freewheelin' in western scotland
an immense amount of stuff seems to happen in the smallest periods of time, especally in the company of one ms mcglynn who has played the host marvelously. i have seen much of local glasgow including the bottom of a fair few glasses of single malt. scarlets very homely (and tidy) apartment is quite conveniently situated near the best pub in glasgow.
uisce beatha, which is gaelic, is a genuine irish pub in a scottish setting and offers a seletion of at least 200 whiskeys. not too shabby especially for the amateur drinker such as myself and i stuck to the extremely reasonably priced £1.60 glenfinnan which warms one quite substantially especialy when accompanied by a thick chicken soup. top place anyway but our nights were spent in various other glasgow hotspots; the student population creating a great atmosphere in the school bars and a fundraiser party on the second floor of an abandoned building was also cause for consecutive late returns home.
glasgow itself is quite interesting, the west end in particular, but the central shopping district can be avoided unless absolutely necessary. a visit to the contemporary art museum called for a run down the suckiehall rd mall gauntlet which resulted in me throwing money at various charities in a storm of guilt, but the free exhibitions at the museum more than made up for that. other pounds have been wisely spent on some great theatre by a company known as "forced entertainment". modern theatre at its best in terms of its ability to be at once abstract and meaningful; though the style, as indicated by the name, was sometimes quite exhausting for each scene pushes its particular point to its very limit. pulled off in style by a really good crew of actors who have been at it on the fringe for 20years and all of scarlets theatre student buddies where most helpful in some post-performance analysis, which was also consolidated with a post-talk show chat, something that should happen more often in modern theatre because it didn't undermine the show at all and makes for educative experiences.
anyway i sound like a promoter right now so i'll move on to briefly describe our over-night carhire journet into the lochs and trussucks of north-western scotland. a most beautiful part of the world and very much reminiscent of a certain scottish films such as rob roy, who infact is buried in one of the towns we travelled through.an absolute bargain of £25 for a 24hour rental suited the 4 of us mixed travellers quite nicely.
inroducing vien and joris: flatmates of liam from back in poitiers who don't mind a beverage or two and are, by chance, in scotland at the same time as myself. their presence made the whole thing, if anything, much more cost-effective and a whole lot more fun with their strange french-aussie mixed language antics from the back seats. our driving day was perfectly timed as the northern uk was seeing the second sunny day of the year (miraculously two in the one week which apparently
calls for me to make several virgin and animal sacrifices). the lachs subsequently looked quite amazing and all locals we met along the way were in substantially fine spirits, except for the scottish-italian pizza guy who insisted on being the strangest and most agro man alive.
cooks a good pizza though...
cannandale - which actually isn't the name of the town because i can't remember but i think it is close to that - was the place of our night stop-over and we parked ourselves in a pub for the evening. the cover band wasn't too bad and got better by the glass.
time out, once again. but more tomorrow - arrived in edinburgh and am off to check out several sights in 24 hours. go team
uisce beatha, which is gaelic, is a genuine irish pub in a scottish setting and offers a seletion of at least 200 whiskeys. not too shabby especially for the amateur drinker such as myself and i stuck to the extremely reasonably priced £1.60 glenfinnan which warms one quite substantially especialy when accompanied by a thick chicken soup. top place anyway but our nights were spent in various other glasgow hotspots; the student population creating a great atmosphere in the school bars and a fundraiser party on the second floor of an abandoned building was also cause for consecutive late returns home.
glasgow itself is quite interesting, the west end in particular, but the central shopping district can be avoided unless absolutely necessary. a visit to the contemporary art museum called for a run down the suckiehall rd mall gauntlet which resulted in me throwing money at various charities in a storm of guilt, but the free exhibitions at the museum more than made up for that. other pounds have been wisely spent on some great theatre by a company known as "forced entertainment". modern theatre at its best in terms of its ability to be at once abstract and meaningful; though the style, as indicated by the name, was sometimes quite exhausting for each scene pushes its particular point to its very limit. pulled off in style by a really good crew of actors who have been at it on the fringe for 20years and all of scarlets theatre student buddies where most helpful in some post-performance analysis, which was also consolidated with a post-talk show chat, something that should happen more often in modern theatre because it didn't undermine the show at all and makes for educative experiences.
anyway i sound like a promoter right now so i'll move on to briefly describe our over-night carhire journet into the lochs and trussucks of north-western scotland. a most beautiful part of the world and very much reminiscent of a certain scottish films such as rob roy, who infact is buried in one of the towns we travelled through.an absolute bargain of £25 for a 24hour rental suited the 4 of us mixed travellers quite nicely.
inroducing vien and joris: flatmates of liam from back in poitiers who don't mind a beverage or two and are, by chance, in scotland at the same time as myself. their presence made the whole thing, if anything, much more cost-effective and a whole lot more fun with their strange french-aussie mixed language antics from the back seats. our driving day was perfectly timed as the northern uk was seeing the second sunny day of the year (miraculously two in the one week which apparently
calls for me to make several virgin and animal sacrifices). the lachs subsequently looked quite amazing and all locals we met along the way were in substantially fine spirits, except for the scottish-italian pizza guy who insisted on being the strangest and most agro man alive.
cooks a good pizza though...
cannandale - which actually isn't the name of the town because i can't remember but i think it is close to that - was the place of our night stop-over and we parked ourselves in a pub for the evening. the cover band wasn't too bad and got better by the glass.
time out, once again. but more tomorrow - arrived in edinburgh and am off to check out several sights in 24 hours. go team
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