Day 18 - Getting to Glasgow

Alcohol: 2 glasses wine, Haggis: 0 serves
Distance walked: some

I had breakfast at the coffee shop in the basement of my hotel and had my first proper barista-made coffee in nearly a month. Bliss. I passed on the full English breakfast as I'm not doing any walking today. Instead, I settled for french toast with crispy bacon, as I'm not ready to give up my processed pork products just yet.

As my trip to Glasgow is long (4 1/2 hours) and is for work I (well, work) paid for a first class train ticket. Such a difference to cattle class. Plenty of luggage racks this time and comfy seats. People also sat in their assigned seat. Interlopers were chased away by the conductor. We also got free drinks and food. As a pleb, I hadn't expected this and had brought my own supplies. I ate both.

I was seated in a set of four seats arranged around a table, 2 facing forwards, 2 facing backwards. Only the two forward facing seats were occupied. There was a large Scottish lady next to me. She did suggested she would move to the other side of the table so we would have more space, but didn't do this until about 2 hours into the journey. I was surprised as I was wearing the exact same outfit of sweaty, muddy hiking clothes that I'd worn the day before to travel to London. Also, that exact same outfit had been worn more than a few times on the Trail with only perfunctory rinses in the sink at night. I can't have ponged as much as I thought.

The countryside as we passed through the Lake District was gorgeous. It made me want to stop the train and rush out to wander over the hills. I expect the urge would have passed about 1 minute after starting up an incline so I was able to resist the urge to pull the emergency stop cord. Plus I expect there would be a hefty fine and I doubt I could charge that to the corporate credit card.

When I got to Glasgow I checked into my upmarket business-beings hotel in all my sweaty, muddy glory. Bless their hearts, they didn't blink an eye. The city here is grimy and gloomy but the people have all been very friendly.

After checking in and unpacking (I don't have to pack and unpack each day - joy!) I went out to wander about and get my bearings. My hotel is right near the central station and I was hoping that perhaps I was just staying in a particularly grimy and rundown part of the city. Nope, it pretty much is all grimy. There are just more people and more shops in other parts. If you look up above street level some of the buildings are quite fine - under the dirt.

I had dinner at an Italian restaurant, chosen because it had balls of haggis dipped in batter and deep-fried on the menu. Sadly these were only on the lunch menu so I am still waiting for my first haggis experience for this trip. To start I had cream of mushroom soup which tasted as if it had been made with porcini mushrooms as well as lashings of butter and cream - it was very good. For main I had gnocchi with broccoli, cherry tomatoes and capsicum. But before it starts soundly too healthy it also had lashings of cream and cheese. By the texture, the gnocchi was clearly from a package, but an upmarket package as it was still quite light. For dessert I had tiramisu (for a change). This one got the proportions wrong too, but the other way around - too much cream, not enough biscuit. I then waddled back to my hotel feeling slightly queasy for some reason. Too much rich dairy products perhaps?