Glasgow

Sharmanka Theatre in Glasgow has Kinetic Art that's unlike anything I've seen before. One reason for flying out of Glasgow was to be able to see a show. It's sort of steampunk puppetry with Rube Goldberg movements and music.

I booked us in the Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel because it was the only one with double bed accommodations available the days we were there and it looked great online.

We were exhausted and decided to go to bed early, but the room was hot. And muggy. I couldn't keep the window open because we were over the central shaft and there were garbage bins and stank below. No matter how much I tried to get the air conditioning working, it was still hot. And muggy. I even googled the user manual for the system. Still hot. And muggy. I called the front desk and greeted them at the door in my jam-jams and they tried getting it to work. Still hot. And muggy. I called again. They brought up a portable air conditioner.

We saw the clock strike 2:00. 3:00. 4:00. We finally slept. But we missed out on a day in Glasgow.

This is what a tired kid looks like.

 We decided to do a cab tour so we could at least see some of the city and the driver was really nice and agreed to drop us off at the theatre for the show. Along the way, we saw:

This church is gigantic. It's like a TARDIS -- bigger on the inside. We went in, then down, then over, then around...it just kept going.

Fact.

That night after the show, we went back to the hotel to meet up with Victoria, a fellow Fulbrighter now living in Scotland just outside Glasgow. We agreed to meet in the hotel restaurant and Viv took a picture of the lights.
The macaroni and cheese with brisket? Otherworldly.

 

Vivian is a big fan of Victoria.

So am I.

And then, and then, and then...it was time to go home.

Robert Burns

We're HOW CLOSE to Robert Burns' house??? Let's go!

This is a little garden with heart-shaped flower mounds and murals on the retaining walls.

 

 

This is his actual writing!

So is this!

He would have looked out this very window at this view (minus the car, clearly)!

 

 

He scratched his signature into this window using a diamond-tip pen.

 

He wrote at this desk!

He slept here!

 

 

 

I was so excited about all this that I video chatted with my friend Jen, who also teaches his poetry. I took her all around the house so she could see it all from the comfort of her bed in Pennsylvania (it was early there). 

Then...it gets better!...I took her on a walk to the church that has his mausoleum. Well, that sounds weird. It was not better to see where he's buried, it was cool that the really lovely woman working at the Burns' house asked us if we wanted her to open the mausoleum so we could see it (yes) and then took out a gigantic old key and we took off down the street.

Sorry there's no video, but I wanted Jen to be there.

  

And then it was time to say goodbye to Diane at the Dumfries train station to make our way to Glasgow.

This was the trip with Diane!