish! Alas, I do believe it is time to wrap this section up! I will leave you with the slightly less stomach tumbling visual of blue police boxes!

To find out more about People's Palace and Winter Gardens click here

To find out more about Riverside Museum click here

To order your own copy of Hamish the Hairy Haggis click here

To order your own Haggis click here