Day 20 - Glasgow

Alcohol: 1 pint, Haggis: 0 serves
Distance walked: quite a bit really

For breakfast today I wimped out on the haggis again. Instead, I had a big bowl of fruit with greek yoghurt followed by a bowl of porridge in "traditional Scottish style" which apparently means lumpy. I tried the tea instead of the coffee but it had the same flaws - huge cup of weak brown fluid.

Afterwards I headed off to visit the Tenement House museum. It is a 4 room flat in a tenement that was lived in by an "independent woman" (she worked in an office and never married) from about 1920 until her death some 50 years later. She made very few changes to the flat and was something of a packrat so there was a wealth of objects on display. The flat itself has been restored to roughly how it must have looked when she first moved in complete with gas lighting. It was bigger than I expected as she was middle class. It would be a desirable place to live now - provided you modernised the kitchen and bathroom. And also painted the walls. They seemed very fond of dark coloured wallpaper at that time for some reason which made it very gloomy.

For lunch I stopped at a pizza place nearby. Glaswegian pizza is surprisingly good. I also got to have a decent cup of coffee. The only downside was the party of young children having a birthday party in the back of the restaurant. I didn't notice until after I had ordered as they kept the squealing down until then which I think was cheating.

Afterwards I walked off a fraction of the calories I had just consumed by walking out to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery which is about 2km to the west of the city centre. I visited the galleries with the history of settlement in Scotland, the history of Glasgow, two galleries on design (lots of Charles Rennie Mackintosh of course) and another on native Scottish wildlife - including the haggis! I stayed until they kicked us all out at closing time and sat on the lawns basking in the sunlight for a bit.

The weather here has been very changeable. Sometimes cold and windy, sometimes drizzling (I had to buy an umbrella from the local equivalent of a $2 shop - Poundland) and sometimes clear blue sunny skies. This all in one day. Sort of like Melbourne but with a much lower set point.

I then caught the subway back to my hotel. My enthusiasm for walking is fading fast.

For dinner I just went to the pub across the road. It is part of a chain, so reliable but not going to be i any good food or beer guides. I had a pint of Ithaca nut brown ale which was brown, nutty and malty and quite pleasing. It was brewed by the Caledonian brewery in Edinburgh so was almost a local ale. For dinner I had the steak and ale pie with mushy peas and chips - which was perfectly edible. Not a bad dinner except at the start when there was a man staring at me. He wasn't trying to catch my eye or smile or flirt in any way, he just seemed to be staring. It made me very uncomfortable until I realised he was actually staring at the TV on the wall behind me.